Pocket 386

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805356267711.html?gatewayAdapt=glo2usa4itemAdapt

I'm sure fellow geeks have already seen this, or at least its DOS and handheld iterations, but I can't help feel the pull of nostalgia, back to a time where things were simpler and my younger self didn't have to worry about Dry January or foreplay.

At any rate, I'm wondering whether a 8mb RAM/386SX can actually drive Win95 (a youtube shows it in motion, but perhaps that's just on fast-forward). Secondly, could Word 97 (my all-time favorite wp) truly work? Thirdly, I'm no GPIO expert, so would one of those GPIO ports drive a RS232 serial device? If a user could generate a RS232 port, then internet connections such as:

https://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=20455&posts=10&start=1

could work. Not to mention lynx browsing via telnet.

You couldn't check email, obviously, but you could get the news and write a genuine Word document, as long as the device wasn't just a bill-of-goods.

I've seen X posts of folks that supposedly own it and their reactions have been positive, but of course, anything online must be taken with a cowlick of salt.

Thoughts?

Jake

95 won't run on a 386 SX. I tried it back in the day and it won't boot. You need a DX.

Windows 95 on a 386SX.. even if you could get it to run, it would be too slow for comfort imo.

Huh. I wonder why they list the cpu as an SX. They say it's "embedded," though I don't understand why that would help.

Jake

@Jake Probably as in soldered, not socketed would be my guess.

There's a person I follow on twitter / X who likes mobile stuff, (including Netwalker etc.) He tweeted that he got it safely from Aliexpress. 24,034 JPY or about $155.69 at today's rate (JPY to USD).

He tweeted Windows 95 was working, and also MS-DOS 7.1 and ELKS.
https://twitter.com/kapper1224/status/1777275132748390595

Good Hunting.

-stingraze

Edited by stingraze 2024-04-15 3:06 PM

@C:Amie Thanks, Chris. @stingraze Good catch, thanks. Would love to know his true boot times and programs' responsiveness. He got a great price; I'm seeing $218usd.

Has anybody ever gone GPIO>RS232 and had luck getting Win to recognize/use the port?

Jake

I have the previous version of this machine, Hand386, and its sibling Book8088.

Windows 95 will run on the Hand386, Office 95 runs too but don't expect it to be fast as later 486 models (e.g DX100) in mid-1990s, my own estimate is about the same as a 486SX/25 8MB, thanks to the solid state CF card which has a faster response time than most real 386 machine.

I'm not too sure if it's possible to get a serial port from GPIO, but since he has the lead-in ISA slot, all that's needed is an ISA Ethernet card and Packet driver.

I've tried mTCP and Kermit on a Book8088, RTL8019
https://x.com/pengan/status/1667615204539260928
https://x.com/pengan/status/1667879067646042112

The RTL8019 is basically NE2000 compatible, just need to use the RSET8019 "soft jumper" tool to set the I/O address.

It is called "embedded" because it does not use a standalone 386 chip, but the ALI M6117C SoC, which is a single-chip solution with integrated processor and chipset functionality, mainly for industrial equipment.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/uli-m6117c/

The difference between the 386SX and the DX is that the DX is a 32-bit external bus while the SX is 16-bit, which is similar to the 8086 has a 16-bit bus while the 8088 has 8-bit, and they mainly affect memory and I/O bandwidth, but are software compatible.

@Dr.Quest Very much appreciate you weighing in with your experience. I'm brooding about a RS232>wifi to telnet/proxy browse https://www.tindie.com/products/theoldnet/rs232-serial-wifi-modem-for-vintage-computers-v4/ and in your view, is this a feasible thing via ISA?

(As you can tell, I'm better on software, less so on hardware)

Jake

I can confirm that GPIO pins on Pocket386 can't use as serial port, at least there are no easy way to implement that, a software serial port emulation on GPIO is possible, but no exist solutions.

In fact, the best way to add serial ports for Pocket386 is via the ISA slot too. The developer of Pocket386 is selling ISA serial expansion card too.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006037108150.html

However, the easiest way to connect Pocket386 to TCP/IP network is still ISA ethernet card, Both 16-bit and 8-bit ISA card are compatible with 8-bit slot, In my personal experience, I’m using a 16-bit Realtek RTL8019AS card with Book8088, but 3Com/SMC/D-Link will also work too.

Rather than Terminal/Telnet/Modem emulation with serial port, have a real ethernet port have many benefits:

- Real ethernet is much faster than serial, 10Mbps(4~8Mbps effective) than 115.2Kbps

- Since you got a real TCP/IP stack, FTP/HTTP/IRC/Gopher client works directly, as well as FTP/HTTP server
mTCP provides Telnet/IRC/FTP clients and HTTP/FTP servers: https://www.brutman.com/mTCP/
Gopher client: https://gopherus.sourceforge.net/
Lynx WWW browser: https://lynx.invisible-island.net/current/index.html

- It’s possible to get TCP/IP stack on serial port with SLIP/PPP, but ethernet with packet driver is much easier to configuration, and no server-side configuration required.
Here is a lot of packet drivers: http://packetdriversdos.net/

- ISA ethernet is cheaper/easier to find in most places.

Edited by Dr.Quest 2024-04-16 11:44 AM

@Dr.Quest Very helpful follow-up, thank you. I never had much joy with packets and so the serial>wifi was a big help getting my Omnibook/200LX on-line (the 115K baud essentially matched the slow cpu's and I was only text-browsing). I have the SOHO ethernet card that I believe is compatible with DOS, though I never tried to see for certain; the SOHO works with CE by default.

The ISA link you cite also has a serial port. Would Win95 see this as an actual port? I'm just wondering about proprietary drivers, etc.

Again, thanks for your information,
Jake

The 386sx core is common for embedded controllers (or it was by the 2000er years). I assume they use one of these chips that has some of the necessary bridges integrated (besides the 386sx core).


And I have a 386sx notebook that runs Win95 (was quite common in those days) with b/w display and 4MB RAM originally.

So I think the chinese 386 is the real deal. I observed it since a few weeks but then I realized that they spared the ports. Again?
Or do they hope that everyone who bought now will buy again in a few months when the extended model with ports appears (like it was with the book8088)

Greetings
Steve

@dl1av Interesting angle. I hadn't realized the developers of the DOS machine revamped the model to include ports. Yes, that would be the solution--wait it out for another iteration.

Jake

Most ISA serial card with one or two ports don't need driver since it has there own address and IRQ, so PC BIOS can handle them.
Serial cards with 4 or more ports are "Multiport cards", and they need drivers.
BTW, the manufacture of Pocket386 just released their internal ISA Serial adapter, which can turns GPIO to serial port, so we can just wait for they start selling it.
http://www.8086cpu.com/lm6/101.html

Edited by Dr.Quest 2024-04-16 10:12 PM

@Dr.Quest Excellent find. That may preclude another model with built-in ports. Will you yourself be purchasing the Pocket 386?

Jake