Weird AliExpress laptop with Intel 8088 CPU

@Jake

I also bought (stocked it actually) a fxtec Pro 1x as well. It was a nice phone, colored in light blue. I liked the feel of it, reminded me of HTC Desire Z long ago. I just used it only to make sure it worked, but I didn't know there were those things happening in the background.

-stingraze

Yeah, the Pro1x has many things to admire. But save yourself heartache and don't sell in the US. It's not white-listed with either Verizon or AT&T. Verizon will boot you off, and AT&T will threaten the same but doesn't seem to follow through.

TMobile will accept sim without complaint, but few US users can make successful phone calls, anyway (anecdotally, it seems the Pro1x can't cope if the cel tower switches over to another cel tower). Also, will drop data now and then, and GPS is spotty as well.

Crazy,
Jake

Thats exactly the same way PC treated the backers. One time they had a few hundred devices and they sold them all on a japanese platform that was unknown to most of the Indiegogo backers so no complaints by them.

When the story came out PC ceased to communicate with Indiegogo backers and wrote the campaign off.

Obviously that seems to be a common strategy of bigger companies on Indiegogo. My backings of small companies (e.g. Dusk electronic sunglasses) were all honoured.

Well, now I am wiser and I know that it makes no sense to back larger projects because if it succeeds than I can buy the item for more or less the same price from ebay without the risk of loosing it.
The raised money has no influence on the outcome because these major companies have enough money to launch a succesful product on their own.

@Jake

Thanks for the advice. Yes, I was aware of those things, but didn’t know it was that bad. I wonder if expansys was selling their inventory to get rid of the stock.

Now I got that "That weird Aliexpress laptop" everyone talks about, too

For around 250EUR you basically get an FPGA XT using an original recycled V20 and 6845. These vintage chips are nicely shown beneath removable case clips.

Off character is the LCD as CGA display, the keyboard and the CH375 XT-USB-adaptor. And of course the IDE-CF for mass storage.

I don't understand why people complain about the display. Perhaps they never used a real one around 1990.
It is not very bright, has soft colors, black bars in text mode but that is all original CGA.
Even the infamous CGA flicker is there, without it, it wouldn't be a real CGA experience

There is some software included with the vintage cf but that is completely useless.
Most of it is for 286 or more and the USB driver does not work. You will need c375v88.sys from the Freddy V0.22 driver set.
Otherwise it just crashes when you use USB memory.

I took a 4GB CF I found in my boxes, partitioned it into one 500 and two a bit more using my 486 service pc.
You will need DOS 6.2, everything else hangs at one step, maybe because of the FPGA-architecture.

The thing is fast. It says 2.0 on my trusty Norton SI I use for comparison tasks since 1988.
But the overall user experience is that of a standard AT (without the protected mode, of course) .

I burned a 27C512 with the original BIOS by Sergey Kiselev who was kind enough to update his work for the Book8088.

The ISA extender is a cool thing. I just tested it with a serial card and a mouse.

So I love that little "palmtop" but for future revisions I wish for an RTC and an RS232.
Definitely would buy that, too

Edited by dl1av 2023-08-20 2:02 PM


















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Wow! You actually got it! Very cool.

-stingraze

I dunno. The price seems too high. Probably going to fall apart, bad solder joints, cheap capacitors...Err, been there with Ali stuff (rubbish NiZn batteries, "GB Boy," etc) before.

For the cost of this thing I could buy something rugged and vintage from HP or NEC.

Well, the soldering looks quite good and the hinges are tight. For now all feels nice and sturdy.

In my eyes the soft spot is the connector to the ISA extension. This is just an internal ribbon connector for just a few times plug and pull.

Everything else is well built but I definitely miss the RTC and the RS232.

A comparison with a historic collectors item does not seem fair This is just for fun and to carry it everywhere (for "children who have it all" ) and not a rare and expensive collectors item to be put iinto a shrine

If the guy makes enough money to come up with a V2.0 I am definitely on board.

-Stefan


Edited by dl1av 2023-08-21 5:25 PM

Stefan,

I'm so glad one is in your hands. Could I ask you to try running NewDeal Office Suite? The fact that you say the machine is fast, even if its cpu says different has me intrigued.

https://winworldpc.com/product/new-deal-office/32a

If you don't know NewDeal, I think it has the most modern word processor for DOS. I use ND on the 200LX but its boot is a long thing, and I had originally believed that even the 200LX's cpu was faster than this one.

Jake

Never heard of it but I know the "Breadbox" Products. I don't think that Geoworks or Breadbox is running (needs a 386 memory management?) but if you say that it runs on the HP then I am optimistic.

Which version do you recommend to try?

Stefan

I would try the 3.2 version I cite, since that works on the 200LX and does all the neat tricks of a working wp: smart quotes, .doc conversion, etc.

Jake

I just tried the install, took one hour ??

It installs the complete Breadbox Ensemble and then freezes everytime I want to setup the user interface
I remember that it happened with my 286 some months ago, too, so I think it needs a 386 minimum.


At one point the installer told me that the device is not suitable, proceed anyway?


I assume the older Geoworks Ensemble will run (as with my 286) but I don't see any use to it because there is no pointing device.

Stefan

Jake, are you sure that it is the NDO from around 2000 that runs on your HP200?

According to my research it depends on a 386 or 486, the expected user was the one who couldn't get hands on a ripped off Win95??

I know that the older Geoworks from around 1990 runs on an HP200 and so it will do on the Book8088.

But without any pointing device?

Hi, Stefan. I do run 3.2a on the 200LX, with a 60-second start-up. One thing I did was install NDO on the desktop (via DOSBox), then copy over the directory to the 200LX. My approach may circumvent your freeze issues,

And yes, working without a mouse is challenging, but a helpful feature of NDO is that after restarting, it returns you to previous position, down to your last typed word. It's possible to get around with just keystrokes.

Still, it sounds as if the cpu struggles with NDO's size, so the program may not feasible. TECHNICALLY, the 200LX has a faster cpu, but I was hoping that your device could run NDO anyway.

Jake

I thought of installing it on another host first, too, but I only have a 486 handy and I assume that it uses different libraries then.


Maybe it's an opportunity to try "dosbox-x" https://dosbox-x.com/wiki/Home
The offer to choose an 8086-cpu, the original dosbox only supports 386 and higher.

Stefan