Hi everyone,

I just did something i wanted to do since a long time, being able to get my hands on one particular thinclient miniPc. It's a fairly hard-to-find Itona thinclient that has a very amusing feature: a joystick port !

This emulates like the previous ones with a VIA chipset a SoundBlaster Pro under DOS and of course works nicely under Windows98SE, even in the first 3D games, like Half-Life, Incoming or Midtown Madness. It's a VIA C3 at 800 MHz with 128 or 256 MB of SDRAM, and it runs here on a 4 GB CompactFlash. It's totally fanless and its power supply is integrated. In short, very practical.

Well packed with USB sockets (2 behind, 2 in front!) I was even able to make it recognize a modern wireless PC keyboard and its trackpad, and it would work just as well with a USB mouse or... a USB joystick! (under Windows of course). As the two USB sockets on the front are rather discreet, they are perfect for gamepads. In short, a small fanless PC, capable of running thousands of DOS or Windows 95/98 games, for 30€. And guess what? I haven't tried it yet, but of course it has a MPU401, that is to say, via the joystick socket, in addition to playing, it could control a MIDI expander like a Roland MT-32 or an SC-55!! I will test of course and send picts 🙂

So, I played a few small games with my joypad to Prince Of Persia, Lion King or Commander Keen 4, and I admit, I like it 😉 But ok ok, I'm going to find him a better controller 😃

The box is small, with its integrated power supply, but does have a PCI port available. Despite the small room inside, maybe there is a way to improve the beast with a real sound card or a far better videocard, i will be looking to it carefully :

Prez (sorry, my TV still doesn't do 4/3, bad girl)