Does Damn Small Linux run?
It seems like the versions from the late 90s/early 00s would probably run decently and be more modern in some ways.

NetBSD 10 will likely run, as it can still function in a very small memory footprint.

- Alex

I don't wish to be impolite but I question the attempts at getting things like DSL and Slackware running on it.

This is not meant to be discouragement. In fact, here is a link that some people might find useful despite it being an article from a little over a decade ago: https://hackaday.com/2011/08/12/installing-li … n-a-386-laptop/ Some may find it helpful.

That said, I feel like we should be supporting OSes and projects that still have active development and function on machines as antiquated as this if you intend on using them for more than simply nostalgia reasons or a learning experience. We have things like ELKS (which I know is meant for 16-bit hardware, but...), NetBSD and FreeDOS and (despite being horrifically out of date) people continue to develop things for Windows 9x such as the backport project of .net https://github.com/itsmattkc/dotnet9x that we should probably shift our focus on since it currently has, y'know, people who use it.

From a historical standpoint however please continue your efforts but if you do so, I implore anyone who does to document their efforts so as to help anyone else who needs it in the future.

gargoyle wrote on 2024-06-03, 16:36:

I don't wish to be impolite but I question the attempts at getting things like DSL and Slackware running on it.

No complaints on politeness but I'm unsure what there is to question in the direction of idle amusements of others.

This device is going to be an amusement regardless of what I'm doing with it. I find installing OS's that I can hack a bit on the hardware with amusing. And since I developed on the DM&Ps in the early aught's a bit nostalgic.

In that vein I continue posting the WIP in case someone finds it useful for whatever the heck they're doing with this little anachronism!

It has already led to wonderful suggestions from other forum users. For which; thank you all.

The 386SX did not fare well over it's lifetime on Linux. Around 2000, at the max of 16MB of ram it really isn't enough. And the lack of FPU will make it even slower. A 386DX could likely be better. And then 486es can go quite a bit later, even though it is still a longtime obsolete CPU. So I think this machine is mostly just a curiosity, without much purpose, even with other OS as options.

Perhaps it depends on whether one has a background of legacy-nursing. With the P386, I pretty much knew what I was getting into (except for the horrific 90+ seconds to boot into Win95), but I still use WinCE and DOS/HP200LX, so I'm accustomed to dragging these things as far I can into modern times. With WFWG, I'm on-line, I'm syncing with Outlook, have RSS and databases in tow, and Word 6.0c works w/ current word processors. Given the hardware restraints, I can't realistically expect more (except better battery life) , yet, it's enough.

I am not sure why, but it seems that the seller doesn't want to ship this to Germany nor France. Not on aliexpress, not on eBay. Note he explicitly excludes these two countries but not the full EU, so it doesn't seem to be a import taxes thing. In fact, (from EU IPs) the prices are shown inflated ~ 20% (i.e. taxes applied).

Likewise Aliexpress resellers of this device like 1, 2 are happy to offer free shipping to Spain, Netherlands, etc. but for France & Germany they only offer Fedex at outrageous prices (> 100eur). It's too many "merchants" to be a coincidence (...unless they are all the same person).

Anyone has a clue what's going behind the scenes?

I got OS/2 Warp 3.0 (blue version) installed on my Pocket386 and it is working well! It has been well over 20 years since I last used OS/2 so I've been recalling some old info that I forgot all about. This version of OS/2 has DOS and Windows 3.1 compatibility so it is a pretty flexible environment.

I used a VM to install onto an 8GB CF card. OS/2 3.0 doesn't like large (>2GB) disks so I used FreeDOS to partition it, and found a patched OS/2 install floppy online that uses a newer driver that doesn't barf at the partition table. (Be careful not to overwrite that driver when installing the Fixpack later on!)

Graphics work fine in VGA mode. There is a Cirrus Logic driver that works, but that broke video in my VM so I kept it on VGA for the sake of convenience. I couldn't feel any performance difference (neither is accelerated 2D). I tried installing the free Scitech Display Doctor drivers, and they dramatically improved performance in my VM, but unfortunately on the Pocket386 they just cause it to crash at startup, so I reverted to VGA.

I upgraded it to OS/2 FixPack 40 from IBM's FTP server which is still online after all these years and everything is in the same directories!

I wasn't able to find any working sound drivers. There is a Yamaha OPL3 driver online, but either it wasn't the right one or I didn't configure it correctly (no plug & play). The PC speaker beep works though.

The speed of the virtual mouse movement is quite slow, but this version of OS/2 is pretty keyboard-friendly so the mouse isn't really necessary. It is impossible to drag & drop with the virtual mouse anyway.

I installed Object Desktop 2.0, which adds lots of creature comforts and features, but it's simply way too heavy. The startup and general usage of the system became very sluggish once it was installed and the CF I/O was nonstop due to swapping. I remember on my real PC back in those days I did not have enough RAM for it, either. So, I removed that and things are back to decent speed.

Anyone done any benchmarking of the Pocket 8086 vs the 8088? I assume it has 16 bit memory access and I'm curious if the extra memory bandwidth shows up in usability/performance.

I would assume it's closer to PS/2 Model 25 than the 5160 PC XT type performance of the Book8088, but you'll probably find better attention for that question in the Will the Book 8088 be a future classic? thread. Unless someone started a Pocket8086 thread that I missed.

Picked up a clear one the other day.

Congrats. The clear chassis is very much to be admired. Will you stay with 3.11 or do you have a long enough life span to run Win95 😀 ?

The clear looks nice. I wonder if they'd sell it on its own... I should ask if that's possible.

Anyone else frustrated that the serial adapter isn’t available for sale? Or am I not looking for it hard enough? I can’t find it anywhere.

Does anyone know if it would be possible to hardware hack-in an auxiliary audio-in port for this thing? I ask because, while having something like the PicoGUS "Femto" in the ISA slot to add sampled audio capabilities looks really awesome, you'd need external speakers for it to work which makes this "Pocket" portable significantly less portable. And I know, the internal speakers aren't particularly great, but it would still be cool to take it on the go and listen to Ultrasound and/or Soundblaster without needing a powered speaker hookup.

Inhibit wrote on 2024-05-14, 01:19:

If anyone's got any other ideas (Plan9? Menuet? *not* SCO Unix or Xenix!) I can try. Also, Plan 9's Bell Labs site appears to finally be gone.

There's a post in the cranky-as-heck VCFED thread that mentions running OS/2 Warp on it. I'm thinking about buying one of these and that seems like the right answer.

DrDoc wrote on 2024-06-22, 05:41:

There's a post in the cranky-as-heck VCFED thread that mentions running OS/2 Warp on it. I'm thinking about buying one of these and that seems like the right answer.

stlpaul's got a post further up the page with some good notes on what OS/2 release works well with the hardware.

Inhibit wrote on 2024-06-22, 13:04:

stlpaul's got a post further up the page with some good notes on what OS/2 release works well with the hardware.

Saw that, long after I posted. I should know by now to read the whole dang thread before posting...

I have a handful of ISA-bus SBCs based on the Ali M6117, and the manufacturer's support CD for one of them. If there's interest I'll dig up the CD and make the ISO available.

I'm a little surprised that nobody's working on a PC/104 breakout for the ISA connection. PC/104 adapters tend to be based on less ancient silicon and much better documented, and drivers are more commonly archived by the manufacturer. As a bonus, one PC/104 connector lets you stack $N cards together.

Can’t wait to get these two guys talking to each other with my incoming serial card.

HP CPACK runs well on the Pocket 386/WFWG/Win95. If you have a 32-bit Outlook on the desktop, you can even sync calendar/contacts. If you want to forgo the serial connection, a usb-to-cf adapter will produce a D: to read/write the HP cf card.