DrDoc wrote on 2024-06-23, 07:30:

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.

Well I guess we are kind of curious as to whether there are any M6117 specific utilities or drivers, but don't wanna press you for the whole ISO if it's only graphics etc for that system.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-06-27, 20:53:

DrDoc wrote on 2024-06-23, 07:30:

If there's interest I'll dig up the CD and make the ISO available.

Well I guess we are kind of curious as to whether there are any M6117 specific utilities or drivers, but don't wanna press you for the whole ISO if it's only graphics etc for that system.

If you're inclined to post it up I will certainly dig through it!

Do we have a Bill of Materials?

I want to create an E-ISA breakout cable/board to use with a single E-ISA card. In order to do this, I need to know what the pitch of the female header is as well as what the pinout is.

Are there existing projects to do this?

Dis-isa-ppointment
It's on here

myne wrote on 2024-06-29, 01:42:

Dis-isa-ppointment
It's on here

That does not have 2.0 mm connectors for the ribbon cables from the Pocket 386. Instead, it adds ISA to your newer machine.

Ah, right. Misunderstood.
Eyeballing the pics it looks like the standard ide connector pitch.
There are only really 2pitches I've ever seen used in computing Ide/scsi/power+led/usb/audio
And the newer one on usb3/tpm

This looks like the first.

The disappointment might be useful as a starting template for your breakout board.

Pinouts is another story.

Edit
Found what you need
https://yeokhengmeng.com/2023/06/teardown-and … iew-of-hand386/

My battery seems to last a bit over an hour while idling in DOS. But I have an issue with the charge detection. If the battery full it's alright. If though it's charging with the laptop on, it keeps warning me that it's about to turn off, then it's back to some random percentage, then again 00% and warning it will turn off, and so on. Any ideas if there's something I can do to fix this?

Also for some reason I got a version with 3.11 installed and all the screws on the device are rusty. But it works well otherwise! I wish the mouse emulation supported more buttons pressed at the same time but it's ok, DOS runs so nicely on it. I'm thinking of installing FreeDOS and trying some development on it. Too bad FreeDOS wiki is down due to spam.

Tritonio wrote on 2024-06-29, 23:27:

But I have an issue with the charge detection. If the battery full it's alright. If though it's charging with the laptop on, it keeps warning me that it's about to turn off, then it's back to some random percentage, then again 00% and warning it will turn off, and so on. Any ideas if there's something I can do to fix this?

Also for some reason I got a version with 3.11 installed and all the screws on the device are rusty. But it works well otherwise!

Yea, oddly I might. So I figured out that my issue with charging mine during use was. I use my 100w USB-C charger (along with all my other devices) with a 12v barrel to USB-C breakout cable.

I happened to throw it in a kit bag with a lower output, 45w maybe, USB-C adapter and that actually works correctly.

So there's probably a programming resistor that's not quite right or the detection flakes out with too high an input. Or it's just not throttling at all and needs to. I'll poke at it when I finally pull it apart.

Maybe try a lower output/different supply and see if the problem goes away.

Weird about the screws!

Tritonio wrote on 2024-06-29, 23:27:

My battery seems to last a bit over an hour while idling in DOS.

Was this when using DOS' POWER.EXE or FreeDOS' FDAPM? The ALi datasheet says it is supposed to support APM, but I'm going to assume the BIOS part is not present... even then, it's worth a try just for the IDLE/HALT aspect.

Tritonio wrote on 2024-06-29, 23:27:

But I have an issue with the charge detection. If the battery full it's alright. If though it's charging with the laptop on, it keeps warning me that it's about to turn off, then it's back to some random percentage, then again 00% and warning it will turn off, and so on. Any ideas if there's something I can do to fix this?

From the PCB schematics, the MCU's battery level comes from just an ADC connected to the battery line -- which is prone to reporting garbage when plugged in. The status LED at least comes directly from the charger IC so it should be reliable.

Inhibit wrote on 2024-06-27, 21:40:

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-06-27, 20:53:

DrDoc wrote on 2024-06-23, 07:30:

If there's interest I'll dig up the CD and make the ISO available.

Well I guess we are kind of curious as to whether there are any M6117 specific utilities or drivers, but don't wanna press you for the whole ISO if it's only graphics etc for that system.

If you're inclined to post it up I will certainly dig through it!

Turns out there's really not anything on that CD that's useful for the Pocket 386.
I thought the CD was specific to the CPU board it came with, and those sometimes came with datasheets and errata for the CPU & chipset, but it's a generalized utility disk for a dozen or so boards.

https://archive.org/details/advantech-util

I did post it in the Driver Library thread, as it has DOS, Win 3.x-WinXP, Linux and QNX drivers for chipset, LAN, & VGA on a whole list of Advantech industrial boards.
VIA, Chips & Tech, Realtek, etc.

Doc

Gave in and got one of these, after trying to tell myself I didn't need it!

So backed up the CF and then put it in a safe place, and created a fresh install on a Transcend Industrial 2GB card, which apparently worked okay, until I tried to get Adlib sound which did not work, Wolf 3D did not detect it.

So being the only thing I changed, tried another CF card, a Cisco 512mb card and the Adlib is detected!

So any ideas what is going on? Not a show stopper just need to test some different CF cards.

Anyone tried adding an ISA - PCMCIA card? Would love version two of this little laptop to have a PCMCIA slot (and a 486).

jakfish wrote on 2024-05-28, 20:01:

To resolve the RTC issues, could someone point me to the location of the elusive R38, next to M6117D? I can't find either one. I removed the bottom chassis but couldn't find anything, either.

Also, is this an issue of simple disconnect/removal? If it's desoldering, that may be above my paygrade.

The location of R38 can be found in the small window at the bottom. On the machine I recently received, the resistor had been removed at the factory.

Hey all,

Got my pocket386 a few days ago, ended up designing some 3d printable snap together boxes/tidys for the included adapter cables if anyone's interested.

https://makerworld.com/en/models/526019

Will need to be careful aligning the cable when snapping together so that it does not get nicked/pinched.
Kept the cable/flexibility rather than making something more akin to a USB stick design since I figure that may not have been good for the ports connectors on the board.

Am only intending to use the PS2/VGA adapter myself, but thought I'd make them for the other ports anyway as they all take around the same footprint box!
Still waiting for my PS2 mouse/kb to arrive too, so am yet to check if the protruding PS2 port surrounds interfere in anyway, feel like they'll be fine though.

Have found a a small amount of play when plugging in on one side with the PS2/VGA adapter, which seems to be a result of it being uneven, so may need to hot glue that down.

How can I take the board out without damaging the shell? I found some Japanese games that don't work well on the system, which I suspect is due to the RTC. The IDC ports stuck in the slots make it a lot harder for me to take the board out compared to the Book 8088 v1.

I think I could get a Pocket386 to use as a small-but-powerful on-the-go word processor for writing in WordPerfect 5.1 (with plain DOS). Right now I am using the Samsung Notes app in my smartphone for that task, and it works but typing is a chore.

The Pocket386 is small, has a nice screen for 80x25 character display, the keyboard is usable, and it has power autonomy thanks to its builtin battery. So I am all set and ready to push that "Buy" buttom... but, I sometimes write in Spanish, and I need the "eñe" character working someway or the other.

I see that the Pocket386 is shipped with an US keyboard, but I wonder what happens if you boot it in DOS loading the SP keyboard.

Could some Pocket 386 owner try this and report back, please?

In CONFIG.SYS, add:

1COUNTRY=034,,C:\DOS\COUNTRY.SYS
2DEVICEhigh=C:\DOS\DISPLAY.SYS CON=(EGA,,1)

In AUTOEXEC.BAT, add:

1LH C:\DOS\MODE CON CODEPAGE PREPARE=((850) C:\DOS\EGA.CPI)
2LH C:\DOS\MODE CON CODEPAGE SELECT=850
3LH C:\DOS\KEYB SP,,C:\DOS\KEYBOARD.SYS

Then just reboot DOS, and load EDIT.COM, and test if the "eñe" character is available.

Thanks a lot.

I’m thinking I want grab one of these by myself. I know “back in day”, I played music in *.wav format on similar systems - anyone have a good idea what the highest bitrate/sample rate a 386sx-40 can support?

Some of that is sound hardware dependent. However, pure bitbanging a stereo covox type parallel DAC, there are mod players that should manage 22khz stereo on a faster 386 in DOS.

LowSpec486 wrote on 2024-07-13, 20:56:

Then just reboot DOS, and load EDIT.COM, and test if the "eñe" character is available.

Simply compare US keyb layout with SP keyboard layout: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KB_United_ … tes-NoAltGr.svg vs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KB_Spanish.svg .

You'll have a "ñ" key (remapped from US "; :") , however you'll be missing the SP layout's "< >" key (scancode 56) which is not present at all in the classic/"ANSI" US layouts.
Even though the Pocket386 has two physical "| \" keys (likely fore other, more internationalized products...) , it's unlikely they produce different scancodes, and one would need to hack the firmware of the keyboard controller for that.

javispedro1 wrote on 2024-07-14, 15:18:

LowSpec486 wrote on 2024-07-13, 20:56:

Then just reboot DOS, and load EDIT.COM, and test if the "eñe" character is available.

Simply compare US keyb layout with SP keyboard layout: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KB_United_ … tes-NoAltGr.svg vs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KB_Spanish.svg .

In those pictures, the US keyboard has 47 character-keys, while the Spanish keyboard has 48-character keys. Therefore, what will happen regarding the "eñe" character after you load the Spanish keymap onto the physical US keyboard is anyone's guess. That's why I'm asking for it to be tested by a fellow forum member who owns a Pocket386.