VOGONS


Will the Book 8088 be a future classic?

Topic actions

Reply 200 of 393, by Errand

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
SergeK wrote on 2023-11-14, 22:14:

I am Sergey Kiselev, привiт! 😉

Oh, привiт! 😀 You usually use avatar image - Nice to meet you 😀

The only differences of KM1810VM88 I have noticed are the higher temperature and the strange high frequency noise - the bios should be able to identify this CPU within these, hehe.

Thank you for pointing to the notefreqs, I’d like to try doing it (there are also 6 notes and a pause at the end, some kind of funny reflection of 'Intel inside' with pause at the start) - hope compiling from the source code won’t stand a trouble for me..

Adding the dumped CGA chip data file ('bin' instead of 'txt')

Reply 201 of 393, by SergeK

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
Errand wrote on 2023-11-14, 22:25:

What surprised me is the text underneath the video board: 'VGA-BK3-9000i'… Isn’t it what I’m thinking about?.. 😀

Yeah, I guess they had the Trident TVGA9000i option too... That would actually work on 8088, because Trident BIOS doesn't use 186+ instructions

Reply 202 of 393, by Errand

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
SergeK wrote on 2023-11-14, 23:46:

I guess they had the Trident TVGA9000i option too... That would actually work on 8088, because Trident BIOS doesn't use 186+ instructions

If it only be possible to desolder Cirrus chip and bios on current board and swap it to Trident ones and it’ll work… I would 😀

SergeK wrote on 2023-11-14, 22:14:
As far as sound.inc modification goes, the format is very simple. The "notes" table contains a list of 16-bit divider values for […]
Show full quote

As far as sound.inc modification goes, the format is very simple. The "notes" table contains a list of 16-bit divider values for the PIT, -1 for "silent" pause, and 0 for the end of the table.
Note frequencies are described in multiple places, for example, here: https://pages.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html
Of course being a simple square wave, there is no option to specify the "envelope", that is the entire sound is played with the same volume.
It is possible to make a custom routine, and use PWM technique, but that's more complicated, and also, the original purpose of playing that melody was testing basic system (CPU, ROM, and PIT) functionality.

The melody is: G4, E4, F4,G4, pause, C5.
More 'rich' version is: G4+E4, C4+E4, D4+F4, G4+E4, pause, E4+C5.
No idea if it is possible to beep tones simultaneously...

Last edited by Errand on 2023-11-15, 17:26. Edited 3 times in total.

Reply 203 of 393, by n0p

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
Errand wrote on 2023-11-14, 22:25:
I’ve made some photos of v2 board while disassembling: 5922D9F3-C484-4109-9BE0-A0BBA169A41F.jpeg Looks like no more external dis […]
Show full quote

I’ve made some photos of v2 board while disassembling:
5922D9F3-C484-4109-9BE0-A0BBA169A41F.jpeg
Looks like no more external display out.
What surprised me is the text underneath the video board: 'VGA-BK3-9000i'… Isn’t it what I’m thinking about?.. 😀

Дякую за фото.
This makes me stop thinking about getting a V2 book.
Anyway, did you try flashing concatenated cp866.bin to your cga card?

Reply 204 of 393, by Errand

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
betamax80 wrote on 2023-11-14, 13:38:

Since we're all more familiar with it now, I wondered if I could suggest we build a "compatibility list" of peripherals and software for the Book8088 as a google doc?

I'm ready to participate.
* MS Serial Mouse should be soon arriving to me and I'll test it on Book8088v2 - it has to work, I guess I won't even need to install any drivers in Windows.
* USB w/ latest FreddyV's CH375 driver handles even cheap chinese SD card readers. Booting from USB (emulated floppy) is working w/ nOp's BIOS
* MS-DOS 4.01 SU and 5.0 SU are working, but need to flash the CGA bios with nOp's rom to resolve a problem with cyrillic symbols.
* Dos Navigator 1.51 isn't working for me on KM1810VM88: it runs, but hangs with garbage on the screen. Turning off high memory usage doesn't help.

---
UPD: Looks like any version of Dos Navigator will never work on Book8088: it requires 386SX at minimum. Unfortunately...

Last edited by Errand on 2023-11-17, 10:48. Edited 3 times in total.

Reply 205 of 393, by Errand

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
n0p wrote on 2023-11-15, 06:37:

did you try flashing concatenated cp866.bin to your cga card?

Not sure I can create a valid binary - I'm working in Windows on Parallels VM on my mac and Parallels screws something with file system creating invalid files sometimes.
Can you, please, help creating a valid file for me, so that I can flash it? Can you say anything on the dumped file?

Reply 206 of 393, by n0p

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
Errand wrote on 2023-11-15, 06:54:
n0p wrote on 2023-11-15, 06:37:

did you try flashing concatenated cp866.bin to your cga card?

Not sure I can create a valid binary - I'm working in Windows on Parallels VM on my mac and Parallels screws something with file system creating invalid files sometimes.
Can you, please, help creating a valid file for me, so that I can flash it? Can you say anything on the dumped file?

I don't see what could go wrong there - CGA BIOS contains only charset and no code
https://github.com/jinshin/Book8088/blob/main/cga866v2.bin
No idea if it would work, but i think it should

Reply 207 of 393, by Errand

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
n0p wrote on 2023-11-15, 08:11:

I don't see what could go wrong there - CGA BIOS contains only charset and no code
https://github.com/jinshin/Book8088/blob/main/cga866v2.bin
No idea if it would work, but i think it should

It worked! 😀

The attachment book8088_ru.jpg is no longer available

Volkov Commander settings shows all symbols from cyrillic code page. OS text is now visible/readable.

UPD: Problem with typing is resolved by using 'cyrillic.com' or 'kbdrgost.com' layout switchers (first one has more comfortable key combination).

Last edited by Errand on 2023-11-15, 20:50. Edited 6 times in total.

Reply 208 of 393, by Errand

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

I've updated the code from Sergey's sources and flashed the BIOS with new startup sound:

notes	dw	pic_freq/392		; G4
dw pic_freq/329 ; E4
dw pic_freq/349 ; F4
dw pic_freq/392 ; G4
dw -1 ; silent
dw pic_freq/523 ; C5
dw 0

It sounds good to me:

The attachment bk8088v2_startup_sound.m4a is no longer available

Thanks for your help!

Last edited by Errand on 2023-11-15, 17:38. Edited 3 times in total.

Reply 209 of 393, by Errand

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
Jo22 wrote on 2023-11-13, 00:37:
^For authenticity, there's the DOS for the Poisk-1, SF-DOS ('Sigma Four').. Poisk was a series of eastern PC compatibles. That […]
Show full quote

^For authenticity, there's the DOS for the Poisk-1, SF-DOS ('Sigma Four')..
Poisk was a series of eastern PC compatibles.
That DOS should be on MS-DOS 2.11 or 3.x level.

Alternatively, there's the East German DCP in version 3.20/3.30.
The Disc Control Program uses latin characters/filenames, at least.
So if you got the German language version, you're not totally screwed.

That being said, learning cyrilic alphabet isn't that hard, either.
It's worth a try, if free time permits it.

PS: For really, really old school fun, AlphaDOS might be an option. It's non-English, though.
See https://pikabu.ru/story/pp_yevm_es_1841_6484535

Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ES_PEVM

Edit: Picture attached.

I've tested booting few more versions of OS on v2 (sorry for the low quality of photos):
1.Most unsuccessful was sf-dos: once booted, it asks for the date and then hangs up (Ctrl+Alt+Del isn't working).

The attachment sf-dos.jpg is no longer available

2. MDOS Poisk played the best for me: it boots normally, everything went well. Haven't tried running enything except NC, will play more with it.

The attachment mdos-poisk.jpg is no longer available
The attachment mdos-poisk-nc.jpg is no longer available

3. Janus have failed to render cyrillic symbols.
Gotta try hard booting with mode 80 properly set due to the Book8088's screen, that is eating the first column of the text on the screen - otherwise it will show something else instead of "JANUS" 😀)))

The attachment janus.jpg is no longer available

---
I'd like to have SF-DOS working - it reminds me the time when I was working on Poisk in school...
Looks like SF-DOS is handling cyrillic symbols more correctly, than Janus.

UPD: I was able to run SF-DOS shell from MS-DOS, booted within system disk C.
It doesn't work when booted from floppy: on one of forums the guy wrote that the floppy image doesn't contain track 81 data, which the system appear to try reading.
Need more experimenting with different SF-DOS floppy images - they're not that easy to find.

Reply 210 of 393, by Jo22

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Thank you very much for the photos/screenshots!
It's great to see Norton Commander running so well! 😃

Errand wrote on 2023-11-16, 17:09:
I'd like to have SF-DOS working - it reminds me the time when I was working on Poisk in school... Looks like SF-DOS is handling […]
Show full quote

I'd like to have SF-DOS working - it reminds me the time when I was working on Poisk in school...
Looks like SF-DOS is handling cyrillic symbols more correctly, than Janus.

UPD: I was able to run SF-DOS shell from MS-DOS, booted within system disk C.
It doesn't work when booted from floppy: on one of forums the guy wrote that the floppy image doesn't contain track 81 data, which the system appear to try reading.
Need more experimenting with different SF-DOS floppy images - they're not that easy to find.

Hi again, sorry to hear there's some trouble..
- I'll keep looking for boot-up disks, too. 🙂

PS: Maybe it's unrelated, but I recall earlier operating systems to have trouble if the floppy controller is acting weird (or simply absent).
If I remember correctly, early versions of PC-MOS/386 did hang if no floppy drive or floppy controller was installed.
The developers didn't thought of this scenario when writing the OS.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 211 of 393, by kup

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Hello everyone. Could you tell if new VGA board is backwards compatible with CGA and EGA modes?

Reply 212 of 393, by britelite

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
kup wrote on 2023-11-17, 09:35:

Hello everyone. Could you tell if new VGA board is backwards compatible with CGA and EGA modes?

Yes, as compatible as VGA boards in general are.

Reply 213 of 393, by kup

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
britelite wrote on 2023-11-17, 12:27:
kup wrote on 2023-11-17, 09:35:

Hello everyone. Could you tell if new VGA board is backwards compatible with CGA and EGA modes?

Yes, as compatible as VGA boards in general are.

Thank you! So it's a good idea to buy VGA version of this notebook to use it in CGA and EGA modes although is has problems with VGA?

Reply 215 of 393, by britelite

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
kup wrote on 2023-11-17, 13:34:

Thank you! So it's a good idea to buy VGA version of this notebook to use it in CGA and EGA modes although is has problems with VGA?

For EGA you don't really have a choice, but for CGA it depends on what kind of software you want run. Most games will probably be just fine, but for example CGA demos are not going to work too well on VGA boards.

Reply 216 of 393, by kup

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
britelite wrote on 2023-11-17, 14:05:

For EGA you don't really have a choice, but for CGA it depends on what kind of software you want run. Most games will probably be just fine, but for example CGA demos are not going to work too well on VGA boards.

I don't want to run anything special. Just simple software and games. So VGA is my choiсe. Thank you

Reply 217 of 393, by n0p

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Not exactly a serious mod, but as a part of learning microsoldering i've replaced Book's indicator leds - wanted to do that from the start. Left blue "full charge" one, but might replace it with green as well. 0603 doable with magnifier and thin tip.
Now CF is green, turbo - white, "alive" - yellow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUczG6rz3_0

Reply 218 of 393, by pengan

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Hello, it's Pengan here.

Today, I replaced Sergey's BIOS on my Book8088. Currently residing in China, the cost of making BIOS chip here is quite low.
4x Windond W27C512 + 5x ST M27C512 = 83 Yuan.
Additionally, I acquired an ATMega8a EEPROM programmer for 50 yuan.
I haven't purchased a UV eraser yet; a second-hand one might cost around 50 yuan.
In total, it's less than 200 RMB, very cheap. I plan to make some extra chips and give them to my friends who have a Book8088.

The serial and parallel ports in Book8088 v2 is my suggestion. I hope to use the ESP8266 WifiModem and the Covox Speech Thing. Haobin "zhblue" Zhang once created a batch of Covox and OPL3LPT devices.
Haobin "zhblue" Zhang's Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@haobinzhang6491

I am one of the few lucky individuals who have had the opportunity to interact with Shan Zhongyu, also known as the "Hardcore expert" in person. His vintage PC project has begin in 2017. Here are some of his previous posts that roughly outline his exploration process:

https://www.mydigit.cn/thread-214214-1-1.html
https://www.mydigit.cn/thread-383605-1-1.html
https://www.mydigit.cn/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=133380
http://bbs.mydigit.cn/u.php?uid=997328

Initially, my goal in engaging with him was to join his team. However, I eventually gave up on that. I spent some time attempting to persuade him to provide GPL-compliant BIOS, but unfortunately, I wasn't successful.

While we don't face language barriers in our communication, interacting with the "Hardcore expert" hasn't always been smooth sailing. I often feel like we come from different worlds. It's akin to the differences between "doujin game" developers in Japan and "indie game" developers elsewhere in the world. Despite their many practical similarities, their ideologies and perspectives can be fundamentally different.

"Hardcore expert" isn't a member of the open-source community or the retro-computing community. He doesn't have a account on GitHub and isn't familiar with classic DOS games. His vintage computer project stems from a personal passion for electronics. The initial product designs were more geared towards catering to the nostalgia of collectors.

He invested a lot of effort into dealing with rebuild CGA graphics cards and hacking the firmware of RTD2660 LCD controller to support CGA's 15Khz signal without extra scaler. And all of this is driven by the goal of restoring the "original IBM PC experience."

He believes that many people purchase the Book8088 just to have it as a display piece and might not actually power it on - this is quite common among "collectors" in China. That's also why there's a bit of negligence in both the firmware and the pre-installed software aspects.

In the Chinese electronic enthusiast community, I'm a definite minority. I've been living in Canada since 2009 and have attended Vintage Computer Fest and Demoparties(Demosplash, @Party and SynchroNY), but such public events aren't common in China. Most communication is hidden in the deep web, primarily occurring through QQ and WeChat groups.

I'm also a media studies researcher, which fuels my interest in observing community and cultural influences. The design of Book 8088's Sub notebook is heavily influenced by Japanese Windows CE Handheld PCs and Sub notebooks, like the Toshiba Libretto. "Hardcore expert" has used SHARP Mobilon HC-4500 and SHARP HC-VJ2C in the past.

During the 2000s, a substantial number of Windows CE Handheld PCs were imported to China as electronic waste. Upon reaching Chinese ports, many of these devices were still functional or just need minor repairs. They significantly impacted the computer enthusiast community in China. For instance, the ClockworkPi team's main reference in designing the DevTerm keyboard was the HP Jornada 688.

I've written a Chinese article discussing the impact of Handheld PCs in China: https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/35018429

Since meeting "Hardcore expert" back in May, I've been considering writing an article about the Book8088. However, I've realized that I'd almost be writing a paper on cultural conflicts.

In the enthusiast community in China, using open-source code for commercial purposes is seen as shameful because it doesn't allocate benefits to the original authors. Yet, the issue of removed attributions in the Book8088 BIOS is considered tolerable by some because there's no transaction of benefits involved.

This is indeed an act of infringement, and ethically challenging to comprehend, but it does exist. In fact, it permeates even the core ideology of the entire "shanzhai" electronic industry centered around Shenzhen and has achieved significant economic success, despite its controversial nature.

Some other interesting facts are that both Haobin "zhblue" Zhang and I live in Hangzhou, the ClockworkPi team is also here. Hangzhou is renowned for being the headquarters of Alibaba and Hikvision. Zhblue and I work at different universities in the humanities and social sciences fields. Perhaps, I'm fortunate not to be a computer scientist or engineer here. The engineers in this city are always busy, always looking forward, and they don't even get the chance to look back at the history of computing.

"Hardcore expert" Shan Zhongyu's company is based in Guangzhou, and their primary product is engraving machines, also white-labeled. The quality has become quite mature, but they aren't intending to operate under their own brand. They told me that white-labeling saves them branding and legal costs, enabling their products to remain inexpensive - something necessary in the fiercely competitive Chinese market. Initially, he mentioned they only planned to sell Book8088 within China. However, the current situation is that almost all sales are overseas.

"Hardcore expert" also mentioned to me that he acquired a set of Apple II motherboard schematics from another enthusiast in China. I personally suspect this might be a modified version of an open-source design. In China, due to language barriers, many hardware enthusiasts and even professional developers don't have full access to information from overseas communities. There might exist an underground market for such information, but I'm not part of it and lack accurate information myself.

Reply 219 of 393, by n0p

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

I've successfully connected keyboard to Book8088 via Waveshare Zero (RP2040)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP_Zx4weHFM
and my own code for it.
RP2040 should function as USB connector for keyboard via USB-OTG and bridge to original keyboard controller.
Unfortunately, i did something wrong while connecting Book8088 controller to Waveshare Zero and burned the controller (input is shorted to ground).
Book itself if working, but i had to unsolder controller chip.
I wrote a request to seller, if it possible to buy that chip, we'll see how it goes.
Anyway, keyboard and external display CAN be connected 😀