I got a no name 512MB USB drive and the 386 can write data to it.

That sounds awesome! 😀

I can only hope that I can purchase the Pocket386 off of eBay assuming that the unit is still available by Christmas this year! ^^

@gargoyle I wonder if Win3.1 would provide better battery life, if only because it would thrash the disk less.

@kagamma Glad to hear you sorted it.

jakfish wrote on 2024-05-13, 13:44:

@gargoyle I wonder if Win3.1 would provide better battery life, if only because it would thrash the disk less.

@kagamma Glad to hear you sorted it.

I don't remember if 3.X has virtual memory... I should probably double-check but its memory requirements are pretty lean and most software for 95 requires 16MB of RAM anyway so... I don't think we'd be missing much. Hmm.

Does anyone know if we can add more RAM via the ISA slots? I don't know if thats possible on a 386 but it is on 8086/8088s.

gargoyle wrote on 2024-05-13, 14:20:

jakfish wrote on 2024-05-13, 13:44:

@gargoyle I wonder if Win3.1 would provide better battery life, if only because it would thrash the disk less.

@kagamma Glad to hear you sorted it.

I don't remember if 3.X has virtual memory... I should probably double-check but its memory requirements are pretty lean and most software for 95 requires 16MB of RAM anyway so... I don't think we'd be missing much. Hmm.

Does anyone know if we can add more RAM via the ISA slots? I don't know if thats possible on a 386 but it is on 8086/8088s.

Windows 3.x uses a swap file by default on a 386 or better. 8MB should be enough to run Windows 3.x without a page file unless you're using very complex software and 1MB is enough to run the base operating system plus built in accessories.

Windows 95 systems were initially shipped with 8MB of RAM and our family PC ran 95 with 8MB of RAM for several years. Was quite common at the time, we ran Windows 95 + AOL 4.0 like that. Hard disk light was frequently flickering and in retrospect I'm sure the system was routinely slowing down because of heavy swap usage.

286 systems often took their extended memory on the ISA bus using third-party cards, but 386s either took it on board or on a dedicated 32-bit memory card. Even if it is possible, a 40MHZ CPU will be badly hampered by the wait states needed to use a slow ISA RAM card.

radiounix wrote on 2024-05-13, 16:34:

Windows 3.x uses a swap file by default on a 386 or better. 8MB should be enough to run Windows 3.x without a page file unless you're using very complex software and 1MB is enough to run the base operating system plus built in accessories.

Windows 95 systems were initially shipped with 8MB of RAM and our family PC ran 95 with 8MB of RAM for several years. Was quite common at the time, we ran Windows 95 + AOL 4.0 like that. Hard disk light was frequently flickering and in retrospect I'm sure the system was routinely slowing down because of heavy swap usage.

286 systems often took their extended memory on the ISA bus using third-party cards, but 386s either took it on board or on a dedicated 32-bit memory card. Even if it is possible, a 40MHZ CPU will be badly hampered by the wait states needed to use a slow ISA RAM card.

mmm, yeah. i just know it supposedly has a 16-bit ISA bus which has theoretical speeds that might be able to handle it but... that's like, y'know, the numbers on paper.
i should look into the read/write speeds of the cf (to what i presume) is IDE adapter and the card that came with it. its possible that the flash memory may be fast enough to allow for pagefile thrashing without an overly noticeable performance hit. i'll dig up some old dos benchmark programs and see what i can find out.
iirc most CF cards using these things get around 500 kb/s on a good day so i don't have high hopes which is why i was curious about the ISA bus since it theoretically could do 16MB/s but... uh, again. that's on paper.

even if this research goes nowhere i'm just happy to experiment and tinker with this.

Been brooding about a Win3.1 install. Is it possible to repartition the cf, (in Win10 or gparted), make a second partition of 500mb or so, and install 3.1 there? That would make the USB a Drive E: and I'm not certain the usb driver would recognize the change in drive letter.

jakfish wrote on 2024-05-13, 20:53:

Been brooding about a Win3.1 install. Is it possible to repartition the cf, (in Win10 or gparted), make a second partition of 500mb or so, and install 3.1 there? That would make the USB a Drive E: and I'm not certain the usb driver would recognize the change in drive letter.

https://www.computerhope.com/substhlp.htm

Thanks. It's been a long time since DOS.

Do folks think I can partition current cf/Win95 into two partitions, install Win3.1, and load either one at c: prompt?

I have some problems with colors on certain games or pictures.
First I noticed this on Windows 95 logo (moving part) - one of the section is acidic green. Then Prince of Persia 1 - sometimes torches are funky green or purple color and sometimes NOT! Prince of Persia 2 is trash... and Rings of Magi as well. I didn't check lots of games.... From what I see also, instead of going to dark shade (fade out thing) it's rather invert the color (kinda distorting it), again not everywhere....
I report this to the seller and he sent me VGA card replacement, but that didn't solve the problem... Wondering is it screen controller then?

I actually saw somebody posted Windows 95 logo with EXACT GREEN section below the logo... Wondering

I should have both an AT power supply (because I've got a bare dual 386 board with a main 25mhz CHiPS CPU to work with) and an 8 bit ISA IDE/ROM card coming in to do some clean OS images for this thing with. I've been having a heck of a time trying to get a fresh Win95, FreeDOS, or Linux install kicking with no means of having two different boot devices.

That could just be me. But given the level of difficulty I expect not.

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.

jakfish wrote on 2024-05-14, 00:59:

Thanks. It's been a long time since DOS.

Do folks think I can partition current cf/Win95 into two partitions, install Win3.1, and load either one at c: prompt?

I installed Windows 3.11 just along with 95. You just need a patcher of IO.SYS or something.
https://www.mdgx.com/dos.htm
It's called OSR2FIX

jakfish wrote on 2024-05-14, 00:59:

Thanks. It's been a long time since DOS.

Do folks think I can partition current cf/Win95 into two partitions, install Win3.1, and load either one at c: prompt?

No real reason to partition.
Just install 3.11 to a different directory.
If you have to, temporarily rename the windows directory so the installer doesn't find it.

I noticed the picomem github page states it works with some 2 and 386 machines. Has anyone attempted to use it on the Pocket 386 yet?

kirikl wrote on 2024-05-14, 01:05:

I actually saw somebody posted Windows 95 logo with EXACT GREEN section below the logo... Wondering

Mine also has the same exact problem.

@kirikl and @myne -- appreciate you both for weighing in. I'll be glad to pass on a partition and just concentrate on grasping ins-outs of OSR2FIX.

I am getting near zero time in on mine due to too much stuff going on at once here. However, some thoughts on various stuff.

Battery life: Mine seems reasonable, think I am getting over 2 hours, but unsure by how much.

Green artifacting/shadowing: Not seen on my unit yet, but I have seen it back in the day on GL5428/9 cards... several things have been the cause. i) overheating ii) crappy windows drivers in windows stuff, I had to try a lot of different drivers per card in the 90s to get the most glitch free. iii) crappy VBE drivers or SVGA modes that weren't fully card agnostic, often you look in release notes and see "This works fine on trident and ET4000, so good luck with anything else" iv) bus overclocking.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-05-14, 14:39:

I am getting near zero time in on mine due to too much stuff going on at once here. However, some thoughts on various stuff.

Battery life: Mine seems reasonable, think I am getting over 2 hours, but unsure by how much.

Green artifacting/shadowing: Not seen on my unit yet, but I have seen it back in the day on GL5428/9 cards... several things have been the cause. i) overheating ii) crappy windows drivers in windows stuff, I had to try a lot of different drivers per card in the 90s to get the most glitch free. iii) crappy VBE drivers or SVGA modes that weren't fully card agnostic, often you look in release notes and see "This works fine on trident and ET4000, so good luck with anything else" iv) bus overclocking.

Yeah, everything I mentioned is in DOS, no problem in windows noticed. And again most of the games are fine. It's weird that it's kinda idk the way game makers arrange the graphics...
So for sure prince of Persia 2 and rings of magi games suffer in my unit. Maybe I'll find another games later.
My seller (8086cpu) is good in communication. Maybe he will send me completely different card.... He promised to test those games. We will see

By the way. My battery sucks! It showing 2000+ mah and 00%
I would like to discharge it, but laptop dead and there is no way to make battery die naturally. I ordered another one. Good news they are cheap, bad news - probably the same cheap quality, I couldn't find some “brand” one