First post, by Daniël Oosterhuis
These have been swerving around retro computing Twitter threads, but I didn't see a thread on these here, so I figure some might want to see this.
Apparently, someone in China managed to source enough chips for both an 8088 based laptop, and a 386SX SoC handheld computer:
(I do not have any affiliation with this seller or AliExpress, just stating in case)
I find them incredibly fascinating, with just how niche these are.
The 8088 laptop appears to use mostly ICs of the era, whereas the 386SX handheld has an SoC that's effectively a 386SX core glued to an ALi M1217B chipset.
While it's not listed for the 386SX, I believe both it and the 8088 laptop are using the CH375B chip for USB, which is the same as those 8-bit ISA USB cards.
Whoever is making these, definitely knows their retro computing.
I've seen some weird retro stuff on AliExpress before, but these do absolutely take the cake.
If I had the spare cash to throw around, I might be tempted to grab the 386SX, just out of interest, though I wish it had configurable game controls (either emulating keyboard inputs or a gameport controller) on the front instead of a seemingly uncomfortably tiny keyboard.
