Inhibit wrote on 2024-08-01, 12:11:

LowSpec486 wrote on 2024-07-16, 16:11:

So I bought a slightly used Acer Aspire One netbook for 40 EUR instead, with a built-in Spanish keyboard. Not vintage, but obsolete enough...

The older 32bit Atom model? That's getting pretty vintage; the architecture's like a massive stack of pentium MMX cores if I recall.

Yes, the 32-bit Intel Atom kind of Acer Aspire One netbook. It has two cores:

1# cat /proc/cpuinfo 
2processor	: 0
3vendor_id	: GenuineIntel
4cpu family	: 6
5model		: 28
6model name	: Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N270   @ 1.60GHz
7stepping	: 2
8cpu MHz		: 800.000
9cache size	: 512 KB
10physical id	: 0
11siblings	: 2
12core id		: 0
13cpu cores	: 1
14apicid		: 0
15initial apicid	: 0
16fdiv_bug	: no
17hlt_bug		: no
18f00f_bug	: no
19coma_bug	: no
20fpu		: yes
21fpu_exception	: yes
22cpuid level	: 10
23wp		: yes
24flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl est tm2 ssse3 xtpr pdcm movbe lahf_lm
25bogomips	: 3193.03
26clflush size	: 64
27cache_alignment	: 64
28address sizes	: 32 bits physical, 32 bits virtual
29power management:
30
31processor	: 1
32vendor_id	: GenuineIntel
33cpu family	: 6
34model		: 28
35model name	: Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N270   @ 1.60GHz
36stepping	: 2
37cpu MHz		: 800.000
38cache size	: 512 KB
39physical id	: 0
40siblings	: 2
41core id		: 0
42cpu cores	: 1
43apicid		: 1
44initial apicid	: 1
45fdiv_bug	: no
46hlt_bug		: no
47f00f_bug	: no
48coma_bug	: no
49fpu		: yes
50fpu_exception	: yes
51cpuid level	: 10
52wp		: yes
53flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl est tm2 ssse3 xtpr pdcm movbe lahf_lm
54bogomips	: 3193.98
55clflush size	: 64
56cache_alignment	: 64
57address sizes	: 32 bits physical, 32 bits virtual
58power management: 

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/08/a-few … usted-retro-pc/

Expanded software compatibility makes this one more appealing to retro-computing enthusiasts since (like a vintage 386) it will do just about everything an 8088 can do, with the added benefit of a whole lot more speed and much better compatibility with seminal versions of Windows. It’s much more convenient to have all this hardware squeezed into a little laptop than in a big, clunky vintage desktop with slowly dying capacitors in it.

But as with the Book 8088, there are implementation problems. Some of them are dealbreakers. The Pocket 386 is still an interesting curio, but some of what’s broken makes it too unreliable and frustrating to really be usable as a vintage system once the novelty wears off.

Seems he was disappointed it had a 386 in it.

After many months, I’ve finally received my replacement battery, and my unit now works fully.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-08-02, 18:17:

Seems he was disappointed it had a 386 in it.

I guess I can sympathize a bit. I actually knew what the budget SOC 386 core was. If someone thought all the 386/486 era CPUs were basically the same it'd be a surprise.

But that's half the fun of it! It'd only be an issue if you were expecting to use it for work. And in that case hopefully you'd read the Wikipedia page first.

Also, they don't understand how USB v1.1 to PS/2 adapters work. For the record, a USB 1 compatible device and PS/2 adapter work fine (i.e. my original MS optical Intellimouse).

I can see complaining if it was 386sx16 speed, but despite being SX based it's the upper end of 386 performance, it's even gonna be faster than intel's fastest 386 on stuff that's internal calcs and doesn't read or write to RAM much. DX33 would beat it in much data chewing, DX25 might be a wash. Also reviewer seemed to give the impression he thought it was a lack of FPU that made it slow in Win95... though I think his unit having the GD-5422 maybe made it a bit laggier than it should have been.

(If you're gonna be like "that" the upper upper end of 386 performance is either Nexgen P90 or IBM BL3 at 120Mhz, which is roughly DX-2/80 486 speed, but nobody should have been expecting anything close with 386 in the name and no 4s or 5s.)

I wonder if the RAM is really upgradeable to 16MB? And it seems the graphics board can be changed quite easily, so there are a few upgrade opportunities. I wonder how responsive to questions the seller is?
I might have a go at making a KiCad schematic at some point.

It's less a case of add 8MB and more a case of re-implement the RAM with 16MB. It will do nothing for 386 appropriate stuff, and would make Win95 and office stuff slightly less bad, it's not gonna give it the 2 generations of CPU performance it hasn't got.

djsb wrote on 2024-08-03, 04:00:

I wonder if the RAM is really upgradeable to 16MB? And it seems the graphics board can be changed quite easily, so there are a few upgrade opportunities. I wonder how responsive to questions the seller is?
I might have a go at making a KiCad schematic at some point.

The system RAM? I can't remember the exact details but I think my takeaway was that it is not. My rational is likely somewhere in this thread, I wouldn't mind being wrong 😀. The graphics card is just a standard part though, if a single application socket.

Edit: Oh! Right. There is no larger sized part for the type of memory used in the Pocket. It's... a really odd choice although it *is* one of the types of memory used with the ALi and DM&P back in the day so it's possible they had a reference design that was copied. If you can figure out how to implement a different type of memory or know something pin compatible do tell!

If the full ISA slot is exposed (needs the internal mod, iirc), then the equiv of a bocaram AT could be added.

https://wiki.preterhuman.net/BOCARAM/AT

Ram expansion on 16bit isa bus.

Veeeery slow.

But its not like the cpu is lickety split either.
(In the case here, where the main use would be 'less swap hell' with win9x, the 'usefulness' threshold is 'data exchanged faster than via a disk controller'. Even with the 'basically guaranteed' 2 to 3 waitstates per op, and total bandwidth limitations of the ISA bus bringing this idea down like a 20lb ankle weight, it should still handily exceed that with the programmed io mode flash card this thing uses for storeage. Even if you just gobbled it up with xmsdsk and told windows to put its swap there (keeping programs out of that ram), it should still handily exceed this.)

It may be possible to create/combine a replacement vga + ram card, for the hidden 'under the board' socket.

Hi. I'm wondering if I should buy book8088 or pocket8086. What you think?

Mines just arrived. Was expecting additional customs charges (to the UK) etc, but nothing additional to pay. Serial port adaptor is included. Parallel port supports several modes in BIOS which is good. FDC beep is a bit annoying, but I can live with it until it can be removed. It's loaded with Windows 3.11 by default. Qbasic starts, as does SanDisk, defrag etc. It's running DOS 6.22. More this weekend as I try stuff on it. Can anyone suggest any basic games I can try and where to get them from? Thanks.

I do believe that if you go into BIOS, go to the screen that references the floppy drive, and disable that, you'll get rid of the beep. I think the beep is a warning about the missing 1.44, which obviously is not part of the default hardware setup.

jakfish wrote on 2024-08-06, 19:00:

I do believe that if you go into BIOS, go to the screen that references the floppy drive, and disable that, you'll get rid of the beep. I think the beep is a warning about the missing 1.44, which obviously is not part of the default hardware setup.

This is correct. I believe someone also posted a modded BIOS that sets that as default.

A modded BIOS, I hadn't heard of that. Is it tricky, bricky?

One weird thing about the R-38 motherboard issue, for some reason, the device is keeping better date/time b/w shut-offs and I have not broken the R-38. Have you broken off yours?

jakfish wrote on 2024-08-06, 19:09:

A modded BIOS, I hadn't heard of that. Is it tricky, bricky?

One weird thing about the R-38 motherboard issue, for some reason, the device is keeping better date/time b/w shut-offs and I have not broken the R-38. Have you broken off yours?

Modded BIOS is in this post, I haven’t used it myself: Re: Pocket 386, the brother of Hand386 and Book8088, the story so far ...

I haven’t popped R38 off mine yet, but I plan to soon.

Thanks for the link.

Does the R38 just pop off? Or is there more surgery needed (I stink at soldering)?

jakfish wrote on 2024-08-06, 19:20:

Thanks for the link.

Does the R38 just pop off? Or is there more surgery needed (I stink at soldering)?

Easiest way will almost certainly be to desolder, but I’ll can let you know if it looks like there is another way once I have mine apart. Unless someone else reports back before then.

Thanks again, and good luck to you when you attack.

polpo's last batch of picogus femtos had an issue with a dangerous 12v output in sound. I needed his fine work just for wifi, so sound to me wasn't impt. He showed me how to essentially drag a cutting device to physically terminate the connection between two nodes. That, I could handle, but the R38 seems more standalone than part of a bridge.

A number of times when I want surface mount components off, I just score around the solder with a blade, and then crack them off with pliers or leverage... if you're not careful you can lift pads and tracks like that though. Mostly I do it that way when there's a lot of heat sensitive stuff around it, or there's a lot of fine trace stuff I could get a stray blob of solder drop on and cause issues and take forever to clean up. Though there's two different types of careful there, tryna leave the board pristine, slice on the component side, tryna leave the component pristine, slice on the board side.... and the third, both need to live... microsurgery down the middle of the join 🤣