Hi, I do have a PC10 I do currently work with.
Pictures are here: Forum 64

Jo22 wrote on 2026-02-01, 10:38:

Hi, I do have a PC10 I do currently work with.
Pictures are here: Forum 64

Nice. I don't see any pics of the actual machine there (just of the monitor attached to it). Is it looking like this:

https://youtu.be/ddtIAGBfrXM?si=K71pf2aoz1Q6DR3l

If so, it seems to be a nice compact machine. Do you just use it for games, as shown in your photos?

Triage of my "xt" machines.

Kekkula wrote on 2026-02-01, 12:18:

Triage of my "xt" machines.

Oh, wow. That Euro PC looks amazing. Never heard of that. Now that is a compact XT machine!

What do you use these for?

I have two.

The first one is BB-88, that I made on breadboards.

V20 and 8087, not entirely PC-compatible, but mostly.
There's a project description on my website, as well as a few posts about parts of the build: https://www.alrj.org/pages/bb-88.html
The video adapter is entirely homebrew. It outputs a VGA signal, but looks a bit like CGA internally (this helps a lot for DOS applications).

I have used it to write a BASIC interpreter (ported Palo-Alto Tiny Basic to x86) and a game of Tetris. It runs MS-DOS (3.30 is my favorite on this computer). I did Advent of Code 2020 on it, in TurboC++. I made Minix run on it.

The second is an Xi8088. I don't use it much, but I still did Advent of Code 2025 in Turbo Pascal on it. The fun part was mostly building it and soldering all the boards (except SVGA, which is a Trident).

alrj wrote on 2026-02-01, 12:54:

I have two.

The first one is BB-88, that I made on breadboards.

Oh, wow. I love this. I have dabbled in electronics, but this is far beyond my level. The video adapter sounds especially interesting.

alrj wrote on 2026-02-01, 12:54:

The second is an Xi8088. I don't use it much, but I still did Advent of Code 2025 in Turbo Pascal on it. The fun part was mostly building it and soldering all the boards (except SVGA, which is a Trident).

This also looks great. I love the idea of building my own from a kit some day. I guess the longer I wait, the harder it will be to find the parts!

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2026-02-01, 12:35:

Kekkula wrote on 2026-02-01, 12:18:

Triage of my "xt" machines.

Oh, wow. That Euro PC looks amazing. Never heard of that. Now that is a compact XT machine!

What do you use these for?

Well...
Euro pc doesn't get much use these days, it has only 512k memory and only one isa slot. Isa slot goes to xt-ide card so getting sound gets complicated. Answer would be picomem but I haven't got around getting one. One neat feature the machine has up it's sleeve is plantronics support so it's got "16 color cga".
Olivetti is also kinda hard to use machine because I don't have original monitor or keyboard for it. I've made adapter cable and profile for rgbtohdmi but it's a hack. For keyboard I have also made adapter but in default layout delete and other special keys don't work, and I always forgot how to change the layout.
Best most compatible machine is the commodore, it's now my goto xt machine. It has plenty of free isa slots and 640k memory, and also plantronics capable graphics chip. So I've equipped it with xt-ide, picogus and now I'm testing ega card with it.
What to do with xt class machine... I dunno... not much. It's mostly too slow for anything 🤪. But fun machine to tinker.

Kekkula wrote on 2026-02-01, 14:36:

Well...
Euro pc doesn't get much use these days, it has only 512k memory and only one isa slot. Isa slot goes to xt-ide card so getting sound gets complicated. Answer would be picomem but I haven't got around getting one. One neat feature the machine has up it's sleeve is plantronics support so it's got "16 color cga".

Ah, ok. It's still a cool device to have. I see there is an ISA extender for this device.

https://ebay.us/m/wMKup1

alrj wrote on 2026-02-01, 12:54:

Olivetti is also kinda hard to use machine because I don't have original monitor or keyboard for it. I've made adapter cable and profile for rgbtohdmi but it's a hack. For keyboard I have also made adapter but in default layout delete and other special keys don't work, and I always forgot how to change the layout.

Hmm. That's unfortunate. Its a nice looking machine though.

alrj wrote on 2026-02-01, 12:54:

Best most compatible machine is the commodore, it's now my goto xt machine. It has plenty of free isa slots and 640k memory, and also plantronics capable graphics chip. So I've equipped it with xt-ide, picogus and now I'm testing ega card with it.
What to do with xt class machine... I dunno... not much. It's mostly too slow for anything 🤪. But fun machine to tinker.

Lol. Yeah. Very slow. That's what fascinates me really. It's so slow that you can almost see it "think". Haha. The limitations of it's speed mean that the software you can write for it must be simpler, and you must be aware of how the machine functions in order to make efficient use of it. Also, interfacing to it via the ISA bus is within the possibilities of a keen hobbyist (Ive seen prototyping boards for this on ebay). As you say, its a nice platform for tinkering.