Yes it looks very much like that, 1 cable for 8 bit,2 for 16, it sort of mimics normal ISA connectors with the orignal 8 bit section & and additional part for 16 bit,
like the pocket 386, but I think this one is 0.1" pitch? where the pocket386 is 2mm.
You have just made me think, as its a different pitch connector ideally a new ISA adapter would be needed
the pocket 386 one: https://www.tindie.com/products/cycle/pocket3 … expansion-card/
would be awkward to use, youd need some sort of 2mm to 0.1" cable....

Mine also isn't marked as dispatched yet...

Some 16MB 30pinn SIMM sticks on ebay use KM44C16100 (16MB x 4 bit).

So for a 386sx, 64MB, that would be 8x chips total, 2x per CAS (8bit RAM stick), 4x per RAS (bank).

You could run Windows 98 with that amount of RAM, but a 386sx without cache or a 486 upgrade CPU is not a good experience IMO

Yoghoo wrote on 2026-07-27, 20:46:

My order status is still: Your package is waiting to be picked up by the carrier. So will take a couple of weeks until it arrives I guess.

A bit worried since the guy confirmed he doesn't ship to EU due to "missing certification", so not sure what will happen, but hey, fingers crossed.

By the way the 16MB of RAM should open the door also to 95 OSR2, FAT32, large disk, etc. Any experience with Ontrack/EZDrive? (from the FreeDOS discussion, it seems that int13x does not work on this BIOS, but it does do eCHS translation at least).

So did you go for the tindie 8086 store? or DZTs aliexpress?
I bought form DZTs store & is now marked as dispatched.
who knows ! Ive seen customs stop one off prototypes form China for no real reason! My pocket386 came through with no issue..

From what you can tell in a screenshot the BIOS looks like it will prob be the same, still I guess the vendor could have included more support, would they change the version number if they did?? 😁
Im ok with just 8GB!
They are specifically mentioning that it now has an IDE controller and I think I may have got the wrong end of the stick there, I thought they might be using the controller in the M5113 IO controller IC, now im not sure if they are using this or the one built in to the M6117, lots of the bus connections etc are common to both anyway. Some form of faster data transfer would be nice like DMA, the M6117 only supports PIO and how fast the 386 do it, it looks to be like the transfer rates are below the max for the PIO modes....: Of course the drive has great access times, & the data transfer rates seem to be higher than a typical IDE drive from the 386 era, its still a long way below what the CF cards can do...
My test results vary wildly from one bit of test software to the next....

Now ive looked again, I think what they mean by IDE44 connector is that the motherboard does actually have the same ribbon cable connection as a standard IDE drive, EDIT2! the IDE44 internal connector appears to be 2mmpitch! Oh well....the pinout seems the same, so you could , if you liked, plug in a real spinning drive, not sure why you would! unless you can plug in its IDE compact flash adapter PCB at the same time in a master/slave arrangement & copy things over...
EDIT(actually, thiking about it, the real IDE connector would allow you to plug in a CDROM and the compact flash at the same time..... though it would be physically a bit awkward)

Jules_nerd wrote on 2026-07-28, 15:30:

So did you go for the tindie 8086 store? or DZTs aliexpress?
I bought form DZTs store & is now marked as dispatched.
who knows ! Ive seen customs stop one off prototypes form China for no real reason! My pocket386 came through with no issue..

I went for Tindie. It's marked as shipped now so it seems I worried too son.

Jules_nerd wrote on 2026-07-28, 15:30:

From what you can tell in a screenshot the BIOS looks like it will prob be the same, still I guess the vendor could have included more support, would they change the version number if they did??

I am sure it will be the same, that's why one will likely need Ontrack or the like for int13x.
8GB was getting a bit tight for me specially if I add an NT partition.
Not sure if the pain of Ontrack is going to be worth the hassle. Obviously it would be better to fix the BIOS with an XT-IDE option ROM or the like, in the same way one could add "boot from USB", but hey...
By the way the BIOS does show up sizes of CFs of at least 16GB, but as far as I can see int13x is not enabled.

Jules_nerd wrote on 2026-07-28, 15:30:

They are specifically mentioning that it now has an IDE controller and I think I may have got the wrong end of the stick there, I thought they might be using the controller in the M5113 IO controller IC, now im not sure if they are using this or the one built in to the M6117, lots of the bus connections etc are common to both anyway. Some form of faster data transfer would be nice like DMA, the M6117 only supports PIO and how fast the 386 do it, it looks to be like the transfer rates are below the max for the PIO modes....: Of course the drive has great access times, & the data transfer rates seem to be higher than a typical IDE drive from the 386 era, its still a long way below what the CF cards can do...

I have not figured out the point of M5113. Maybe it's just the floppy controller ? Using it for ATA would be very weird , since the builtin one is going to be better no matter what ...
Considering that the interface to the CPU/SoC has to be ISA no matter what, can it possibly do anything other than PIO ? ISA-DMA for an HDD would be crazy. Correct me if wrong but I think no such thing even exists (albeit if it does, I bet it is mentioned here in vogons somewhere....).

The M5113 certainly gives it a better parallel port than the pocket386 - having 74 series ICs directly connected to the outside world isnt great (other than specific line driver ICs), the M5113 should have much better drive and protection, together with support for faster modes.
It gets a thumbs up from me for that alone! Its prob made the designers life a little easier having the 16550 UARTS built i as well.

I guess we are stuck with whatever IDE interface we are given! Yes I think you are right, that M5113 is an ISA multi IO controller chip I think?? I did find a datasheet on it, foolishly I didnt save it and cant find it now!!, so whatever it does is prob via the ISA bus... which has pretty awful DMA capabilities....
I suppose DMA for IDE was prob only introduced on chipsets that gave motherboards their own IDE channels...
Its a bit awkward with this M6117 in that yeah, its a 386sx, but it seems it was developed quite late and so has some tech features that are usually thought of as after the 386 - Im pretty sure EDO was more 486 era for example....

M5113 datasheet from the wayback machine archive of http://m6117d.com
unfortunately in that archive I haven't found a better M6117 datasheet (looks identical to the one we have to me) or any info that fills in any blanks, but there may be something in there somewhere...

He's also selling now the ISA slots compatible with the book386 's newer socket pitch. It seems they're 16 bit slots this time.
https://www.tindie.com/products/cycle/book386 … expansion-card/

javispedro1 wrote on 2026-07-30, 10:41:

He's also selling now the ISA slots compatible with the book386 's newer socket pitch. It seems they're 16 bit slots this time.
https://www.tindie.com/products/cycle/book386 … expansion-card/

There is also an unassembled board available now: https://www.tindie.com/products/cycle/book386 … nsion-card-kit/

It's quite a bit cheaper and something I would buy. Curious if the third ISA slot would also work if you soldered one on it.

Edit: cable layout is almost the same as the ISA slot. I only see IRQ12 on a different place and 1 missing +5V.

thanks for the heads up, Ive ordered a kit, its very cheap, I couldn't buy the parts from a UK source for that, never mind the PCB...
I wonder if the Berg power connector footprint is an output for a floppy drive? Or an external power input? time will tell..
Ive been a bit puzzled by ISA slot adapters with an option for external power sources, it cant be good if you have the host power supply coming up at different times to the external PSU?
You could end up with one trying to power the other through the bus drivers outputs and the input protection diodes of the un-powered device, rather like the pocket386s issue on the parallel port....
I presume the host keeps the ISA bus reset signal held up until its PSU is stable?? and a well behaved expansion card would keep its outputs tristated, but doesnt that only partially help with external power??

Jules_nerd wrote on 2026-07-30, 13:30:

I wonder if the Berg power connector footprint is an output for a floppy drive? Or an external power input? time will tell..

It's not for the floppy drive as it's not needed. See the screenshot from the manual.

Yoghoo wrote on 2026-07-30, 14:10:

It's not for the floppy drive as it's not needed. See the screenshot from the manual.

I guess we don't know if that adapter is included in the package ? I was just wondering that now.

Thinking that a Gotek may very well be a replacement for the lack of USB boot.

Thanks, I really should RTFM shouldn't I? 😁
I have just read it!
Yeah, there doesn't seem to be a list of "what's in the package".
The floppy drive interface is a nice addition, though now Ive got used to the process of setting things up on x86box and transferring images for the pocket386, Im not sure how much Ill use a floppy drive...

As the third ISA footprint is labelled up, perhaps that and the power connector are just there as breakout for experimenters to do their own ad hoc use of the bus?

And the floppy cable has just appeared on sale https://www.tindie.com/products/cycle/book386 … dapter-22p-34p/ ,
I guess answering my question on whether it is included or not.

well, the soundcard is listed separately... and that's of no/little use in anything else, I certainly hope that its included in the one I bought!
The tracking says mine should be with me in a few days, though I'm expecting it to take longer with customs etc...

Ive just been looking to see if there is a packing list or similar, I cant see one, but I did notice on the schematics a the memory connections are all OK, perhaps i was looking at the memory on the graphics card schems! 😁

I just received the book386 today. No floppy interface is included. Also received a charger with an US plug instead of an EU plug.

On the bright side I didn't have to pay any VAT or other import charges for the laptop. So it was pretty cheap.

Will play with it a bit more later but the speakers sounded pretty good and the display looks okay.

Congrats on your duty free!
Is the 3d printed case OK?
Is it a 640x480 display? 800x600? or dare i hope for the 1024x768 they put on the onechip book?
Any sign of the BIOS reset issues the pocket386 had? I expect that to have been dealt with looking at the reset ccts.
Mine is still on a plane winging its way to the UK, so it seems that the Tindie shipping isnt any slower, at least in this case? i bought mine on the 24th?
of course who knows how fast its passage through customs will be....

Jules_nerd wrote on 2026-08-04, 17:05:

Congrats on your duty free! Is the 3d printed case OK? Is it a 640x480 display? 800x600? or dare i hope for the 1024x768 they pu […]
Show full quote

Congrats on your duty free!
Is the 3d printed case OK?
Is it a 640x480 display? 800x600? or dare i hope for the 1024x768 they put on the onechip book?
Any sign of the BIOS reset issues the pocket386 had? I expect that to have been dealt with looking at the reset ccts.
Mine is still on a plane winging its way to the UK, so it seems that the Tindie shipping isnt any slower, at least in this case? i bought mine on the 24th?
of course who knows how fast its passage through customs will be....

3D printed case is OK. You can clearly see it's 3D printed (if you know what to look for) and I could 3D print it better myself but it feels sturdy.

It can display 640x480 and 800x600. But I couldn't get 1024x768 to work. Not really a problem for me as the screen is not too big and it can only output 16 colors at that resolution even if it would work.

What is exactly the BIOS reset issue? I did have a problem that it would reset the date and time but other settings seemed okay. Another problem I found is that some programs like NSSI, CheckIT and HWINFO crashed or hanged when detecting the CPU. Only ASTRA worked correctly but showed a Cyrix CPU if I remember correctly.

It came with a 1GB CF card btw which I replaced with a 4GB CF card without problems. Created 2*2GB partitions and did a clean install of DOS and Windows 3.11. All games tested sofar worked okay.

S0 does it look OK at 800x600? like its the native screen resolution? Yeah I get you with 512K ram on the video card... and if you have the GD5420 chip then its 256 colour max at any resolution...
Ive just tried a few benchmark utilities on the pocket386, some detect it ok, one thought it was a 386DX, some said no info....
I was trying them on the pocket386 so I could try benchmark against the Book 386 when it arrives, mainly to see if the memory speed is different - my pocket386 is fitted with 50nS EDO... I cant tell yet what the Book386 has?

The BIOS reset issue was that randomly after power cycle the pocket386 would lose the date/time, or just keep poor time (far worse than your would expect from my measurements of the RTC crystal)
Sometimes it would also reset the BIOS settings to default, like no mouse, floppy installed etc so you got annoying POST fail beeps & had to change the BIOS settings back...
I traced it down to an oversimplified power on reset circuit in the pocket386, but the designer has implemented something v similar to my solution so I expect it to be OK now - or at least better if not fixed,
Though I notice in the manual there is a list of issues, one is it resetting when you remove the power supply with low battery levels, this will be this new reset chip triggering with any dip it detects in the supply voltage (I found similar issues with my 'fix' for the pocket386)- though the IC does have immunity to very brief drops & there is a cap on the output of the chip in the cct dias, presumably to help further....

Incidentally, he has also re-vamped the PSU circuits in general, looks like there is better monitoring of battery charge state... current limiting ICs on the power to external devices, USB, etc etc...