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A $200 mini-laptop with a Intel 8088 chip and 640KB

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Re: A $200 mini-laptop with a Intel 8088 chip and 640KB

#141

Post by myth_drannon »

kitsunesoba wrote: post #38

A "real hardware" approach to retrocomputing like displayed here appeals to me because it much better captures parts of the experience lost to emulation. Things like insanely low latency thanks to there not being a fractal spiral of hardware and software abstractions sitting between everything. It's much more simple, and you can feel that. That said I'd also like to see some modern advancements brought in… for exampl…

The latency issue is very real. I work in Linux, Mac and Windows on fairly fast computers and programming in VSCode is so annoying because of the latency . On my 486 in Borland Turbo C++ ide, I click on a key and I see it instantaneous.

Of course if you never tried it, you wouldn't notice the difference and think I have some sort of OCD. But it is really noticable. I don't know if it's 100ms or 200 ms but there is a difference.

Re: A $200 mini-laptop with a Intel 8088 chip and 640KB

#142

Post by zhte415 »

pmontra wrote: post #104
userbinator wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, at least the military version appears to still be in active production, but not cheap: https://www.rocelec.com/part/HARMD80C88-2-883 The 8087 too: https://www.rocelec.com/part/REILD8087 I suspect the ones in this laptop are either NOS or recycled, however.

Ouch. "Not cheap" didn't prepare me to see a per unit price of $1,329.27, or $1,222.92 for 1000+ batches.

I read your comment and thought that can't be a unit of 1, it must be a typo and a batch of 1000.

Then I clicked the link.

But that can't be. Don't they appear in all kinds of things now, from washing machines to fire alarms? So I checked Alibaba, which has 8088s from $0.3 - $2. [1]

I'm confused why the military version is three orders of magnitude more expensive.

[1] https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?fsb=y&IndexArea=product...

Re: A $200 mini-laptop with a Intel 8088 chip and 640KB

#143

Post by icedchai »

saltminer wrote: post #76
icedchai wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there something wrong with using a VM?

In theory, no, but if you're using an AMD Ryzen CPU, there's some nasty bugs related to VME instructions (which AMD appears to have no intention of fixing) that break some DOS-based applications, including Windows 3, 9x, and probably the other DOS-based Windows versions as well but I never tried them. NT-based Windows works, though early versions do not perform as well as they do on Intel (my R7 1700 and 5700X run Wi…

Good to know! You could run qemu without hardware virtualization. For old apps, I doubt you'll notice the performance loss.

Re: A $200 mini-laptop with a Intel 8088 chip and 640KB

#144

Post by yitchelle »

wang_li wrote: post #7

As a nerd of a certain age I’ve been deeply attracted to retro computing. Even going so far as to place bids on 30 year old Atari STs on eBay since that was a computer I had in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s. But in recent days, through the use of modern emulators I’ve dabbled in these retro systems and I’ve come to the conclusion that they’re just bad. They are fine for the enjoyment of certain games and reliving or just…

But what is it that you want to do with these retro computers beside playing Wolf3D? As you mentioned even the most basic of RPi can run the pants of the Atari ST machines, so it is hardly a fair usage of the computer if you want to do modern tasks.

Re: A $200 mini-laptop with a Intel 8088 chip and 640KB

#145

Post by pdimitar »

That would be interesting but MS-DOS? Absolutely not.

I'm having much more fun tinkering in Linux on a 150 EUR Chinese laptop with a fairly anemic CPU.

If there's an itch for retro computing I'll just use an emulator.

The only thing I'd probably enjoy using old tech for would be stochastic super-optimization of programs i.e. to find the very best combination of machine code that executes a certain algorithm maximally fast or with minimum memory.

Re: A $200 mini-laptop with a Intel 8088 chip and 640KB

#146

Post by steelframe »

rzzzt wrote: post #92
jandrese wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an 8088, not a 80286! This one isn't even 16 bit.

There were 8088 variants rated for 8+ MHz, motherboards supporting them had independent oscillators for the CPU and the ISA bus and you could switch speeds with software or a keyboard shortcut. Maybe also a button?

I owned one. The combo was Ctrl-Alt-Minus.

There were a lot of DOS games that were designed to run at exactly 4.77Mhz. The gameplay and music would run at 2x if you enabled turbo mode.

Re: A $200 mini-laptop with a Intel 8088 chip and 640KB

#147

Post by pachico »

wang_li wrote: post #7

As a nerd of a certain age I’ve been deeply attracted to retro computing. Even going so far as to place bids on 30 year old Atari STs on eBay since that was a computer I had in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s. But in recent days, through the use of modern emulators I’ve dabbled in these retro systems and I’ve come to the conclusion that they’re just bad. They are fine for the enjoyment of certain games and reliving or just…

I think I will always start my sentences with "As a nerd of a certain age," now. It will give so much more context to all my conversations :)

Re: A $200 mini-laptop with a Intel 8088 chip and 640KB

#149

Post by userbinator »

ianai wrote: post #140
NovaDudely wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It always stuck with me when announcing the Virtual Console on Wii U that Satoru Iwata said it perfectly "It can be fun to relive your childhood but just for a little while". It is fun to look back but we tend to forgive a lot of things that kind of sucked. It is like how some people who live through Hurricanes and then a decade later speak about how fun it was coming together even though it was just horrible. Memori…

Definitely, I always felt just a tinge of bad for how awful I was at the original Super Mario brothers. The NES and SNES games. After playing them on the classic consoles as an adult I realized they were just unforgiving and let my youthful self forgive that. I’ve done much better on the newer Mario games. SMB3 though really does shine.

There's even a name for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_hard

Re: A $200 mini-laptop with a Intel 8088 chip and 640KB

#150

Post by userbinator »

zhte415 wrote: post #142
pmontra wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ouch. "Not cheap" didn't prepare me to see a per unit price of $1,329.27, or $1,222.92 for 1000+ batches.

I read your comment and thought that can't be a unit of 1, it must be a typo and a batch of 1000. Then I clicked the link. But that can't be. Don't they appear in all kinds of things now, from washing machines to fire alarms? So I checked Alibaba, which has 8088s from $0.3 - $2. [1] I'm confused why the military version is three orders of magnitude more expensive. [1] https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?fsb=y&IndexA…

Because military.

I doubt there's actual 8088s being used in consumer products; it's mostly military (and someone else mentioned avionics in another comment here) applications that require exact qualified parts, and can't be replaced with something else. Alibaba's are probably recycled or NOS.

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