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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

#151

Post by don-code »

lloeki wrote: post #124
okasaki wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that didn't suck that we threw away was 4:3 screens though. And chunky plastic builds with easily user-replaceable parts. And nice full 7 row keyboards that felt good to type on. And rounded laptop edges so it doesn't kill your wrists. And ports, lots of ports.

> 4:3 screens The 16:9 craze drives me mad: it's jack of all trades master of none, compromise every other way. Maybe nice to watch TV shows, not really good to watch movies, not tall enough for a single screen, not wide enough to 50:50 split left/right (each side is too narrow). Putting two side by side makes you face the bezels, and constant-tilt your head either left or right when you focus. Three side by side is…

I actually do use three 24" 16:9 screens, side by side. Though small by anyone else's standards, 24" is sort of the perfect size for the three monitor setup. It doesn't make me strain my neck _too_ much, but also isn't so gargantuan that I can't fit three on my 5-foot desk.

I split each monitor down the middle, treating it essentially as a viewport for two windows. Optionally I sometimes fill one screen with a single window, but I never overlap screens. On my home computer running Linux (Cinnamon) this functionality is built in; on my work laptop running macOS, I use Rectangle to accomplish the same thing.

I did have three 19" 4:3 CRTs, way back when - beautiful Sun Trinitrons. They took up the entire desk, but I could conveniently stack equipment on top of them (speakers, a clock, an FM radio, etc), because they were so large. But my workflow for those was different - each monitor _was_ a single window, as splitting them resulted in windows that were too narrow to be useful.

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

#152

Post by gbear605 »

myth_drannon wrote: post #141
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…

Trying any editor other than VSCode might help; it’s notoriously slow.

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

#153

Post by myth_drannon »

gbear605 wrote: post #152
myth_drannon wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Trying any editor other than VSCode might help; it’s notoriously slow.

Emacs is the same. I'm not talking about slow loading time or changing tabs which I understand. It's the act of clicking on a key.

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

#154

Post by Zardoz84 »

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.

Super Mario Bros 3 is the BEST Mario, imo

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

#155

Post by raron »

myth_drannon wrote: post #141
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…

Well, maybe web and javascript is not the best tool to create an IDE with.

Do you feel the same latency with eg. Notepad++, Qt Creator, or Kate?

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

#156

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

userbinator wrote: post #149
ianai wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The difficulty helped hide the fact that you were paying $50 in 1980s money for a game that took approximately an hour to beat. If you could beat it. But I suspect the more common gameplay loop was the one I and my friends encountered: you put the game in, played for 20-35 minutes, got a Game Over. If you were really motivated maybe you tried again and got to Stage 4 instead of Stage 3, but at some point said, screw it, turned the game off, and played something else.

These days every game is made with the intention that it can and should be beaten, which is part of why there's so much needless padding in games to stretch them out beyond the 40-hour mark and make the player feel like they're getting "value" for their money.

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

#157

Post by argiopetech »

NovaDudely wrote: post #115
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…

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…

For what it's worth, as a born and raised Floridian, hurricanes are always fun before (laughing as people panic buy, watching the track, wondering if it will turn at the last moment or unexpectedly linger on top of you), during (admiring the wind/rain, wondering if we'll have to run the generator this year), and after (marvelling at the damage, having a good excuse to run the chainsaw, wondering when we can stop running the generator); and that's not even considering how much fun road trips can be when you have to evacuate.

OTOH, maybe I'm just weird.

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

#158

Post by nine_k »

okasaki wrote: post #112
inconceivable wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nearly all of the old stuff just sucked. there's a reason we threw it all away (for the most part) and have turned to emulation. the new low power SoC systems with actual connectivity are much more interesting... probably why they can barely keep the stuff in stock. as a bonus, they can run emulation just fine. old, and new, in one package.

One thing that didn't suck that we threw away was 4:3 screens though. And chunky plastic builds with easily user-replaceable parts. And nice full 7 row keyboards that felt good to type on. And rounded laptop edges so it doesn't kill your wrists. And ports, lots of ports.

There an easy fix for the sharp edges on laptops: don't buy macbooks.

Nearly any desktop has user-replaceable parts, and so do many laptops. Laptops get to be compact and lightweight, so they are very tight internally. An Amiga wasn't too easily portable, to say nothing of an Amstrad.

Keyboard quality differed drastically: an Amiga or a Yamaha MSX had nice keys, but good luck typing on a Spectrum ZX.

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

#159

Post by chem83 »

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #131
chem83 wrote: post #34

DOS emulation is not a very battery-efficient way to play '88-98 games on the go, so projects like these seem to cater to that specific need, letting people run DOS natively. The Toshiba Libretto was a nice, small machine, but finding one in good condition is super hard. Toshiba Portégé was another, but after Pentium-II models, they took away the OPL3 card in favor of something more Windows-friendly (AC97), which doe…

> DOS emulation is not a very battery-efficient way to play '88-98 games on the go They don't mention the battery capacity or specific 8086 variant used but modern ones use to average 2W of consumption; there are zero power saving modes; and the guy even says that when using 8087 the mini-laptop must "be plugged in all the time". So I rather doubt real hardware is the most efficient way, specially when e.g. with virt…

20+ hours playing games with audio support on a VM? I’d love to see that kind of performance on, say, the GPD Win 4, but it sounds exaggerated. Where could I find this?

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

#160

Post by reaperducer »

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…

They are fine for the enjoyment of certain games and reliving or just getting a reminder of my younger years. Yet these home computers of that era lack so much. No MMU, no FPU, no IP networking. Very limited CPU cycles and memory.

People just had more patience back then.

45 minutes to LHARC my text file? Sure, I'll talk to my wife.

Four hours to download an ILBM? OK. I'll read a book.

Today we're so used to living at the business end of a digital firehose that if something takes too many clock cycles we walk away. Some people can't even sit in a chair in their own homes without having music on.

That 95% of the retro computing scene seems devoted to games tells me that people just crave a quick hit of digital content and then move on.

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