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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

#161

Post by diydsp »

coldtea wrote: post #136
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…

> No MMU, no FPU, no IP networking. Very limited CPU cycles and memory. Isn't that the whole point?

lol true. Although I would say: MMU bad, FPU good, IP bad. ;)

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

#162

Post by chem83 »

marttt wrote: post #118
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…

Have you tested SBEMU? I wonder how well or hassle-free it works in reality. I'm interested in creating a SvarDOS [1] machine for some tasks, inclding some low-end audio processing, probably with some custom "program". 1: http://svardos.org/

Some folks on YouTube have it running on laptops running FreeDOS. It’s not perfect, but many games seem to work.

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

#163

Post by nine_k »

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 the point of such devices is emphatically not daily computing. It's like saying you can go and buy a more evenly colored, stronger, cheaper, and less fiddly brick instead of a Rubik cube.

Equally, to me the point of devices like this, or fantasy consoles, or old limited machines is in being a puzzle, providing an intellectually stimulating pastime. Spending time on them is more fun and likely more useful in various senses than activities like solving Sudoku or watching TV.

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

#164

Post by ndiddy »

detrites wrote: post #105
etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #52

I just checked, and you can buy a new Intel 8086 on digikey right now: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/rochester-electro... The product is not even marked obsolete.

For $95?? Looks like there are equivalents for $10 available, though.

It's not straight from Intel, it's from a company called Rochester Electronics that buys EOL chip IP from a bunch of different companies and then makes their products available for legacy devices. They also make Motorola 6809s and 68000s.

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

#165

Post by II2II »

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 depends upon what you're trying to achieve.

To run software, emulation is great. To develop software, emulation is great. Anything that deals directly with hardware, well, emulation isn't going to cut it.

Then there are the other reasons, ones that have nothing to do with the hardware itself. Personally, I use vintage computers as an escape from modern computers and as a reminder of what the technology could have been. I'm not talking about it being slow, unreliable, or downright difficult to manage. I'm thinking more along the lines of being simple enough to understand and a lot more personal. A lot of what we call progress is a mixed bag. Yes, the performance of modern computers is amazing and it comes at the cost of complexity. On the other hand, we have a lot of complexity that is not necessary for day to day use. Yes, having access to a literal world of information at our fingertips is amazing. On the other hand, our computers are also at the whim of the outside world. In other words, there are a lot of tradeoffs.

For some things, emulation is the perfect solution. For other things, it simply won't work.

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

#166

Post by cat_plus_plus »

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…

Early software was designed to feel as fast as possible, even resorting to hacks like temporarily turning off DRAM refresh to write text on the screen as quickly as possible. Though hardware was very limited, when you pressed a key you generally got a response right away.

Fast forward to 2023, and everything runs on top of a non-realtime multitasking OS, causing periodic little glitches as background stuff hogs up resources. Graphics is too complicated to guarantee consistent 60 frames per second. And web is incrementally loaded from shared servers, often with delays of many seconds. Animations introduce intentional lag.

Modern hardware could be of course amazing at being fast, but nobody put in the effort into software designed for that goal. Plus obsession with device thinness and fanless designs introduces thermal throttling that no software can overcome.

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

#167

Post by wildzzz »

etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #52

I just checked, and you can buy a new Intel 8086 on digikey right now: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/rochester-electro... The product is not even marked obsolete.

Rochester Electronics marks them as obsolete. I doubt these are brand new, more than likely they are old stock.

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

#168

Post by ndiddy »

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…

9 out of 10 "new old stock" chips on sites like Alibaba are harvested from ewaste. The "recycling" process generally involves workers holding old circuit boards over open fires to melt the solder, and then banging the boards against the ground to knock the chips out. After that, the recyclers sand off the old chip markings, cover the tops of the chips with a tar-like material, and laser on new chip markings (this makes sure that when you buy 100 chips from a seller, they all have the same markings and date code). Since they're applying new markings, they can also take the liberty of making the chips into more expensive versions, such as by increasing the rated clock speed or by labeling consumer versions of chips as milspec or radiation hardened versions. This may be fine if you just want an old chip for a hobby project or something, but for repairing military equipment you want chips with a verifiable chain of custody.

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

#170

Post by 2b3a51 »

myth_drannon wrote: post #153
gbear605 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Emacs? Keyboard lag? Is that with some kind of LSP or other itegration?

I find that Emacs keyboard responsiveness on text (on a 17 year old core duo laptop) is indistinguishable from vi or nano.

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