The speaker discusses two retro PCs, the Book8088 and the Hand386, which were briefly available for purchase on Aliexpress. Despite their intriguing retro aesthetic, the speaker admits that he regrets purchasing them as they are no longer in stock.
The Book8088 is a DOS PC running on an 8088 processor. It comes with a red power button, a 12-volt power adapter, a breakout ISA extender, and a sound board containing a Yamaha OPL3, the YMF262. The PC runs on a 4000mAh lithium-ion battery, and its design falls in line with the trend of subnotebook and palmtop PCs of the early to mid 90s. However, the speaker criticizes the LCD's dimness, reflectivity, and narrow viewing angles. The Book8088 also comes with an external ISA bus expansion board, which allows for the addition of various I/O interfaces.
The Hand386, on the other hand, is a DOS PC running on a 386SX processor. It comes with a USB power adapter and cable, an I/O board, and rechargeable batteries. The speaker criticizes the Hand386's soft and wide display output, its mushy keyboard, and the lack of an integrated mouse. However, the Hand386 does have ports for a proper keyboard, mouse, and monitor, which the speaker considers its saving grace.
The speaker concludes by expressing disappointment with both PCs due to their lack of user-friendly features and the fact that they are more proof of concept than finalized products. He suggests that if the two were combined, it would create a more desirable product. Despite this, he acknowledges the appeal of these Aliexpress systems for retro tech enthusiasts.
1. The document discusses two retro PCs, the Book8088 and the Hand386, which were briefly available for purchase on platforms like Aliexpress.
2. These PCs are not emulation boxes, but rather DOS PCs running on an 8088 and 386SX processor.
3. Each system uses legacy chips on custom PCBs, melded with various open source projects, off-the-shelf components, and injection-molded enclosures.
4. The Book8088 and Hand386 combine every homebrew project in the enthusiast retro computing hobby over the past several years into attractive palmtop/handheld cases.
5. The Book8088 and Hand386 were sold at a price of 1399 Chinese Yuan each, roughly equivalent to 196 dollars US apiece.
6. The Book8088 includes the computer itself, a little red power button, and a 12-volt power adapter. It also comes with a breakout ISA extender and a sound board containing a Yamaha OPL3 and the YMF262.
7. The Hand386 comes with itself, a USB power adapter and cable, an I/O board which breaks out PS/2 keyboard and mouse, and VGA. It also includes rechargeable batteries and is held together with Philips head screws.
8. The Book8088 is effectively a Turbo XT PC in a clamshell case, running an NEC V20, clocked at either 4.77 or 8MHz, with 640K system RAM and 32 kilobyte CGA graphics.
9. The Book8088 has a 7-inch color LCD panel at a 16:9 aspect ratio, a generic Windows keyboard, and a USB on the left-hand side used exclusively as a CH375B USB storage interface.
10. The Hand386 is closer to a Nintendo 2DS or a Pocket Popcorn computer, with a 5-inch display that is vibrant with wider viewing angles.
11. The Hand386 has a mushy, tactile keyboard that is not useful for anything other than slowly pecking in commands.
12. The Hand386 has a CF interface, packing a 2 gig card from the get-go, and boots up using an American Megatrends BIOS from the mid-90s and an operating system to match: Windows 95.
13. The Hand386 has a 40MHz embedded 386SX with a 16-bit data bus, 8 megabytes of RAM, and Chips & Technology F65535 graphics with a meg of video memory.
14. The Hand386 lacks Sound Blaster compatibility, so it's AdLib and PC speaker only.
15. The document concludes by stating that the Book8088 is more "usable" due to its keyboard and size, while the Hand386 has more potential for use, being the faster machine with more I/O.
16. The document suggests that if the two were combined to create a 386 PC in a clamshell case with more ports, then it would result in something like the Palmtop PCs from the '90s.