@26:48 You can use the subst command to assign a folder to a drive letter. for example: your sound galaxy drivers are located in a folder called C:\SDgalaxy simply enter the command subst a: c:\sdgalaxy that folder will then be assigned to the A: drive, making the OS think a disk is inserted in the A: drive. the command subst a: /d will delete the A: assignment.
Its lovely that you're trying to help folks affected by the fires. Related to this and the retro computer scene in general is the fact that there's an indigenous Hawaiian game dev who goes by the handle Silver Spook. They made a point-and-click adventure game called NeoFeud, which enthusiastically leans into the "punk" aspect of cyberpunk instead of making the player work for the cops(which is the most anti-punk thing ever).
Hello, I bought the book 8088 on black friday and have been playing around with it, I had similar 'no signal' issues with some of my expansion cards and noticed that the only documented voltages were +5v and +12v. On a hunch I used a voltage blaster from another project to feed -5v and the 'no signal' issue went away. I know for sure than the soundblaster you used needs -5v, and from my experience the no signal issue happened on all the cards that required that voltage.
A very thorough review of this machine! Enjoyed it! Nicely done! I wish they would make one of these with a true 640x480 LCD, VGA, and a 486 or something similar to cover the later era of DOS games.
They do make a "hand386" that is kind of like what you describe. www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005542582463.html&ved=2ahUKEwiI5Nuil9uAAxUSIDQIHUIUCsMQFnoECBIQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0d-BssaPiZSjDzN9QUeY0w
It looks like a fun little device. Good call on using the open source ROM! The thing that would drive me crazy is the 16:9 screen. What were they thinking?? And so tiny too! They could have added a larger 4:3 screen and it would have been fantastic.
Exactly, the widescreen (with even wider picture displayed - wtf?) is a real pain to look at, it is so much wrong... The screen definitely should have been 4:3, not this abomination. There's just one problem - CGA has anamorphous pixels - 5:12 exactly. in 320px modes they double to 5:6, and no one makes displays with such pixels. So, the developer could either try and order a very customised one, with 640x400 resolution and 5:6 pixels, which I imagine would be crazy expensive, or use a standard 640x480 panel and have the display controller "align" the lines that would make the line borders fuzzy and probably not that good looking. Or, he could use a generic 1280x1024 panel, hide the bottom 64 lines behind the bezel to make it 4:3, and have the image stretched to 1280x960, which would still create fuzzy lines but not too much - only about each ~5th display line out of the 960 would be fuzzy which would make for a picture probably still sharper than some CGA/EGA monitors back in the day could muster, but in a correct aspect ratio. Or, a very slightly worse approach, if someone wanted integer-sharp pixels - stretch it to 1280x1000 which would make the pixels 4:5 (2:5) instead of the original 5:6 (5:12) but totally sharp, no fuzzy transitions, and would cause an aspect ratio inaccuracy of just 4% which is quite bearable I think. Or use both approaches and make them user-switchable (even a DIP switch or a jumper hidden under one of the covers would be OK for me). Oh, just ranting about how it would be better....anyway, the chosen display solution just looks terrible and is a complete turn-off for me. So much wasted potential in otherwise such an amazing device and idea. Such a shame. If it at least had an external display connector in any form...
Its made by China, If you ever been over sea's they do not keep old things and do not understand why people would want to buy something old. The people made this was told to get rid of the parts and they came up with this. They will not understand new vs old ..screen size and stuff.. lucky they did a really decent job . I'll buy one for sure. There thinking all over world ..worthless trash no one will buy except Mikey .. he pay even more.. hahahaha
Great review! Super pleased to see it work with the CGA card to allow a bigger screen. Good idea to use a a card tester, though taken with a grain of salt judging from the success rate you had.
The first computer I EVER built (kind of a fail... it failed to boot... but later worked due to my Dad's help...) at about 6 was MOSTLY this. That original machine was an 8088... the same amount of RAM... a VGA card of some sort with a math co-processor and a 5MB MFM hard drive and no sound card.
The CPU/BIOS situation reminds me of the Amiga 1200 trap door. Getting cards in there is easy enough, but to get them out again you gotta open it because there's not enough room to get your fingers in. On another note; the stereo separation on what is a mono card is really jarring, it's also really badly balanced and I'm listening to this through cheap-ish PC speakers, I imagine on headphones it would be horrendous.
Actually, you don't need "drivers" for a soundblaster card in DOS. Whatever comes with the card, the games aren't using it anyway. There was no well defined driver interface, so the programs are talking directly to the card's hardware.
With the setup disk there is an installation tool that detects the card and adds the appropriate lines to the dos config. That's what I was talking about.
I've seen a few of these, but no one has run the wonderful 8088 specific demo scene software yet. Like 8088mph or Area 5150 - wonder if they'd run nicely on the book 8088. :) hint.
Mine had Area 5150 on the CF card (pre-installed) when I bought it brand new. It runs extremely well with great graphics, definitely way above CGA standard, except for a couple of seconds where you get a black screen and noise at the end. The program still quits cleanly, I just have to be patient. Definitely worth the effort finding it. Or alternatively I could upload it somewhere.
Oh man, you're not using the green/black color scheme for the VCfed forums? Give it a go if you haven't it's reminiscent of the IBM green phosphor displays on the 5150.
Is the included BIOS chip able to be reprogrammed? I don't exactly have spare chips lying around and attempting to find new ones are riddled with reviews of people accusing various sellers with giving them fakes or used/rebadged ones.
I wish it was just a box, or a board. Like the NuXT. Making it a laptop with inferior screen, keyboard, and so on kinda kills interest in this project.
Text mode seems emulated. True 80x25 mode had much smoother and faster scrolling on original hardware. That screen looked like the equivalent of being in 640x200 mode.
Yes it did. Almost every card ever built for PCs had text mode since that's what BIOS always expected to start in. It also had hardware that would show static glitches in text mode if the computer wrote to video memory during scan.
If it's like the two projects I've seen covered, they basically recycled embedded industrial PCs, so the guts are existing chips put onto a custom made PCB and off the shelf screens and keyboards and connectors, etc
@@RaletiaThat’s the Hand386, though the keyboard contacts are integrated into the display controller with a rubber sheet over on top for the buttons.
At first I thought you had a new book of yours out that you were somehow 'testing'. It looks like you dodged a bullet there. I am sorry that I cannot donate, as I make less than 20,000$ a year myself, and that's in Canadian dollars. So very sorry.
the issue with the chinese bios is how chinese copyright law works, unfortunately under there copyright laws its legally distinct in its difference because there version doesnt have his name on it, so to the chinese government the bios is 'clearly' not his china sucks ass with how they get away with ripping off products
looks like a gimmick waste of money and waste of time to draw in those who cant be patient enough to save up for a real at/xt system and take their money. patients my friends is a virtue!
I got one simply because I couldn't carry my XT inside my bag. And since this one has an OPL3 expansion board, it means I can do some FM synthesis tracking on the go.
Thank you for this fantastic and helpful review, mine should arrive in the next days i hope. Do you have any experience how long the battery lasts after a full charging? 🤔
Donated $50. Your heart (and content) is in the right place.
Thank you!
@26:48 You can use the subst command to assign a folder to a drive letter. for example: your sound galaxy drivers are located in a folder called C:\SDgalaxy simply enter the command subst a: c:\sdgalaxy that folder will then be assigned to the A: drive, making the OS think a disk is inserted in the A: drive. the command subst a: /d will delete the A: assignment.
Donated $50 to Maui Food Bank. Thanks for putting up the link.
Thank you!
Its lovely that you're trying to help folks affected by the fires. Related to this and the retro computer scene in general is the fact that there's an indigenous Hawaiian game dev who goes by the handle Silver Spook. They made a point-and-click adventure game called NeoFeud, which enthusiastically leans into the "punk" aspect of cyberpunk instead of making the player work for the cops(which is the most anti-punk thing ever).
I'll have to check it out. Thanks for sharing!
Hello, I bought the book 8088 on black friday and have been playing around with it, I had similar 'no signal' issues with some of my expansion cards and noticed that the only documented voltages were +5v and +12v. On a hunch I used a voltage blaster from another project to feed -5v and the 'no signal' issue went away. I know for sure than the soundblaster you used needs -5v, and from my experience the no signal issue happened on all the cards that required that voltage.
Ah. That makes sense! I just ordered some voltage blasters coincidentally.
A very thorough review of this machine! Enjoyed it! Nicely done! I wish they would make one of these with a true 640x480 LCD, VGA, and a 486 or something similar to cover the later era of DOS games.
Same
They do make a "hand386" that is kind of like what you describe. www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005542582463.html&ved=2ahUKEwiI5Nuil9uAAxUSIDQIHUIUCsMQFnoECBIQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0d-BssaPiZSjDzN9QUeY0w
It looks like a fun little device. Good call on using the open source ROM! The thing that would drive me crazy is the 16:9 screen. What were they thinking?? And so tiny too! They could have added a larger 4:3 screen and it would have been fantastic.
Yeah. I got used to it after a while, but it just didn't feel right at all.
Exactly, the widescreen (with even wider picture displayed - wtf?) is a real pain to look at, it is so much wrong...
The screen definitely should have been 4:3, not this abomination. There's just one problem - CGA has anamorphous pixels - 5:12 exactly. in 320px modes they double to 5:6, and no one makes displays with such pixels. So, the developer could either try and order a very customised one, with 640x400 resolution and 5:6 pixels, which I imagine would be crazy expensive, or use a standard 640x480 panel and have the display controller "align" the lines that would make the line borders fuzzy and probably not that good looking. Or, he could use a generic 1280x1024 panel, hide the bottom 64 lines behind the bezel to make it 4:3, and have the image stretched to 1280x960, which would still create fuzzy lines but not too much - only about each ~5th display line out of the 960 would be fuzzy which would make for a picture probably still sharper than some CGA/EGA monitors back in the day could muster, but in a correct aspect ratio. Or, a very slightly worse approach, if someone wanted integer-sharp pixels - stretch it to 1280x1000 which would make the pixels 4:5 (2:5) instead of the original 5:6 (5:12) but totally sharp, no fuzzy transitions, and would cause an aspect ratio inaccuracy of just 4% which is quite bearable I think. Or use both approaches and make them user-switchable (even a DIP switch or a jumper hidden under one of the covers would be OK for me).
Oh, just ranting about how it would be better....anyway, the chosen display solution just looks terrible and is a complete turn-off for me.
So much wasted potential in otherwise such an amazing device and idea. Such a shame. If it at least had an external display connector in any form...
Its made by China, If you ever been over sea's they do not keep old things and do not understand why people would want to buy something old. The people made this was told to get rid of the parts and they came up with this. They will not understand new vs old ..screen size and stuff.. lucky they did a really decent job . I'll buy one for sure. There thinking all over world ..worthless trash no one will buy except Mikey .. he pay even more.. hahahaha
It is a complete piece of garbage.
Whenever I get a setup program looking for a floppy, I use the subst command in DOS, works like a charm most of the time
Cool. I need to check that out!
I really liked that you payed respect to the open source license like that. ❤
I just ordered one, love Dos and old hardware and this was just so tempting.
Great review! Super pleased to see it work with the CGA card to allow a bigger screen. Good idea to use a a card tester, though taken with a grain of salt judging from the success rate you had.
i really wish they used a 4:3 screen
The first computer I EVER built (kind of a fail... it failed to boot... but later worked due to my Dad's help...) at about 6 was MOSTLY this.
That original machine was an 8088... the same amount of RAM... a VGA card of some sort with a math co-processor and a 5MB MFM hard drive and no sound card.
wish someone would make a modern 486 motherboard
What an interesting choice to include FoxPro in the default software.
The CPU/BIOS situation reminds me of the Amiga 1200 trap door. Getting cards in there is easy enough, but to get them out again you gotta open it because there's not enough room to get your fingers in.
On another note; the stereo separation on what is a mono card is really jarring, it's also really badly balanced and I'm listening to this through cheap-ish PC speakers, I imagine on headphones it would be horrendous.
Agreed!
I really loved your video. Will the bios you used for the Book 8088 work in a PCXT motherboard?
Aloha! Great video as usual, sadly the main subject is as tragic as the heartfelt intro.
Thank you!
Actually, you don't need "drivers" for a soundblaster card in DOS. Whatever comes with the card, the games aren't using it anyway. There was no well defined driver interface, so the programs are talking directly to the card's hardware.
Right, I did not understood this part of the video :)
With the setup disk there is an installation tool that detects the card and adds the appropriate lines to the dos config. That's what I was talking about.
@@RetroHackShack I see, but these config lines are not really needed either.
I've seen a few of these, but no one has run the wonderful 8088 specific demo scene software yet. Like 8088mph or Area 5150 - wonder if they'd run nicely on the book 8088. :) hint.
Good idea. I am sure they would run fine if they run on a 5150 or 5160.
Mine had Area 5150 on the CF card (pre-installed) when I bought it brand new. It runs extremely well with great graphics, definitely way above CGA standard, except for a couple of seconds where you get a black screen and noise at the end. The program still quits cleanly, I just have to be patient.
Definitely worth the effort finding it. Or alternatively I could upload it somewhere.
Links to where to purchase and where to download the BIOS would be helpful.......
I will add to the description in a few minutes.
Oh man, you're not using the green/black color scheme for the VCfed forums? Give it a go if you haven't it's reminiscent of the IBM green phosphor displays on the 5150.
I’d like to have seen a more close up examination of the guts. Still, good video. I can’t get a C64 Maxi for a good price so I may do this instead.
Is the included BIOS chip able to be reprogrammed? I don't exactly have spare chips lying around and attempting to find new ones are riddled with reviews of people accusing various sellers with giving them fakes or used/rebadged ones.
I dont have a way to flash the new bios... is there a resource to have it done for a few dollars? wink wink
Do you have a local makerspace? Maybe try one of the groups on FB.
I wish it was just a box, or a board. Like the NuXT. Making it a laptop with inferior screen, keyboard, and so on kinda kills interest in this project.
Not really,
When we need an XT to develop and don't want to move a big case, screen and so on.
Text mode seems emulated. True 80x25 mode had much smoother and faster scrolling on original hardware. That screen looked like the equivalent of being in 640x200 mode.
CGA never had a text mode.
Yes it did. Almost every card ever built for PCs had text mode since that's what BIOS always expected to start in. It also had hardware that would show static glitches in text mode if the computer wrote to video memory during scan.
@@ovalteen4404Nope. It was an emulated 640x200 image.
No networking? 😢
Is that a scratch near the middle of the screen?
I think that is a dog hair from Penny. It's her way of contributing to the channel. 😀
Weren't these sold out? Or was that another DOS tiny laptop...?
They sold out for a few weeks and then I was able to get one.
These ones come and go in batches, the Hand386 too but less often
What site did you get your drivers from?
Which ones are you referring to?
Did you try a USB floppy drive?
There is no driver for this, and he did not use my USB Driver that is 10x faster than the original one.... making USB almost as fast as CF.
@@freddyvretrozone2849Thank you for the driver! I am really enjoying it in my XT computer!
Pretty sure this is just the homebrew 8088 jammed into a "laptop" case.
If it's like the two projects I've seen covered, they basically recycled embedded industrial PCs, so the guts are existing chips put onto a custom made PCB and off the shelf screens and keyboards and connectors, etc
No, this one use an FPGA, it is totally different
@@RaletiaThat’s the Hand386, though the keyboard contacts are integrated into the display controller with a rubber sheet over on top for the buttons.
At first I thought you had a new book of yours out that you were somehow 'testing'. It looks like you dodged a bullet there. I am sorry that I cannot donate, as I make less than 20,000$ a year myself, and that's in Canadian dollars. So very sorry.
the issue with the chinese bios is how chinese copyright law works, unfortunately under there copyright laws its legally distinct in its difference because there version doesnt have his name on it, so to the chinese government the bios is 'clearly' not his
china sucks ass with how they get away with ripping off products
looks like a gimmick waste of money and waste of time to draw in those who cant be patient enough to save up for a real at/xt system and take their money. patients my friends is a virtue!
I got one simply because I couldn't carry my XT inside my bag. And since this one has an OPL3 expansion board, it means I can do some FM synthesis tracking on the go.
Thank you for this fantastic and helpful review, mine should arrive in the next days i hope. Do you have any experience how long the battery lasts after a full charging? 🤔
2023's guide to 'riding the waves' of 8088 tech! Surf's up with this book review 🌊📚 Grab your virtual sunscreen and dive in, dudes! 🏄♂📖 #HawaiiTech