Pocket 386 - A NEW Modern Windows 95 & MS-DOS Laptop - Review & Unboxing
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- Опубликовано: 14 май 2024
- Today, we're checking out the amazing Pocket 386, which is a new, modern Windows 95 and MS-DOS laptop that you can buy right now! This is the successor to the Book 8080 and the Hand 386, and it combines the best of both models with several improvements! This is a long video, but I wanted to give you a full review and unboxing of this amazing machine!
Here are links to the Pocket 386 and the ISA Expansion Board:
Pocket 386 - www.aliexpress.us/item/325680...
ISA Expansion Board - www.aliexpress.us/item/325680...
Serial Port Expansion Board -
www.aliexpress.us/item/325680...
0:00 Background Info
2:00 Unboxing & Overview
10:02 First Boot and Test
11:30 Windows 95 First Load
15:40 Working on the Mouse
17:36 Testing Sound
24:11 Testing Doom
26:42 Wolf3D
28:54 Testing USB
30:25 Commander Keen4
32:38 Test Drive 3
35:25 Canyon MIDI
39:33 Instruction Manual
44:05 Testing Video Capture
51:18 PS/2 Mouse
53:55 External ISA Expansion
1:00:09 4:3 vs 16:9
1:02:52 Final Thoughts
![Megan Thee Stallion - BOA [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/TKQY2ZlIEjY/mqdefault.jpg)
Imagine a version with a 486 DX2-66, 16-32MB RAM, and a PicoGUS built-in!! THAT I'd drop the money for!
That would be epic!
someone pretty much said this already, but if there's a 486 version of this they'll have to shut up and take my money.
Very true. Maybe someday!
Yes, if it'll be a 66 Mhz 486 CPU that is!
Same. I don't have any nostalgia for the 386, but the 486 was my first PC. Either that or a Pentium 1 is a definite buy for me.
I emailed the seller directly a few months ago and they plan to make a 486.
@@Atomhaz not surprised! I'm totally interested
been trying to tell myself I dont need this for weeks. its just so cool though. I think if he is able to make 486 or P1 versions in the future they will sell out instantly.
This is so true! I suspect that 486 and P1 chips are much harder to source, but if he pulls it off, they will definitely sell out quickly!
Tiny 486 and Pentium subnotebooks already exist (Toshiba Libretto, etc.)... This 386 makes sense because 386 laptops are uncommon, and small ones are super rare.
Though I do suppose if there is a bulk supply of extra 486 chips just sitting around, something should be made with them, rather than getting scrapped.
that the era I suspect more ppl are interested in ie era where wolf,doom,quake,wins 98 etc@@retrotv1tech
Absolutely, I am hoping for a 486 version.
@@KomradeMikhail yeah i have a few of them but they all have terrible screens. I think there is a market for several segements of laptops sporting older processors and compatibility woth older devices with more modern ergonomics/conveniences
With WirdPerfect or Word for DOS, this might be an excellent distraction free writing device.
I was thinking the exact same thing!
definitely not distraction free with the amount of games you can play on these lol
My thoughts exactly! I'd love to write stories and whatnot on there, and it can be anytime and anywhere!
Oh man. This was like a Time Machine.
I bought one of these and have been happy. I cloned the original OS image to a 4GB WD/SiliconDrive CF card and made some minor changes by adding a boot menu so I could have a pure Real Mode environment along with various driver options (i.e. USB enabled).
I am experimenting with DOS 6.22 + Win95 now, on this system. I think this should enable the most flexibility for people that want to be able to run in Real Mode or V86/Protected Mode, depending on which programs they want to run.
I have a couple of Book8088 systems with various ISA expansion cards, including game ports and UMB cards (i.e. monotech microram) which are working great as well. Thanks for the video!
Nice! Keep me posted on anything else you discover about this system!
When I bought the Hand386, the seller provided me a package that included a GHOST image of what’d be flashed to the CF card
@damian9303 The seller has been great, and did provide a .gho image for the system. I'll post it and link it on vcf.
Awesome video as always Josh! Cant wait for the next one!
Looking forward to seeing this 👏👏
Very good video Josh! Great review, I really enjoyed watching this, waiting for more!
My first thought after seeing the Book 8088 and Hand 386 was "What if they made a Book 386 instead"? And now they did. Wonderful
I had the same thought, so when I saw this one, I was literally like, “shut up and take my money!” Of course, a 486 or Pentium would be even better, but this is pretty awesome!
@@retrotv1tech486 or 586 has the heat dissipation issues already. Will require more complicated casing
Wow! That's a cool device and I enjoyed watching your thorough tour of it's features! Would be fun to have to play with once I'm retired and have more time. 😄 Thanks, Josh, for an awesome video!
Thanks for watching!
I don’t understand a whole lot but I certainly enjoyed watching and learning! I’m going to watch more! Thank you!
Thanks for posting this review! I wasn't aware this was a thing before, but it's pretty cool that it is. Kinda crazy that so many of these components are still just off-the-shelf parts, especially the Yamaha OPL3 chip. And I agree, I'd love to see a 486 or even a pentium variant in the future!
This was so awesome! So much fun to watch! I love that people are making modern tech made to play old games. I still have all my windows 98 timeframe games and I like to play them (some I’m saving for the kids to play when they get older) and this makes me really happy! Haha. Also love how you describe what you’re doing as you’re doing it! I need step by steps! Hehe.
Thanks! So glad you enjoyed!
@@retrotv1tech anytime! I always enjoy retro tech! Even if I don’t always understand it 🤣
I like how you're showing things that don't work out of the box and how to actually make them work
Thanks! I hope it helps someone!
Nice review!
I’m considering to buy one of these and play with old minix
Fantastic video on this system!
If they released the Pocket 486, here's what I would want it to have:
486 DX-2 66 Mhz CPU
16 MB RAM (I'd prefer 20 to have some breathing room)
Windows 3.1 cuz some childhood games of mine are 3.1 compliant. And as such, it will meet the minimum requirements far as CPU and RAM is concerned. And yes, I would rather use it as a Windows 3.1 machine since I've never owned a Windows 3.1 PC in all my life haha😆
Such a cool laptop! It was neat to see the set up process for it too! 😊 The mousepad looked like it was bigger than the whole computer lol
Yes it was! And thanks!
I'm excited 🎉❤
I’m excited for this
Great video! Awesome seeing all your different retro stuff. Especially love seeing all the gaming
I’m waiting for the pocket 486! ;)
I just got the isa expander. Works awesome. Hope they develop cpu upgrades since it's modular. Also really needs an RTC.
Love it... I had a bla k sharp slc 50 mhz system with all of 256kb memory and 20mb of hard disk space with win 3.1 which booted Dos. Damn I miss it. Used to run meade starfinder on display with a control port for my 3 meter dish.. never failed and ran for over 20 years
You can always hook up an ISA memory card to it to get more memory, but would make it slower.
Fun to see this
Really great small laptop Josh
Great video
Thanks!
that's pretty cool
Would it be possible to see what model the keyboard is. I've been wanting one of these but need to find a scandinavian keyboard layout and replace it :D
It was a cool video!!
Great review. Does it work with usb keyboard and mouse?
I think the USB is only for storage devices according to the manual, but you can use PS/2 keyboard and mouse.
I've been trying to talk myself out of buying one of these. I think I might wait around to see if they come out with a 486 or Pentium version in the next couple years. If they do, I'll definitely pick one of those up. 386 might just be a little too slow.
I mean, I still might get one of these. It looks perfect for older dos games.
I actually want one just to relive my childhood. Windows 95 is actually older then me but i had a windows 95 computer handed down to me from a family member. My parents unfortunately threw it out once they got a windows xp computer. I should have told my parents to save it but i was just a child back then i miss it alot know.
Have you gotten any nano usb drive to run? Given the form factor, I'd like a store-n-go drive (Cruzer, Verbatim) to physically stay out of the way, but none will get past boot.
what windows 95 compatible disk drive would you suggest for this?
I HAVE to get me one of these!
Had a desktop with extremely simular specs back in the mid/late 90s, ran Windows 95 quite well (AMD 386-40), The first machine I built entirely myself.
Alot of nostalgia, having essentially the same machine in Laptop form in the modern day is just amazing to me, would have been my 'Dream machine" back then.
And actually Windows 95 was optimised for 486s, (though Pentiums were essentially just two "486-class pipelines" and a much improved and more advanced FPU, granted you could say "optimised for Pentum") the 486-40s from Simens and AMD were roughly the same performance as a 25MHz 486SX. I guess you could say ive been an AMD "Fanboy" ever since.
Fast 486s, 66MHz or higher were still the most common PCs in use at the time of Windows 95s release and especially during its development, as the Pentium was still quite expensive being relatively recently introduced in late 1993.
Nice!!
What is the video chip? Do it have the drivers installed for Win95? It seems to me that there is 640x480 16 colors, so it could be the standard VGA driver from Win95. Maybe it can do 800x480 desktop on Win95?
Also, the USB chip have any drivers for Win95? If I remember, Win95 OSR2.5 had USB support, maybe that chip may alow yoy to connect some other stuff there, like a regular USB port.
Altough I do not feel that Win95 is suitable for a 386 computer it seems that the OS alone works well; have you tested it with some early windows games/software? You may install and use Win3.11 that will work better with 386 processing power. Also, where one can find those ghost files to recover the CF card image?
I’m not sure what drivers are being used. The manual states the USB controller being used will only work with storage devices, so I’m not sure if it will do anything else in windows, even with another device. I don’t know what the video chip is either, but it would be nice to find a better driver that would allow full 800x480 on the desktop with no stretching. I’ll play around with it and post an update if I find anything. I definitely need to find the ghost files as well, and you’re right about Win 3.1.
Would love to have one but think it is a bit on the small side for regular use, otherwise it's a great all in one solution for retro computing.
Some common video resolutions used under DOS are not 4:3 and there were quite a few laptops in the 286 and 386 era that had 16:10 displays not 4:3 displays. This is particularly common on pre-VGA laptops with CGA LCD displays (often monochrome/greyscale with CGA colors mapped to shades of grey).
Even some VGA modes are not technically 4:3 and are closer to 16:10 or 16:9. While quite a few games squished their graphics so they would appear correct if the display is stretched to a 4:3 aspect ratio this was not always the case.
Even 4:3 CRTs would not always be 4:3 and the actual aspect ratio of the final display depended heavily on the video mode used and how the CRT width and height controls were adjusted with varying amounts of black around the active area of the display.
That is why having the option to choose between 16:9 and 4:3 is nice because you can then choose between what appears to be closest to correct for any given game/application.
Very cool! Learned something new today! Thanks for sharing!
The price is right.
I used a 386 at work in the Windows 3.1 days. It was better than the 286, but I was mostly unimpressed.
I'd be excited if they would make a 486 version of this.
Great video. Can you test if a usb floppy drive will work on it?
I will definitely test that. I was wondering that myself.
CH375: supports USB storage devices with Bulk-Only transport protocol and SCSI, UFI, RBC or equivalent command set (including USB hard drive/USB flash drive/U disk/USB card reader);
As floppy is not a bulky transfer but sector based transfer device, it will NOT work
Please try install there kolibri, haiku, or light linux if it is possible. Also interesting of its repairability
Great video. Wonder if there’s a way to get windows 95 and the graphics card to display full screen 800x480 for that panel. I think the card it ships with can display resolutions up to 1024x768, so there’s got to be a way to fill that screen without stretching. Anyone have ideas?
That’s a great question… not sure which driver is being used in Windows for video. I’ll have to play around with it.
Just learned that Toshiba Libretto 100CT came with an 800x480 display and ran Win9x. Wondering if I can replace the pre-installed video driver with the Libretto’s to get that display mode. My unit arrives today. I’ll report back.
@@KeyFilmation please let me know! That driver should be easy enough to find.
This is a super helpful review. I own the Book8088 and it's nice to know that the display is much more improved! Not sure why a socketed 386dx wasn't implemented instead of the 386sx though ? The volume controls are on the board and it appears that in order to make the case design sleak and simple the volume controls and ports are all provided on cables. I'm not a fan of those cable dongles as these things can easilly get misplaced or lost :[
That is very true… and it is a pain removing a panel to adjust the volume. I’m surprised this couldn’t have been implemented as part of the pop-up menus since you can turn the sound off and on this way.
@@retrotv1tech I guess an updated BIOS could add a pop-up volume control but it looks like the volume control is analog and not digital if controlled by the pots.
That is probably true.
reminds me of the Toshiba Libretto
Why does the 8-bit ISA have so many more pins than the 16-bit?
WIn 95 is going to be majorly slow on a 386sx. I mean it was slow on my 386DX-40 with 8MB ram. I don't know why this didn't ship with Windows 3.1 instead, that would have been perfect.
Chuckled a bit at the Faded with Alan Walker midi somebody placed on this machine. That one is so out of place, yet not at all out of place😅
MS Word 97, though a slow install, actually loads well.
If they really wanted to be retro they would have stuck with Green/Amber/Red LEDs (NO BLUE) Green was power, Amber was turbo and Red was HDD
It would be fun to try some of my old favorite Sierra games! Let's hook up an external disk drive!
I need to try that! But I can also put Sierra games on the USB as well. :-)
I built a 486SX/25 in order to play Doom. It was still kind of slow, but it was playable.
Nice!
Can't you just minimize the size of the playing window in game to increase speed?
Since this has the 16-bit ISA in the back, I wonder how well you could make an adapter for one of those SBC ISA Backplanes and then just start sticking in ISA cards?
ISA is a shared bus, so it should in theory just work. And, that could give you access to some PCI devices if Windows 95 can handles them.
PCI is backwards compatible with ISA with the right chips, and I think the right ISA/PCI SBC Backplane will have that built in.
I do not see why an external ISA backplane wouldn't work. Emulating PCI over ISA is more troublesome, for example PCI DMA is fundamentally different from ISA DMA. This could only work for a few select examples and I do not know if there exist any chips for this.. PCI-to-ISA-bridges exist, but they need extra signals from the chipset that are not available in a normal PCI slot.
I bought a GPD Win Mini recently and I thought to myself, man, wouldn't it be cool if I had something in this form factor for DOS/9x.
I remembered about the Japanese PC110 that came close, and could even be used as a phone, and lamented the fact that it didn't come to the west, or saw any successors.
Hopefully someone ends up making a Pentium MMX version (or K6-2+/3+) that can be slowed down to 486/386 speeds. Even better, if they somehow manage to recreate a docking interface a la IBM Selectadock for added expansion cards, now THAT I'd buy in a heartbeat.
Hi...I just received this laptop. Would you be willing to post the files you have on the USB drive you demonstrated somewhere?
Windows System Sounds can be fixed by installing an OPL3 Windows 3.1 wav driver. I found one readily available on the web. My main squipe is the time and date are so screwey, like there's a disconnection with the bios, Windows, and DOS clocks. Y2K bug for real!
RetroTV1 Tech: I have some Windows 95 games here. They are on discs the size of your normal average music CD. If I purchased that computer would I be able to play them on it?
You’d have to rip the CD’s to an ISO image file and transfer them to the computer using USB or the compact flash card. Since it’s just a 386, it might not play Windows 95 games too well.
@@retrotv1tech That's strange! Especially when the games read Windows 95 on the box.
There's certainly some potential for more reliability since at least some of the parts are new but these probably do use chips harvested from old hardware just like the Book 8088 so I would not oversell it on that point. It also seems like more of a passion project than a thing that got created because it makes business sense but I guess we will see. That also factors into the reliability a bit since it may not be as professionally engineered as the vintage systems.
I think it is cool these exist and hope to see more of this kind of thing in the future but keeping vintage hardware going is certainly still awesome and serves to both preserve history and the environment.
Only chip harvested according to the website is the 386, and it’s a 386 SOC that’s newer than an original 386. Apparently everything else is new.
@@retrotv1techI wonder if they made a similar promise with the 8088 or if this is new with the 386 because there were some pretty sketch ones in the Book 8088 that Adrian fixed on his channel, he suspected at least one of being relabeled. Could be down to how reliable the vendors they source the chips from are too. Things like the OPL chip may be pretty hard to source as genuine new old stock as well.
Very true! I saw that video on Adrian’s channel as well. It’s hard to tell how honest that claim is.
Has anyone an idea as to how to get this to have access to a real floppy drive? That would be sooo cool to install Linux on this.
8-bit ISA controllers for floppy seem to be quite rare while 16-bit cards are widely available, do they still work?
Usb external 3.5" floppy drives are common
Cool intro
My first pc after Amiga was 386sx, minimum for Windows 3.1. 1990
We REALLY need this with the hardware 16650 serial 9 pin port(s). The Motorola and Kenwood Two-way Radios need a hardware 16 bit hardware serial port that responds exactly like the old serial ports because a USB to Serial does not work with the software. DOS real DOS is needed as well.
I'm hoping they do one in 486 dx2-66.
Maybe try FastDoom?
> 9:00 "windows key probably doesn't do anything"
The windows key basically just sends a different scan code from the keyboard to the computer just like any other key, it's not handled differently (unlike the "Fn" key). So it's up to the software whether it does something or not.
I am sure some DOS game could allow the user to bind the key to actions.
Totally makes sense! And then I found out later it actually did work as intended in Win95. That is interesting that it could be mapped to other actions. I thought it was more like the fn key, but that’s cool that it’s not.
A version with a decent big screen and keyboard would be good. I'd like to power up wordperfect 5.1 and go to town. Pointless to to do that on a small keyboard version.
It doesn't have an RTC?
I have a genuine question about retro computing. I don't know much about this topic, and I more know about coding and modern technology. Why use hardware over a virtual machine with a few adapters?
With a virtual machine, you could have all the operating systems on one device, and maybie adapters for things like paralel ports or serial ports.
Good question! First, retro hardware is just fun to play around with… and the fact that this is mostly new but with a retro processor is really fun. Also, Virtual machines for Windows 95 and MS Dos are far from perfect and have bugs and errors on certain software. Also, it’s just fun to tinker around, and for me a virtual machine takes the fun out of that.
I need to go Josh. Need to get things done before it gets too late. Have a great night. Goodnight all.
Good night!
Just got one of these. I cannot get a PS/2 mouse to work with it. I tried a PS/2 to USB adapater for a USB mouse. It will not work. I have ordered a PS/2 mouse so hopefully that works.
Hopefully, someone will come out with a 486 laptop with 12MB+ of ram. That's what I'm waiting for.
Absolutely!
Looks like he’s using a much better screen than the garbage one that came in the Book8088.
Wish I’d never bought that one, but this looks a lot more interesting
Just out of curiosity, I saw that under the display ratio setting you can set it to auto, does that make the screen aspect ratio match the game resolution or does it work differently than that? Mainly curious because there are a handful of dos games like xcom that actually do have their art designed around 16:10 LCD screens.
That’s a really great question… I need to try that.
Is there one with windows Xp!?!?!?!?
it feels really unfortunate that I didn't see a way to add a math co processor while having an SX cpu... but I guess that's ok.
if it was a DX40, or had a 387 installable or whatever, Doom would run faster, if I recall correctly
there are pc/104 486 dx4 100 mhz Single board computers, on ebay, for around $170... would be great to add similar battery, sound, screen, keyboard / etc to the pocket386... call it a pocket486?
You probably won’t see this, but if you do… how would I go about connecting a floppy drive to this? Did they make parallel or serial port floppy drives? This is just outside my memory range.
So, the only way to connect a floppy drive at this point would be to get the ISA expansion connector that I showed and get a floppy controller card and hook it up that way, although you’d have to provide power to the floppy drive somehow. I’m not sure if they make any parallel port floppy drives. But really, with the ease of using a USB thumb drive, you wouldn’t technically need a floppy drive unless you just wanted to use one for nostalgic purposes.
21:48 you mean you're memory about this song has Faded?
Interesting. One thing, I think DOS 7.10 is the Chinese DOS. I've never tried it, but it looks good.
I tried it, but of course, everything was in Chinese, so I couldn’t use it.
try a soundblaster
I had 386DX/40 with 4MB RAM and to my memory it ran Doom and Doom2 just fine. I guess it's due to 386SX instead of DX version. Also those games (Wolfenstein, Doom) ran in 320x200, not 640x480.
I got it running better by lower the graphics detail setting.
How long can you work on the battery?
About 4 hours so far.
@@retrotv1tech Thanks. That's not bad for a color screen. Might be worth the 200 Euro's to me. 🙂
Mine lasts for around 2 hours. I guess the battery quality varies.
@@Kagamma Agreed. Any serious cf activity--which is pretty much all the time, given the slow cpu--runs down the battery in a big hurry. So I'm not certain it's the battery or its size vs machine.
@@TheJakfish Thank you both. Didn't know the CF card uses that much power. Only 2 hours for a portable device would be a deal breaker for me...
Ждём обзор от Седого на "Подвальчике")
I would be tempted if it was soundblaster rather than adlib only.
Well it has an LPT port... Just bring out your old covox card or make a new one and you have a pretty decent soundcard..
🎉🎉🎉
PS/2 devices needed plugging in before booting so likely same reason you needed to reboot.
I just thought of this: My current laptop is so outdated and slow, one of these days I'm going to see Josh fixing one on this channel!! 😂
😂
Live the retro stuff In the 1980s I was into wang computers But they did not keep up Also reminds me of programming on basic Fortran and cobol All those 01010s all day long yikes even the memory gives me a headache lol
Wow! That’s way back! Very cool!
@@retrotv1tech oh thanks for making me feel like a dinasaur lol It yup thr 80s were a blur WANG had a precursor to the internet they called WangNet it was awesome but slow only took two -three hours to send a couple pages across the country lol
Sorry! Lol. That’s so cool!
Interesting curiosity, although 386 SX is an inferior choice for Win 9X or even late DOS games. I get why there are hardware emulation options for old consoles or certain computers, such as Amiga (itself rooted in consoles, everyone targetted little Amiga 500 with OCS, only seldom 1200 with AGA) - those were fixed hardware configurations for which games were specifically targetted to exploit all the details and properties. As such, they are invariably a difficult target for software emulation, given many real-time aspects of timings software expected from those systems. FPGA-based emulators (or real components still in supply) enable precise recreation, impossible in software on a general purpose OS. On the other hand, in case od retro IBM PC-compatibles, the situation is slightly different. I don't have a feeling this platform needs retro in hardware as much. PCs have always come in different, modular configurations, and performance profiles, aside from specific titles assuming original 8086 4,77 MHz speeds for delay routines, old PC software is less tied to a specific configuration. Although DOS games supported mostly, say, Sound Blaster audio cards and optionally something else, other vendors made their cards emulate Sound Blaster (then de-facto standard interface). In case of video there were also standard interfaces across many models (EGA, VGA, VESA). So with less focus of intricacies of specific hardware, Dosbox is often a BETTER option than a retro PC (where you have to fight with, say, memory configuration of real DOS or compatibility issues, I remember Jazz Jackrabbit was very fussy and tended to crash on my system).
Should be capable tu run OS/2 3.0
This would be better with a N100 or N305 and a 2230 NVME in it. It would be a functional micro laptop
How long can it run from battery?
it doesn't really need to run Windows 95 as there aren't really any programs or games that are 386 *and* Windows 95 minimum. MS-DOS 6.22 with Windows 3.11 would make a lot more sense.
That’s a good point.
@@retrotv1techyeah lol. is there some small card (not a big ISA card) that can plug in (to one of the computer's expansion ports) and add the Soundblaster (PCM) sound to the built-in OPL3 sound?
I think so…. Gotta do some research.
@@RWL2012 I was thinking exactly that, maybe a plugin sound card into that ISA port.
386DX and I am in
This is the first of these in this line that I'd consider buying. I'm tempted to wait and see if they put out a 486 or Pentium one, but I don't think I have that kind of patience. This is nifty enough to justify burning $200 of my inflation-era money on. Later on, I can get a better one (if they end up making one) and I'll at least be able to use the 386 one as a distraction-free writing device.
The 8088 one is really cool but has a few deal-breaking problems for me (and it's from an era that I'm not quite as nostalgic for, anyway). And that weird handheld 386 has a just AWFUL form factor! Yuck!
$300 bucks and you could probably just buy a bad ass 386 that actually IS retro. Especially if 95 is installed. I guess nobody remembers how low-key bad that OS was lol
Dang, they put the USB port in upside down ☹️
For anyone that says it doesn't matter, it actually does. With the port upside down, it's gonna collect more dust on the connections..
AOL isn't gone, just forgotten.
This is what I complained about since they came out with the originals, why put the 386 in the portable device? it's unuseable, just put that in the laptop and we'll all be happy