News Retro Pocket 386 Win 95 laptop arrives for less than $200 — comes with 40MHz 386 SX processor, 8 MB RAM, and replaceable graphics

[ianken51]

They should have used a 486 DX2 or better with 32MB RAM. Would have made that a vastly better retro system.

I wrote to the maker (in China) and he mentioed that he was looking into making a 486 version, but that it was more complicated to build. Not sure what he meant exacly. I'm assuming that the Pocket386 is made from industrial 386 single board computer components. The interface slots look a lot like those I've seen on ISA 386 SBCs.

Also, I've tried cloning the 2GB CF card onto a 16GB micro SD card and using a micro SD to CF card adapter to run the machine. No luck so far. All I get is a light-blue screen and a lockup. As soon as I remove the adapter and insert a correct 2GB CF card, it all starts as intended. Maybe its me, maybe its the adapter or the micro SD card being incompatible. I'll keep plugging away and see how I go.

You guys in the States are fortunate. Here in Australia our dollar is onlyt worth 61 cents US or so. That means mine cost $355 AUD landed. OUCH!. I even bought a Windows 11 Celeron tiny NUC like PC for that money. But it's not as much fun.

 

[NedSmelly]

Also, I've tried cloning the 2GB CF card onto a 16GB micro SD card and using a micro SD to CF card adapter to run the machine. No luck so far. All I get is a light-blue screen and a lockup. As soon as I remove the adapter and insert a correct 2GB CF card, it all starts as intended. Maybe its me, maybe its the adapter or the micro SD card being incompatible.

Wild guess here, but it could be a FAT/FAT16 limitation (max 4GB).

Edit. Interesting article about inconsistent compatibility in SD-to-CF adapters here, from 2014.

 

[ianken51]

ISA fdc and a floppy drive will take care of your bootdisk issue. Or picomem isa if you want to load simulated disks.

Perhaps you should try GOG (Good Old Games https://www.gog.com/) to get your nostalgia hit? They go to the trouble of making DOSBox launch and modify it for the games you buy. Even Steam is gitting retro games on board.

There's also eXoDOS, a free compendium of over 7500 reto PC DOS and DOS booter games. I downloaded it and it took days and days (slow internet here in Western Australia). I now have over 7500 games which takes up 2.12TB of storage. That will only get bigger as I play games, because it seems to need to unzip files and download screen shots etc as you play them. Unfortunately, there are many games I simply do not wish to keep. If you're like me, try the smaller pack which still gives you access to all 7500 games, but only installs a few. If you want more then you can install them from the catalog.

Good hunting. ;-)

 

[TerryLaze]

Wild guess here, but it could be a FAT/FAT16 limitation (max 4GB).

Not so much FAT as much as that the bios is limited to a maximum size, because of disks back then being incredibly expensive and nobody thinking that anybody would be ever able to buy a disk larger than xMb for their PC.

https://tldp.org/HOWTO/Large-Disk-HOWTO-4.html

 

[fivebarpipes]

Perhaps you should try GOG (Good Old Games https://www.gog.com/) to get your nostalgia hit? They go to the trouble of making DOSBox launch and modify it for the games you buy. Even Steam is gitting retro games on board.

There's also eXoDOS, a free compendium of over 7500 reto PC DOS and DOS booter games. I downloaded it and it took days and days (slow internet here in Western Australia). I now have over 7500 games which takes up 2.12TB of storage. That will only get bigger as I play games, because it seems to need to unzip files and download screen shots etc as you play them. Unfortunately, there are many games I simply do not wish to keep. If you're like me, try the smaller pack which still gives you access to all 7500 games, but only installs a few. If you want more then you can install them from the catalog.

Good hunting. ;-)

Anyone getting this is most likely fully aware that emulation and GoG exist. As stated in previous posts I am not even getting this for gaming and the software I need to use for my business does not work in emulation and needs a physical FDC to work. It will not work on emulation with a usb floppy drive. So how much trouble they go through to make dosbox really doesn't matter to me and most people who will be interested in this.

 

[TerryLaze]

Anyone getting this is most likely fully aware that emulation and GoG exist. As stated in previous posts I am not even getting this for gaming and the software I need to use for my business does not work in emulation and needs a physical FDC to work. It will not work on emulation with a usb floppy drive. So how much trouble they go through to make dosbox really doesn't matter to me and most people who will be interested in this.

Have you tried 86box ? It emulates specific floppy drive controllers of the era so your dos software might like that.

 

[fivebarpipes]

Have you tried 86box ? It emulates specific floppy drive controllers of the era so your dos software might like that.

Yes I have, it does not work.