Connecting ISA Cards to a Handheld 386 PC!

[@UpLateGeek]

Other silly things to try: a network card (boring I know, but I'm a network engineer); a floppy controller card and floppy drive, mostly to amuse Foone (or annoy, when everyone sends them a link to your video!); a SCSI card, which would allow you to connect a SCSI Zip drive for no good reason (or, you know a SCSI2SD if you want to be boring); a Trackstar, which is basically an Apple II+ clone on an ISA card. That's all I've got for now. I'm sure I could think of more silly ideas when it's not 1:30 am.

[@Xeraser2]

You should keep the USB to YES joke, got a good chuckle out of me. The logo and name are also genius.

[@BobPony]

The seller also has a ISA adapter for the HAND386 that's sold separately, but the slots are 8 Bit ISA. But interesting to see someone making a DIY one instead of getting the adapter. :)

[@ipavemyownroad]

Currently ordering parts to create one

[@gbraadnl]

HIDMan is something I was actually looking for!

[@DanielMReck]

When I saw the Hand386 plugged into the ISA backplane, I chortled so loudly I startled the person next to me. A+ I love Alley Cat, which features one of the most slapping PC speaker themes ever. Stealing food out of the dishes, surrounded by sleeping dogs, was always a hair raiser.

[@nullsmack]

Something like this and that 8088 handheld but with a Pentium level chip and in a Libretto formfactor would be amazing.

[@PurpleMaleFroslass]

I will definitely need the HIDman. I have one of those compact 486 desktops that would work nicely as a DOS console for my TV, a USB to Yes adapter would make that happen.

[@ANIXElectronics]

Just discovered this channel. And it is amazing. Keep up the good work! you make me dig up old socket 7 mbs to try them out.

[@therealprofessor976]

Of COURSE you would do this! Man, I wish I got one for myself. Those 2 computers are awesome!

[@EriolGaurhoth]

The new Pocket 386 improves on the usability of this thing immensely. More of a laptop form-factor, still very tiny keys but not the squishy kind. Also can switch from widescreen to 4:3. Basically took the best parts of the Pocket 8088 and Hand 386 and merged them.

[@Michael_Brock]

There is a 486 version of this device, maybe different form factor. But from same recycler. Forget where I saw that. 😢

[@AnonyDave]

Oh, that hidman sounds interesting. Been running a design through my brain for quite a while but never got around to doing anything. Was going to use either the esp32s2, rp2040, or one of wch's higher end chips (as I utterly despise 8051 cores)

[@carlforsyth1990]

Those new-old-stock chips from the mid-1990s are so readily available from brokers and I can only assume that a company like this offering to buy 10,000 units of a part which hasn't sold in more than single quantity for over a decade probably got them a fantastic price!

[@absalomdraconis]

Not necessarily, those sorts of folks sometimes care more about how long they can support some hardware than how many chips they can sell (especially if they're contractually bound to provide long-term hardware support...)

[@JohnnyWednesday]

Not playing Tyrian has offended my Tyrian-based sensibilities.

[@segfault-berlin]

Please keep all the puns and jokes on the hid man. It adds some surreal character.

[@PCBWay]

Thx sooo much for your support!🥂🥂

[@Dan-TechAndMusic]

The Hand386 sold out a while ago, I think they didn't make many of them. Someone on VOGONS mentioned that they were aware of who created it, and that that person mentioned they'd only make them until they'd hit a mass price bump from the chip suppliers they were getting those reclaimed chips from. Must have hit that pretty quickly, but I'm not surprised, having bought chipsets from places like UtSource and seeing the price getting bumped after just buying a couple. I was kinda interested in the H386 myself, but it's too expensive for me for something I don't think would get a lot of use. Now, had it not had that miserable keyboard, but some sort of gamepad setup with software keyboard and GamePort gamepad mapping, I think I might have shelled out the dough, simply because it would be a fun and usable portable game console for old PC games.

[@RetroTechChris]

They're back on sale, but I bet the stock goes quickly!

[@kaliban4758]

So a 386 steamdeck

[@Spacegamejunkie]

I can't wait to install some of my favorite old games on this, like Star Fleet II and F-19.

[@lemagreengreen]

To my 90s brain "oh yeah this is a soundcard I designed" is genuinely impressive :)

[@felixcatx2011]

Sensacional!!! Parabéns pelo seu projeto de seu Tiny! Espero que seu projeto Open Source se torne em breve um produto acessível para o público comum (gente comum que não tem habilidade de construir algo como você fez, porém, pessoas que aprecia de hardware vintage, tal como você!!!) Esse "Chinês Handheld 386" também é uma inciativa promissora de preservar o legado do DOS e a computação de 8 & 16 Bits. Eu tenho expectativa que surja mais projetos e mais iniciativas que criem hardwares compatíveis modernos, portáteis e mobiles para executar de forma nativa, programas antigos de 8 & 16 bits para preservar e relembrar "Dias de ouro e mais Simples" da computação, dias que nos motivaram a trabalhar e nos divertir nessa área de computação... Viva para Sempre!!! "Live Long, And Prosper!!!" \\//_

[@mattsword41]

HIDman looks really cool!

[@jamesfx2]

If you want a nice DOS laptop, I think the IBM ThinkPad T43 can do stuff from 198X to 1998.

[@rhymehunter7959]

"Your soundcard working perfectly!" :)

[@AppliedCryogenics]

Heads-up, you probably saw this, but Action Retro smoked his Hand386, apparently by plugging in a USB stick that drew too much current.

[@ipavemyownroad]

Wowsers, wonder if Pocket 386 has the same vulnerability

[@marsupialpianist1450]

Experimenting with the Elan520, it’s the 5x86/133 on a chip with most of the goodies. BGA so a pain to work with but might be a tasty chip. No L2 but we will see if lines exposed. Data sheet ambiguous

[@monkeyman767]

Apparently Action Retro's one basically exploded itself even under light load so that might be worth keeping an eye on

[@TheRasteri]

yeah I think I've blown up the battery charger in this one...

[@RetroTechChris]

@@TheRasteri how did you connect it to power? Just using a bench supply I presume?

[@TheRasteri]

@@RetroTechChris yeah just a bench supply at 4.2v going straight into battery terminals

[@RetroTechChris]

@@TheRasteri awesome! Thank you!!

[@mota7506]

what a fascinating anachronism

[@1BitFeverDreams]

Hello fellow user of playstation 4 gamepad on vintage computers! I made a recent video on using it on my Macintosh Plus using a USB4VC which recently added support for pre-ADB macintoshes and the Apple Lisa. Some games really pop with it and makes the experience strangely fresh!

[@ianpolpo]

When you purchased your Hand 386 you should have gotten a link to the manual which has pinouts for the ISA and kb/mouse/VGA breakouts! I thought that was nice. BTW that link also has the source to the BIOS for the Book 8088.

[@chrissy344]

I left a comment about the bios code a few days ago, but it seems to have disappeared.

[@EirikrTinkerTries]

Would be cool to see all the Vogons and other similar sites tweaks for windows 95 be applied here, and run a driver updater tool like SGI to see if it can find all the missing drivers. More modern kernels running on 95, and games backported by that one dude

[@ipavemyownroad]

Where can I find the ISA 16-bit (E-ISA?) to header/PC104 adapter? I'd like to base a project on it!

[@TheRasteri]

@@ipavemyownroad I can't link it but I posted the design files on vogons forum :)

[@frankgrudge8823]

Great vid!

[@T3hBeowulf]

Since the LCD is just taking the VGA and converting it to HDMI, could your WeeCi be modded to fit in that case? 🤔

[@marios2liquid]

things i dream about - floppy emulator like gotek but with Ethernet/wifi and samba support - IP KVM for Dos machines (PS2, serial mouse, VGA and RCA video) - HIDMan

[@OCTAGRAM]

MiSTer FPGA?

[@chriswager3277]

Can I ask how you went about installing Windows 3.1 onto this, I have one and could do with knowing how to do it, if you could tell me how you did it that would be great.

[@AlejandroRodolfoMendez]

As all old dos pc, since you have a SD card you format with /s and then copy the installer folder and boot then install windows. The more difficult issue is that you probably need another pc of that time with a SD to Cf card or some pc with a adapter that could make a fat 16 partition, maybe some utilities from Linux or some partition utility. Since probably it's fat32 hence why it had windows 95 osr2

[@rayproductionsbackupchanne3862]

i wonder if you can overclock the cpu in here. maybe get doom running smoother?

[@user-qf6yt3id3w]

I'm hoping there are some wide out of order RISC-V chips with M1 like performance on the way from a variety of companies so they become commoditized. That way you could do a sort of gonzo Apple Macbook Pro with Linux replacing MacOS and RISC-V replacing the M1. Obviously it's not compatible with x86 but you could run a JIT/binary translation based emulation giving you x86 games running really fast. And of course it would absolutely fly running native code. Tenstorrent and Ventana seem to be working on these sorts of CPUs but they're very far from a commodity and probably won't be cost competitive with x86 or M1 for a few years.

[@raccoon681]

Does anyone know where i can buy the breakout board?

[@DookNookim]

@7:27 "Nothing wrong with this at all." Isn't Jazz supposed to go behind the scenery in that secret part of the level?

[@NumosG]

The fact that the "dn" button is just the "up" button rotated 180 degrees...

[@jondonnelly3]

What sorcery is this?

[@TechMadeEasyUK]

I want one with no screen, keyboard or speakers built in, just to connect up to an existing monitor, keyboard and mouse. Seems like a gap in the market

[@mattmyers9351]

How did you get windows 3.1 installed on the hand?

[@TheRasteri]

Just copied the files onto the compact flash card and ran the installer

[@mattmyers9351]

@@TheRasteri ok, thanks!

[@1BitFeverDreams]

wonder if the picogus would work in this! See no reason why not!

[@ianpolpo]

Spoiler: it doesn't. 😅 Something is funny with the bus timing and pgusinit can't even detect it. My Hand 386 is waiting at the post office for me and I won't be able to get to it for 2 weeks to figure out what's funny with the bus!

[@RetroTechChris]

@@ianpolpo Kevin Moonlight got it working, I think. There's a KZbin video on it.

[@centauri0]

The 386 40mhz is fast enough. Even to fast for many good old dos games. And that's the whole point.

[@_bacterio]

Not exactly, it's a 386SX, not a 386DX. A 386DX is twice as fast compared to the 386SX, due to the 16-bit bus.

[@joetheman74]

Does it work with REAL controllers or just the playstation?

[@victordeoliveiramelo]

weeCee!!!

[@AlfredRusselWallace]

Why even have the screen and keyboard? Just sell this as a small vesa mount box that you can hook up to external devices and a monitor and use as a mini retro PC

[@OCTAGRAM]

I think, Wyse with alternate ROMs looks promising. It is originally a thin client, but people learned to turn them into retro PCs. This thing has a real x86 CPU, AMD Geode, but lacks real IBM PC devices. Instead, it makes active use of SMM mode together with CS5536 chip. This is called Virtual Subsystem Architecture (VSA), for joining together several Virtual Subsystem Modules (VSM). For instance, this thing has no hardware text mode. Text mode letters are drawn by one of VSMs. It wakes up on timer and reads data from what is supposed to be a video memory and. Look for "Wyse DOS" or "Wyse kmeaw", kmeaw being the author of such ROM for Wyse S10. I can see other Wyse models are being reprogrammed too.

[@DanielMonteiroNit]

Had its been a 486, I would have considered it a bit longer. But it was too expensive and too low quality for the price

[@ianhanschen]

Noice

[@ruben_balea]

My like was the 486th 😁

[@lycanananas_sq5fox]

Create your self Handheld PC but 486 or Pentium :)

[@gregorybolin4672]

Musoc way too loud

[@saschatrott87]

is there any shop where can buy an HIDMan full assembled? it would be nice for my dos laptop

[@TheRasteri]

Very soon!