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I just stumbled upon this handheld device being sold on AliExpress. Like a lot of generic Chinese products, it seems to go by many different names (Hand386? Book8088?) but the more I looked into it, the more interesting I found it.


It markets itself as a handheld 386 PC that can run era-appropriate operating systems like MS-DOS and Windows 95. At first, I assumed it was like various knockoff "retro" devices where it was essentially a phone SoC running Android or Linux with some kind of emulator packed in. But actually, when I saw a photo of the board, I become really intrigued:


This isn't just some epoxy blob SoC running an emulator, this actually seems to be a computer? It's got an NVIDIA M6117D, which as it turns out is an implementation of the Intel 386SX; it's using a CF card as the hard drive, which is appropriate since CF is basically the same interface as IDE; it's got an OPL3 (presumably a clone) for audio/MIDI; and it's got a VGA graphics card that, while seemingly nothing special, is probably good enough at least for DOS games.

Frankly, I'm not really a handheld guy (that keyboard and screen look pretty painful to use), but I'm absolutely fascinated by this board. It's got VGA, PS/2, and audio outputs, so presumably if you removed the spicy pillow battery and hooked it all up to some real ports, maybe even in a fancy project box, you could effectively build a 386 desktop PC with all new parts!

I've often lamented how older 9x-era PC hardware, stuff that once was dime a dozen, seems to have become so rare and expensive in recent years, but it's very encouraging to think that old stuff might actually come full circle and be manufactured with all new parts again.

Saw this on 4chan's /g/ yesterday, I was looking into purchasing one if it wasn't that expensive. Here in Romania, you can practically live off 200 dollars for 3-4 weeks, so I'd rather not (yet).

That thing reminds me of an old computer a relative had from their job when they were working in healthcare a long while ago. It wasn't the same model, that one was monochrome, but I wonder if this is overspill from a niche vendor like that, or if some guy took the plans with them when some company went under and figured they'd make a buck 20 something years later.

fzorb wrote: ↑Tue May 16, 2023 5:10 am Saw this on 4chan's /g/ yesterday, I was looking into purchasing one if it wasn't that expensive.

Yeah I'm curious how much of that cost is the board vs the screen. I'm not interested in a crappy LCD, especially when it appears to be widescreen and having to grotesquely stretch a 640x480 signal. I really just want the board so I can stick it in a box and hook it up to a CRT and PS/2 keyboard and mouse.

fahugugads wrote: ↑Tue May 16, 2023 2:56 pm That thing reminds me of an old computer a relative had from their job when they were working in healthcare a long while ago. It wasn't the same model, that one was monochrome, but I wonder if this is overspill from a niche vendor like that, or if some guy took the plans with them when some company went under and figured they'd make a buck 20 something years later.

I could certainly believe it. From my very minimal research, the healthcare industry does seem to be the primary reason 386 clones are being manufactured today. I guess all these machines were adopted back then and they've just never been replaced with anything newer?

wierd that it would need an external mouse by the looks of it. seems like that would make it less portable