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
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.
