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Brand-new laptop recreates 1981's IBM PC, complete with 8088 CPU and 640KB of RAM * Thread starter JournalBot * Start date May 19, 2023 Jump to latest Follow Reply *** More options Who Replied? * May 19, 2023 * Replies: 226 * Add bookmark * "Book 8088 DOS" laptop promises a real-deal MS-DOS experience. See full article... Upvote 0 (0 / 0) Quote Report Click to expand... JournalBot Written by JournalBot Ars Legatus Legionis Subscriptor++ * Messages 106,588 * Reaction score 6 Upvote 0 (0 / 0) Prev * 1 * 2 * 3 * 4 * 5 * 6 Next First Prev 3 of 6 Go to page [3 ] Go Next Last Sort by date Sort by votes N NetMage Ars Praefectus 15y 3,359 Subscriptor May 19, 2023 #81 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #81 If I wanted an MS-DOS portable experience, I would just open the NIB HP 200LX I have sitting somewhere in my home office and see if it will run. *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 4 (4 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 4 (4 / 0) L Lufbery Ars Centurion 7y 250 May 19, 2023 #82 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #82 Jeff S said: Why is DOSBox just good for games? Is there a reason it can't run stuff like WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, visicalc, early 2d cad packages, BASIC interpreters, early C and Pascal compilers, early DOS database apps, etc? Click to expand... DOSBox can run those, I think. Several years ago, MS released Word 2.0 for free. I run it in DOSBox from time to time. *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 6 (6 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 6 (6 / 0) N nimble Ars Praetorian 18y 508 Subscriptor May 19, 2023 #83 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #83 miken32 said: The original IBM PC keyboards had the backward-L shaped enter key. Click to expand... True, but this has the turned-L shape instead of backward-L. *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 0 (0 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 0 (0 / 0) A archtop Ars Scholae Palatinae 14y 1,325 Subscriptor May 19, 2023 #84 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #84 Jeff S said: Why is DOSBox just good for games? Is there a reason it can't run stuff like WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, visicalc, early 2d cad packages, BASIC interpreters, early C and Pascal compilers, early DOS database apps, etc? Click to expand... The DOSBox developers support it for games, but not for other applications. You can try whatever you want, but if it's a non-game app and it doesnt' work, you're on your own. *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 4 (4 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 4 (4 / 0) N nimble Ars Praetorian 18y 508 Subscriptor May 19, 2023 #85 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #85 kd1sq said: Oh gods - APL! I remember the days of trying to figure out smartass APL one-liners. Click to expand... I know next to nothing about APL, but I have boggled at the number of APL-specific symbols in the "Miscellaneous Technical" Unicode block. And presumably it used plenty more non-APL-specific symbols. Could anybody remember them all? *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 1 (1 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 1 (1 / 0) F Faanchou Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius 8y 8,226 Subscriptor++ May 19, 2023 #86 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #86 binaryspiral said: This is exactly right. Entire manufacturing floors are powered by old 486 and Pentium powered PCs running ancient operating systems long out of support from their vendors - but the machines they control cost millions and are the heartbeat of the company. Industrial IT is a dark corner of security and interoperability challenges that can make even the most seasoned engineer and director cringe. We know it has to be on the network... but fuck me, it's just waiting to get plucked by the first malware infection - we need to isolate it from the office network and for god sakes don't give it internet access! Click to expand... I should probably recheck my i386-on-arm64 image then... *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 1 (1 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 1 (1 / 0) S SeanJW Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius 17y 7,885 Subscriptor++ May 19, 2023 #87 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #87 phoenix_rizzen said: Windows 95 (original release) Windows 95a (aka OSR1) <-- aka Service Pack 1 Windows 95b (aka OSR2) <-- FAT32, MS-DOS "7.1" Windows 95b (aka OSR2.1) <-- OSR2 + USB driver diskettes and IE3 Windows 95c (aka OSR2.5) <-- OSR2 + USB drivers included in the install and IE4 Windows 98 Windows 98SE Windows ME Click to expand... I'm not sure about the IE version (microsoft was weird about what they distributed it with... IE2 was only available on Windows NT 4 I think...); but you're right about the rest. I should have checked my legacy Windows folder on the NAS, I just haven't installed anything from there in a long time :D *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 2 (2 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 2 (2 / 0) W watermeloncup Ars Tribunus Militum 5y 8,717 Subscriptor May 19, 2023 #88 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #88 Jeff S said: Why is DOSBox just good for games? Is there a reason it can't run stuff like WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, visicalc, early 2d cad packages, BASIC interpreters, early C and Pascal compilers, early DOS database apps, etc? Click to expand... Others had some information on this, but DOSBox is also missing features that you might want in productivity apps (such as printing) which wouldn't be much use in games. There's actually at least one DOSBox fork which adds features for non-gaming DOS programs. *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 3 (3 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 3 (3 / 0) S stormcrash Ars Praefectus 8y 4,393 May 19, 2023 #89 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #89 What a surprising thing to exist. Kinda want one but really don't want to sign up for ali express. Only thing somewhat lacking is a floppy drive, but the fact that it's actually CGA is very interesting. Agree with others that it might be aimed at industrial use, but at the very least they are using components like the TTL LCD that are intended as drop in replacements for old industrial equipment *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 2 (2 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 2 (2 / 0) M methodmadness00 Smack-Fu Master, in training 3y 56 Subscriptor May 19, 2023 #90 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #90 If someone would build a 286/386 MS DOS machine with new components so I could relieve my MS DOS glory days without dealing with old eBay hardware I would give them money so fast... *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 2 (2 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 2 (2 / 0) N NetMage Ars Praefectus 15y 3,359 Subscriptor May 19, 2023 #91 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #91 nimble said: I know next to nothing about APL, but I have boggled at the number of APL-specific symbols in the "Miscellaneous Technical" Unicode block. And presumably it used plenty more non-APL-specific symbols. Could anybody remember them all? Click to expand... Most of the symbols in APL are upper and lower case geek letters, plus a few extras like arrows, common relational symbols and quad (box). Some were originally created by overstriking (combining) two characters, like domino (box + division), so it actually isn't too difficult to remember. And symbols often have two or more context dependent functions, so it doesn't need as many as you might think :) *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 3 (3 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 3 (3 / 0) S stormcrash Ars Praefectus 8y 4,393 May 19, 2023 #92 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #92 methodmadness00 said: If someone would build a 286/386 MS DOS machine with new components so I could relieve my MS DOS glory days without dealing with old eBay hardware I would give them money so fast... Click to expand... I don't know of a 286/396 clone. There is the Wee86 project to build your own system around industrial boars with souped up 486DX chips, and Monotech PCs has the NuXT XT class motherboard sold as a complete product (ATX case and PSU compatible so any new case will work) *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 3 (3 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 3 (3 / 0) P prodprof Smack-Fu Master, in training 1y 3 May 19, 2023 #93 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #93 orwelldesign said: we get the C64 going for some old fashioned joystick fun. Click to expand... I and a little known french team wrote 'another world and kokatoni wilf' for the c64-amiga1200. They were HUGE machines (thanks to apple and motorolalalalala for the 6800's) *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 1 (1 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 1 (1 / 0) P pjcamp Ars Tribunus Militum 11y 1,665 May 19, 2023 #94 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #94 That's like trying to recapture the magic of the Canterbury Tales by writing The Fast And The Furious in middle English. *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 17 (17 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 17 (17 / 0) T Thomas Harte Ars Tribunus Militum 14y 2,033 May 19, 2023 #95 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #95 stormcrash said: What a surprising thing to exist. Kinda want one but really don't want to sign up for ali express. Only thing somewhat lacking is a floppy drive, but the fact that it's actually CGA is very interesting. Agree with others that it might be aimed at industrial use, but at the very least they are using components like the TTL LCD that are intended as drop in replacements for old industrial equipment Click to expand... Suffice to say, if they hadn't offered a PayPal payment option, or had required a phone number, I wouldn't have completed my purchase. As it is they now have my email and shipping addresses. I can stomach that. *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 5 (5 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 5 (5 / 0) W watermeloncup Ars Tribunus Militum 5y 8,717 Subscriptor May 19, 2023 #96 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #96 pjcamp said: That's like trying to recapture the magic of the Canterbury Tales by writing The Fast And The Furious in middle English. Click to expand... I dunno, that sounds kinda fun to me :p *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 8 (8 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 8 (8 / 0) A alanbork Smack-Fu Master, in training 4y 76 May 19, 2023 #97 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #97 By far the cheapest way to build a box like this would be to throw a cheap ARM SOC in there and emulate DOS. I'd be interested in seeing proof that's not what's really going on here, actually. Those sliding doors showing off the chips strikes me as "the builder doth protest too much". If it is real, however: note that the actual listing says V20 which would perform closer to a 286, depending on the clock, but without the opcode compatibility. *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 0 (1 / -1) Quote Report Upvote 0 (1 / -1) fitten fitten Ars Legatus Legionis 20y 51,037 Subscriptor++ May 19, 2023 #98 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #98 If you want an actual desktop experience, NuXT 2.0 is a 10MHz (switchable among 3 speeds, down to original 4.77MHz) straight up 8088 or NEC V20 (you can pick when ordering) computer. ISA slots, etc. I have one. It works great. *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 6 (6 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 6 (6 / 0) S SeanJW Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius 17y 7,885 Subscriptor++ May 19, 2023 #99 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #99 alanbork said: By far the cheapest way to build a box like this would be to throw a cheap ARM SOC in there and emulate DOS. I'd be interested in seeing proof that's not what's really going on here, actually. Those sliding doors showing off the chips strikes me as "the builder doth protest too much". If it is real, however: note that the actual listing says V20 which would perform closer to a 286, depending on the clock, but without the opcode compatibility. Click to expand... A V20 can be clocked about the same as an 8088 (8Mhz to 10Mhz typically at the time), but the 286 was always faster at the same clock. The V20 is marginally faster than an 8088 at the same clock, and also has an 8080 mode if you want to switch it up and run CP/M-80 (2.2 or 3.0 in non-banked mode) . Of course, lots of later CP/M-80 programs didn't run on an actual 8080, but required a Z-80. Edit: and if you're desperate enough to run CP/M-80, you're better off just software emulating a Z-80; I've got a whole emulator here I wrote in 8086 assembly that massively outperforms pretty much every accurate Z80 emulator, but still emulates every documented and undocumented Z80 opcode perfectly with regards to the documented flags. It doesn't match the undocumented flags, but I decided that was my limit. Most of the fast emulators suck at the undocumented Z80 instructions, and the perfect emulators are slow. *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 6 (6 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 6 (6 / 0) fitten fitten Ars Legatus Legionis 20y 51,037 Subscriptor++ May 19, 2023 #100 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #100 And if you like Z80s, you can get an Agon Light which is an eZ80 based modern SBC (about the size of a Raspberry Pi). *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 2 (2 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 2 (2 / 0) S SeanJW Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius 17y 7,885 Subscriptor++ May 19, 2023 #101 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #101 fitten said: And if you like Z80s, you can get an Agon Light which is an eZ80 based modern SBC (about the size of a Raspberry Pi). Click to expand... Not usually one to kink shame, but liking a Z80? That's sick. We tolerated those 8 bit CPUs because that's what we had. *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 5 (5 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 5 (5 / 0) W WeirdElectronics Smack-Fu Master, in training 29d 1 May 19, 2023 #102 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #102 It is interesting that the article mentions how IBM competitors reverse engineered IBM PC BIOS... Because these Chinese guys didn't have to do that. They just pirated my open source 8088 BIOS. I don't really understand why one would pirate an open source project... Just use it according to the GPL license. Redistribute the modified code, and leave the attribution to the code authors... Is it that difficult? But no, apparently these guys really wanted to slap their name on the BIOS... Attachments * Micro8088_BIOS_Boot.jpg Micro8088_BIOS_Boot.jpg 175.2 KB * Views: 171 * Chinese_Book8088_BIOS.jpg Chinese_Book8088_BIOS.jpg 44.9 KB * Views: 160 *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 61 (61 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 61 (61 / 0) A Apostolos Ars Centurion 5y 290 Subscriptor++ May 19, 2023 #103 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #103 I remember using MS-DOS machines for years. At least the makers of this new laptop are merciful enough to give you 640K and a "hard drive". The engineering software company I worked for bought an original IBM PC right after they came out. It had two floppy disk drives and maybe 64K RAM. IBM actually sold a Fortran compiler so we tried to compile some of our code. It was, I believe, a four pass compiler and you would spend about 10 or 20 minutes swapping out floppies as it worked its way through the compile and link steps. So tedious! A couple of years later we bought an IBM PC XT (with a 10MB hard drive!!) and developed our first product for the platform. In C, of course. *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 7 (7 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 7 (7 / 0) T Thomas Harte Ars Tribunus Militum 14y 2,033 May 19, 2023 #104 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #104 SeanJW said: Not usually one to kink shame, but liking a Z80? That's sick. We tolerated those 8 bit CPUs because that's what we had. Click to expand... ... and then we saw segmented real-mode x86 and wondered how many legions of middle-managers it'd taken to committee out the requirements on that. *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 5 (5 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 5 (5 / 0) fitten fitten Ars Legatus Legionis 20y 51,037 Subscriptor++ May 19, 2023 #105 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #105 SeanJW said: Not usually one to kink shame, but liking a Z80? That's sick. We tolerated those 8 bit CPUs because that's what we had. Click to expand... My roommate in college liked them and I have a friend who learned on it so he kinda likes it. They are easy to design a simple breadboard system. He designed a system and I put it together. He'd write stuff on it and we'd get the results off it. Funny thing was that it was slower than the 8088 PC he had, but it was a fun project. The eZ80 is a modernized version (by Zilog) that's pretty impressive. They 'fixed' a lot of the performance issues by giving it a full 24-bit ALU (upgrade from the original 4-bit ALU) and the BC/DE/HL/IX/IY/PC/ SP (24-bit mode has its own SP... SPL separate from Z80 mode's 16-bit SP) registers are 24-bit as well. It uses flat 24-bit addressing, too. It's also fully backwards compatible with the Z80 and you can even write software in mixed mode. They optimized pretty much all the whole thing, too. Most every instruction has a few clock cycles shaved off it. It's also got a 3-stage pipeline. TI used a 48MHz one in one of their calculator lines. The Agon Light is 18MHz, though, as it uses an embedded controller version. It has 512KB fast RAM, too. I never got into it way back when but have always been curious. I've been reading up on it (ASM) in my spare time and it's not too bad, to be honest. It's not quite as nice as 6809/6811 or 680x0 assembly but it's heaps better than 808x. I never did like 6502, even though it's pretty fast if you can figure out tricks to take advantage of it's weirdness. But otherwise, I'm kinda liking the Z80/eZ80 stuff so far. My Agon Light 2 hasn't come in yet... it's evidently being shipped by sherpa. *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 7 (7 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 7 (7 / 0) S SeanJW Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius 17y 7,885 Subscriptor++ May 19, 2023 #106 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #106 N Thomas Harte said: ... and then we saw segmented real-mode x86 and wondered how many legions of middle-managers it'd taken to committee out the requirements on that. Click to expand... Nah, 8086 is clearly derived from 8080 - so much so that porting software could literally be loading a set of macros for 8080 instructions that mapped through to equivalent 8086. That was an important thing. Part of why MS-DOS APIs mapped through to CP/M ones and the COM format is identical. A portable CP/M program could just be macro translated, and boom, instant MS-DOS program. NEC took it to the next level with its 8080 binary mode. *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 7 (7 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 7 (7 / 0) A Apostolos Ars Centurion 5y 290 Subscriptor++ May 19, 2023 #107 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #107 SeanJW said: Not usually one to kink shame, but liking a Z80? That's sick. We tolerated those 8 bit CPUs because that's what we had. Click to expand... I get that today's hardware is so much more powerful. But my first computer was an Apple //e and I fell in love with the 6502. I quickly progressed to writing all my stuff in assembly. The instruction set was simple and quickly memorized, along with the CPU cycles for each instruction. You would count cycles in your inner loop to optimize performance. I loved that the system was simple enough that you could know everything that was going on down to the bare metal. I think that's why today I enjoy doing projects with microcontrollers because there's not much of a software stack between you and the hardware. Today it seems like so much of programming is trying to learn how to use some library and figure out why it doesn't seem to be doing what you think it should be doing. If I can't figure something out, I'd rather it be my own code! I managed to convey my love for the Apple //e to my young son, and as an adult he has requested that I stipulate in my will he gets the Apple. In the meantime he bought an Apple //c off of eBay. Haha! *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 15 (15 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 15 (15 / 0) T Thomas Harte Ars Tribunus Militum 14y 2,033 May 19, 2023 #108 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #108 SeanJW said: N Nah, 8086 is clearly derived from 8080 - so much so that porting software could literally be loading a set of macros for 8080 instructions that mapped through to equivalent 8086. That was an important thing. Part of why MS-DOS APIs mapped through to CP/M ones and the COM format is identical. A portable CP/M program could just be macro translated, and boom, instant MS-DOS program. NEC took it to the next level with its 8080 binary mode. Click to expand... Right, and then somebody has said: let's add four extra address lines, but keep all address calculations as 16-bit right up until the last moment, when we'll sum two such numbers with a shift on one. Oh, and we'll add instruction-set support for ASCII-coded decimal arithmetic, because that's always super-important. I mean, there's probably even an application somewhere that does that. *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 1 (1 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 1 (1 / 0) E Eigenvogel Wise, Aged Ars Veteran 1m 293 May 19, 2023 #109 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #109 Apostolos said: I get that today's hardware is so much more powerful. But my first computer was an Apple //e and I fell in love with the 6502. I quickly progressed to writing all my stuff in assembly. The instruction set was simple and quickly memorized, along with the CPU cycles for each instruction. You would count cycles in your inner loop to optimize performance. Click to expand... Me too. Later I got into programming PIC microcontrollers and found it had a very similar feel. *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 3 (3 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 3 (3 / 0) msaroff msaroff Ars Centurion 11y 268 May 19, 2023 #110 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #110 Will it run CPM? If you want to go old school, let's go OLD SCHOOL. *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 0 (0 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 0 (0 / 0) fitten fitten Ars Legatus Legionis 20y 51,037 Subscriptor++ May 19, 2023 #111 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #111 Apostolos said: I managed to convey my love for the Apple //e to my young son, and as an adult he has requested that I stipulate in my will he gets the Apple. In the meantime he bought an Apple //c off of eBay. Haha! Click to expand... My first computer was an MC-10, but it quickly got replaced by an Apple ][+ gifted by a family friend who was upgrading to an Apple IIe. I used that for a few months and got an Apple //c and I used that for a few years so I'll always have good feelings about the //c. I learned 6502 ASM on it but I wouldn't say that I was very good at it. There were just a lot of things you had to do to get performance out of it. Stuff I wrote worked but I'm confident that it was far from optimal. The machine after the //c was an Atari ST and I loved, and still love, 680x0 assembly. We used that family in a bunch of CS and EE classes, too. Writing stuff for it was a dream after struggling with 6502. I think my //c is still around somewhere (last I saw it, it was at my uncle's but it wasn't running and it was missing some keys :( ) My mom gave away my Atari ST like 20+ years ago without telling me at the time :( I did get an STE a few years ago, though. *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 4 (4 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 4 (4 / 0) fitten fitten Ars Legatus Legionis 20y 51,037 Subscriptor++ May 19, 2023 #112 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #112 msaroff said: Will it run CPM? If you want to go old school, let's go OLD SCHOOL. Click to expand... There are some folks working on porting CPM to the Agon Light. I was watching some conversation about it today in Discord and on the forum. *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 0 (0 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 0 (0 / 0) E Eigenvogel Wise, Aged Ars Veteran 1m 293 May 19, 2023 #113 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #113 NetMage said: Most of the symbols in APL are upper and lower case geek letters, plus a few extras like arrows, common relational symbols and quad (box). Some were originally created by overstriking (combining) two characters, like domino (box + division), so it actually isn't too difficult to remember. And symbols often have two or more context dependent functions, so it doesn't need as many as you might think :) Click to expand... J is essentially APL without the special symbols. A downside is that J programs tend to look like line noise. Here's an implementation of Quicksort in J (borrowed from Wikipedia): Code: quicksort=: (($:@(<#[), (=#[), $:@(>#[)) ({~ ?@#)) ^: (1<#) *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 8 (8 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 8 (8 / 0) A Apostolos Ars Centurion 5y 290 Subscriptor++ May 19, 2023 #114 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #114 Eigenvogel said: J is essentially APL without the special symbols. A downside is that J programs tend to look like line noise. Here's an implementation of Quicksort in J (borrowed from Wikipedia): Code: quicksort=: (($:@(<#[), (=#[), $:@(>#[)) ({~ ?@#)) ^: (1<#) Click to expand... Stop swearing!!! hahaha *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 4 (4 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 4 (4 / 0) A Apostolos Ars Centurion 5y 290 Subscriptor++ May 19, 2023 #115 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #115 fitten said: My first computer was an MC-10, but it quickly got replaced by an Apple ][+ gifted by a family friend who was upgrading to an Apple IIe. I used that for a few months and got an Apple //c and I used that for a few years so I'll always have good feelings about the //c. I learned 6502 ASM on it but I wouldn't say that I was very good at it. There were just a lot of things you had to do to get performance out of it. Stuff I wrote worked but I'm confident that it was far from optimal. The machine after the //c was an Atari ST and I loved, and still love, 680x0 assembly. We used that family in a bunch of CS and EE classes, too. Writing stuff for it was a dream after struggling with 6502. I think my //c is still around somewhere (last I saw it, it was at my uncle's but it wasn't running and it was missing some keys :( ) My mom gave away my Atari ST like 20+ years ago without telling me at the time :( I did get an STE a few years ago, though. Click to expand... I wanted a 68000 computer really bad back when they came out, but at work it was mainframes and PCs and at home I had sunk $5000 into an Apple //e system. As a young married engineer I couldn't justify another large outlay for several years. When I finally did I just bought a PC clone because that's what I was using at work. *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 9 (9 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 9 (9 / 0) P poke 532810 Smack-Fu Master, in training 1y 74 May 19, 2023 #116 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #116 chanman819 said: There might be a serious case for such retro hardware in the medical field too. Lots of (actual) capital equipment (think of your various diagnostic devices) there as well, that need to interface with a mix of systems (and software) of various vintages. Click to expand... One of my coworkers maintains a workstation with an Alpha processor running OSF/1 as a spare controller for an experiment that has been running for a couple of decades. It's easier to keep the old equipment running rather than try to substitute new equipment and risk affecting the results. *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 5 (5 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 5 (5 / 0) A alansh42 Ars Scholae Palatinae 9y 1,461 Subscriptor++ May 19, 2023 #117 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #117 msaroff said: Will it run CPM? If you want to go old school, let's go OLD SCHOOL. Click to expand... It should. Along with PC DOS, IBM issued CP/M-86 with the original PC. Although it worked similarly to the 8 bit CP/M, you couldn't run an 8 bit binary on it. IBM had explored having CP/M-86 as the default OS. There are several stories as to why it didn't happen, but most likely is that Gary Kildal wouldn't sign IBM's NDA. Kildal just blowing IBM off to go flying is most likely a myth. *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 5 (5 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 5 (5 / 0) R raxadian Ars Praefectus 6y 3,917 May 19, 2023 #118 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #118 Jeff S said: Why is DOSBox just good for games? Click to expand... Cause the makers don't want it used that way. There are hacks and custom builds of Dosbox that are supposed to let you use stuff like print, but use them at your own risk. *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 3 (3 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 3 (3 / 0) R raxadian Ars Praefectus 6y 3,917 May 19, 2023 #119 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #119 chanman819 said: There might be a serious case for such retro hardware in the medical field too. Lots of (actual) capital equipment (think of your various diagnostic devices) there as well, that need to interface with a mix of systems (and software) of various vintages. Click to expand... If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It: Ancient Computers in Use Today From 1970s minicomputers used for military programs (including nuclear weapons) to an IBM punch-card system still keeping the books at a Texas filter supplier, these are the computers that time forgot. www.pcworld.com www.pcworld.com Some people stilll use 80s electronic typewriters, I had two of those that I gifted away and keep a "portable" mechanical typewriter still in the carry bag in the closet. By now the bag is probably broken. *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 2 (2 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 2 (2 / 0) Z zogus Ars Praefectus 16y 4,898 May 19, 2023 #120 * May 19, 2023 * Add bookmark * * #120 binaryspiral said: This is exactly right. Entire manufacturing floors are powered by old 486 and Pentium powered PCs running ancient operating systems long out of support from their vendors - but the machines they control cost millions and are the heartbeat of the company. Industrial IT is a dark corner of security and interoperability challenges that can make even the most seasoned engineer and director cringe. We know it has to be on the network... but fuck me, it's just waiting to get plucked by the first malware infection - we need to isolate it from the office network and for god sakes don't give it internet access! Click to expand... Four eighty six? Pentium? Supporting millions of dollars? Pfft. Son, that's like the Fisher-Price segment of industrial retro-computing. Real men (and women) use older and beefier stuff to support billion-dollar equipment. As an example, about a decade ago, a nuclear power plant operator announced they were going to keep using DEC PDP-11 until 2050, and were going to hire new assembly programmers (!!!) for the platform. Back to the article, I can understand the need for DOS boxes for industrial applications, but then I don't understand why this thing seems to lack old-style Centronics and RS-232C ports, not to mention a floppy drive. Wouldn't many equipment control applications from the day need one? Also, that USB port. Is there an 8088-compatible USB driver for ancient versions of DOS? *** More options Report Add bookmark Share Upvote 9 (9 / 0) Quote Report Upvote 9 (9 / 0) Prev * 1 * 2 * 3 * 4 * 5 * 6 Next First Prev 3 of 6 Go to page [3 ] Go Next Last You must log in or register to reply here. * Forums * Ars Lykaion * News & Discussion * * Light theme * [ ] * Contact us * Posting guidelines * Terms and rules * Privacy policy * Help * * RSS Community platform by XenForo^(r) (c) 2010-2021 XenForo Ltd. | Community services from Audentio Jump to latest Follow Reply Jump to latest Follow Reply [ ]