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This just reminds me that I have a real 8088 that I don't know what to do with. Last I knew, it even worked, but it hasn't been turned on in decades so I am no

by Natsu 4y ago

This just reminds me that I have a real 8088 that I don't know what to do with. Last I knew, it even worked, but it hasn't been turned on in decades so I am not eager to risk it, even if I were to sanity check it for blown capacitors.

wincy 4y ago
What’s the point of owning it then? Serious question, after seeing that article on junk that was on the front page earlier. Pull it out, fire it up. I had an 8088 “laptop” that I had a lot of fun with as a kid. By then it was obsolete but I got the OS running using one floppy and Megaman launching using the second floppy disk. Good memories.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  I have a tube of ten of them waiting to be built into a Beowulf cluster.
- citrin_ru 4y ago
  1. There is a sizable community of retro-computing enthusiasts. It's a fun to being able bring back to action an old computer. 2. Computers evolve very quickly and they are small compare to other artifacts of human history so it is more feasible to have an interesting museum-like collection at home. I consider collecting some old CPUs - hope by the time I will afford to have more possessions they will not be too expensive.
  - jstanley 4y ago
    The question wasn't "what's the point in owning old hardware?", it was "what's the point in owning old hardware if you're not willing to turn it on?".
- tssva 4y ago
  It isn't often that you hear good memories being associated with the DOS version of Megaman. I don't mean to mess with your childhood memories, buy it was widely and rightfully considered an awful game. Capcom wasn't involved in the development of it, and it is a whole new game rather than a port of the original nes game.
  - wincy 4y ago
    Hahah! Well I was maybe 8 years old and just assumed I was terrible at the game. It was just magical to see a game run on a computer when I’d only ever used NES or SNES before.
- Natsu 4y ago
  I sorta feel like it's a historical relic at this point and want to preserve it, but you're right that it's just occupying closet space meaninglessly.
rahen 4y ago
I've built an 8088 replica (Sergey's Xi 8088) and I'm having great fun with ELKS. https://github.com/jbruchon/elks https://github.com/jbruchon/elks ELKS is a Linux subset designed for the 8088, along with a complete toolchain (gcc-ia16). It's also actively maintained and comes with QEMU images and a dockerfile for fast, reproducible builds. Best to test it on live hardware, it's more rewarding and more fun a toy Unix than xv6. edit: typos
drivers99 4y ago
I have my first computer still, an IBM PC. The last useful thing I did with it is copy the 2015 demo “8088 MHZ”[1] to it. (I still had Telix installed on the hard drive so I was able to copy, via USB drive, the EXE file from my Windows 7 box which didn’t have a serial port to my XP box which did. And then use Hyperterminal and a null modem cable and 9 to 25 pin adapter to the serial port on the PC to send it via Zmodem (I think) protocol. (The demo runs most of the way but I get a parity error/crash at a certain point because it requires 640K and I have a little less than that due to some bad RAM. Even though I set the dip switches to less than the full amount, I think the demo tries to use all the memory space anyway.) I was thinking of porting Forth (jonesforth) to it. I’d have to use 16 bit assembly language of course instead of 32 bit. [1] https://trixter.oldskool.org/2015/04/07/8088-mph-we-break-all-your-emulators/ https://trixter.oldskool.org/2015/04/07/8088-mph-we-break-al... it’s able to do things I never knew were possible on the original PC. I wonder if it works on the device this post is about.

by Natsu 4y ago

wincy 4y ago

What’s the point of owning it then? Serious question, after seeing that article on junk that was on the front page earlier. Pull it out, fire it up. I had an 8088 “laptop” that I had a lot of fun with as a kid. By then it was obsolete but I got the OS running using one floppy and Megaman launching using the second floppy disk. Good memories.

kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
I have a tube of ten of them waiting to be built into a Beowulf cluster.
citrin_ru 4y ago
1. There is a sizable community of retro-computing enthusiasts. It's a fun to being able bring back to action an old computer. 2. Computers evolve very quickly and they are small compare to other artifacts of human history so it is more feasible to have an interesting museum-like collection at home. I consider collecting some old CPUs - hope by the time I will afford to have more possessions they will not be too expensive.
- jstanley 4y ago
  The question wasn't "what's the point in owning old hardware?", it was "what's the point in owning old hardware if you're not willing to turn it on?".
tssva 4y ago
It isn't often that you hear good memories being associated with the DOS version of Megaman. I don't mean to mess with your childhood memories, buy it was widely and rightfully considered an awful game. Capcom wasn't involved in the development of it, and it is a whole new game rather than a port of the original nes game.
- wincy 4y ago
  Hahah! Well I was maybe 8 years old and just assumed I was terrible at the game. It was just magical to see a game run on a computer when I’d only ever used NES or SNES before.
Natsu 4y ago
I sorta feel like it's a historical relic at this point and want to preserve it, but you're right that it's just occupying closet space meaninglessly.

rahen 4y ago

I've built an 8088 replica (Sergey's Xi 8088) and I'm having great fun with ELKS. https://github.com/jbruchon/elks https://github.com/jbruchon/elks ELKS is a Linux subset designed for the 8088, along with a complete toolchain (gcc-ia16). It's also actively maintained and comes with QEMU images and a dockerfile for fast, reproducible builds. Best to test it on live hardware, it's more rewarding and more fun a toy Unix than xv6. edit: typos

drivers99 4y ago

I have my first computer still, an IBM PC. The last useful thing I did with it is copy the 2015 demo “8088 MHZ”[1] to it. (I still had Telix installed on the hard drive so I was able to copy, via USB drive, the EXE file from my Windows 7 box which didn’t have a serial port to my XP box which did. And then use Hyperterminal and a null modem cable and 9 to 25 pin adapter to the serial port on the PC to send it via Zmodem (I think) protocol. (The demo runs most of the way but I get a parity error/crash at a certain point because it requires 640K and I have a little less than that due to some bad RAM. Even though I set the dip switches to less than the full amount, I think the demo tries to use all the memory space anyway.) I was thinking of porting Forth (jonesforth) to it. I’d have to use 16 bit assembly language of course instead of 32 bit. [1] https://trixter.oldskool.org/2015/04/07/8088-mph-we-break-all-your-emulators/ https://trixter.oldskool.org/2015/04/07/8088-mph-we-break-al... it’s able to do things I never knew were possible on the original PC. I wonder if it works on the device this post is about.