AliExpress, according to an alert by Anatoly Shashkin on X, is featuring an update to the Book8088 computer. The Book 8088 is an IBM PC compatible computer in a small “laptop” form factor, featured June of 2023 in the Adafruit Retro Tech segment and on Ars Technica. Back then, things like sound were add-on cards at an extra cost.
The version now available on AliExpress (not an endorsement) still sports an 8088 processor with an empty socket for an 8087 math coprocessor. It has 640K RAM (the maximum MS-DOS can use for base memory). It also has a VGA 640x480x256 color display. This iteration comes also with a 9-pin serial port (suitable for a serial mouse, not included) and a parallel port for a compatible printer. The device runs MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.0 via a compact flash emulated hard drive. A USB port allows for file import/export only. Adlib OPL3 sound appears standard this round. The ISA interface card also appears to ship standard along with a power dongle.
This makes the Book8088 a nice little IBM PC/XT 5160 compatible. Link to vendor.
It’s be nice to get some benchmarks of this machine vs. some classic hardware and swapping things like a NEC V20 processor, a faster CF card, etc. Also it’d be nice to see an RJ-45 Ethernet port for networking (although this could clumsily be added via an ISA card). This would allow for the addition of the mTCP networking suite (open source) to communicate with other devices on a home LAN and sync with a time NTP server.
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