Book 8088

Preamble

I think spec-wise it is the worst of all the computers I have, but if we talk about excitement and fun it is right there near the top!

I also was watching “Halt and Catch Fire” TV series at the time the laptop appeared on Amazon so it was really nice to touch some of the 80s tech depicted on screen.

Same company released another ‘curiosity’ laptop - Pocket 386, that employs 386SX (clone) CPU and has lots of RAM, whopping 8 megabytes; I almost ordered it the other day but detailed reviews are not flattering and that laptop doesn’t have that many original old components.

Hardware

What I honestly like the most about this laptop that it has a lot of bona fide old components. The V20 processor that I have in my machine looks beaten and worn down; I like that it ended up being used here instead of the landfill. It is a 16-bit CPU compatible with Intel 8088, and just as Intel original it features 8-bit external data bus.

Just for fun I’ve upgraded the system by adding a math co-processor (8087), it generates a lot of heat and consumes lots of battery power though so I unplugged it after a while.

┌─────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────┐
│ CPU         │ NEC V20 4.77MHz + i8087 co-processor │
│ GPU         │ yes                                  │
│ Sound Card  │ OPL3 (Yamaha YMF262-M)               │
│ RAM         │ 640kb                                │
│ Display     │ yes                                  │
│ Storage     │ CF card 512mb                        │
└─────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────┘

An expansion card that adds three ISA slots exists but I don’t have it; it extends the laptop functionality even further as you can use network cards and such.

Software

Little shame point here: I’m still using bundled MS-DOS v6.22 here, never bothered to install anything else. Obviously the choice is not as big as with 80386-onwards, but we still got Minix, ELKS, Fuzix, PC-DOS, DR-DOS (which I want to try because it was developed by Gary Kildall himself), CP/M-86 and of course FreeDOS.

Photos