Bizarre AliExpress laptop computer with Intel 8088 CPU will take you again to the MS-DOS period [Updated]

All fashionable Intel and AMD PCs can hint their roots to a single system: the IBM Private Pc. Initially launched in August 1981, this laptop turned so widespread and long-lived that opponents reverse-engineered its BIOS in order that their computer systems might use the identical software program and peripherals, a observe that finally resulted in a de facto customary whose descendants we nonetheless use right now.

If you wish to expertise what utilizing an previous IBM PC was like, you possibly can drop a number of hundred {dollars} on a used one on eBay. Or you possibly can roll the cube on this new oddball laptop computer on AliExpress. The “Guide 8088” laptop computer PC combines fashionable elements with an Intel 8088 processor and 640KB (sure, that is kilobytes) of reminiscence. A couple of extra fashionable facilities make it nicer to make use of than a 40-year-old desktop, like a 640×200 16-color LCD display, and built-in interfaces that permit USB equipment and CompactFlash playing cards to interface with the traditional elements (a 512MB CompactFlash card serves because the system’s arduous drive).

Intel’s 8088 was a cut-down model of the unique 8086 with an 8-bit information bus; within the Guide 8088 and the IBM PC, it runs at a clock pace of 4.77 MHz. That gradual pace and low reminiscence restrict means it is best suited to MS-DOS, with its text-based interface and basic lack of multitasking help. You can run very early Home windows variations on it, as much as model 3.zero however, in keeping with retro-tech YouTube, it looks as if a foul time.

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