Pocket 8086 Another new retro computer

9/24/2024

Shortly after my purchase of the Book 8088 another "new-retro PC" offering

popped up on Ali-Express. The Pocket 8086.

This time with an 8086 processor (actually a compatible VECV30) running at 

the standard 4.77mhz or 10Mhz in turbo mode.

This time with 768K of RAM allowing use of upper memory.

At first I thought "been there, done that don't really need it" but in the 

back of my mind I didn't want this new toy to suddenly be un-available.

So eventually I shelled out the $168 or so and ordered one.

As before, I had it in my hands 10 days later but unlike my experience with the 

Book 8088, I became LESS excited about it while waiting for it to arrive.

This version, although not exactly compatible with any vintage IBM offering, 

came with many of the things I had wished for on the 8088 version.

Included with the device was adapters for external keyboard, mouse, and 

VGA monitor along with connectors for serial and printer ports.

(no hacking required) 

I was Surprised at the difference in the size

compared to the Book 8088 (not obvious in the online ads, see photo) making

the keyboard even more cramped.

(thankfully a full-size external keyboard is easily attached)

Another thing that surprised me was the apparent lack of interest from the 

vintage PC community compared to the attention the Book 8088 got.

Maybe the way the Book 8088 BIOS was used without consent stirred up the community.

In the case of the Pocket 8086, the BIOS was copied from the IBM PC-XT BIOS 

published in the IBM PC XT Technical Reference of March 1986.

I'd love to see someone modify the BIOS to allow the system to boot from a 

floppy image on a USB stick as was done for the Book 8088.

This time the BIOS is stored on a flash rom instead of an EPROM so I spent 

some time modifying my Arduino MEGA flash programmer with a PLCC32 socket

and a few extra address signals that will allow me to make BIOS changes if

I can ever figure out how to add any useful changes to it.

Another thoughtful feature of the Pocket 8086 is the implementation of a

keyboard mouse function allowing one to use the keyboard directional keys 

in place of a mouse without additional drivers. 

(not that I'll be doing much in Windows 3.0 on this machine)

I was amused for several weeks with this new toy so in the end I guess 

it was worth it.

Description of download links:
Pocket8086_UsersGuide.pdf Pocket 8086 Users Guide
Pocket8086_Schematic*.pdf   Pocket 8086 Schematic Pages