HNNewShowAskJobs
Built with Tanstack Start
He Chunhui's Tiny386 Turns an ESP32-S3 into a Fully-Functional 386-Powered PC(hackster.io)
95 points by HardwareLust 2 days ago | 11 comments
  • accrual2 days ago

    Super cool work! Here's the emulator source: https://github.com/hchunhui/tiny386

    I wonder what the "effective" clock of the emulated CPU is, maybe we could run Speedsys or Landmark under DOS on it to see how it fares against a real 386. I happen to have a top-end 386 at 40MHz, 16MB FPM, and S3 801 VGA, but it's not quite fast enough to "enjoy" Win95 for me. :)

    • stavros2 days ago |parent

      From the looks of the video, neither is this project, which might mean that performance is comparable to the real 386!

  • gerdesj2 days ago

    Blast! 80386 was removed from Linux only a few years ago. Ironically enough it was the first supported platform because Linus T had one.

    • mjg592 days ago |parent

      The article says it supports enough 486 and Pentium instructions to boot modern Linux

    • M95Da day ago |parent

      Why not run Linux directly?

      https://www.hackster.io/news/running-linux-on-an-esp32-s3-0d...

      • HardwareLust11 hours ago |parent

        Pretty sure this project was for entertainment purposes only, not as a solution for an existing problem.

  • fouc2 days ago

    I was curious what the "cheapest" ready-to-use ESP32-S3 setup would be, it seems like there are dev boards with built-in displays ranging from 3.5" to 5", WiFI/BT/USB-C for $20-$30 on ebay.

    I guess those of you doing IoT / home assistant stuff would likely know about these. Just found out about ESPHome[0]

    [0] https://esphome.io

    • mickelsen2 days ago |parent

      I’ve picked up a few boards from the Waveshare and Spotpear storefronts on AliExpress:

      https://wvshare.aliexpress.com/

      https://spotpear.aliexpress.com/

      There you can find the latest launches and different versions depending on your use case. Also, checkout the Luckfox Pico.

    • dccoolgai2 days ago |parent

      You can buy the Microcenter knockoff one (Inland) for under $10

      • fouc2 days ago |parent

        Inland seems to be a Microcenter brand. Not sure what model you're referring to, got a link?

  • phibza day ago

    Seems like a better fit for Win 3.11.