• expired

Pocket 386 (w/ Recycled 386SX40 CPU) Works with DOS/Win 3.1/Win95 US$183.93 (~AU$285.79) Shipped @ iklestar AliExpress

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Edit: Price appears to have increased. I’ll expire this deal

On sale is the Pocket 386 pocket computer.

Uses a reclaimed/recycled 386SX40 CPU + 8Mb DRAM + Yamaha OPL3 Sound + VGA graphics + IPS screen (800x480px either 16:9 or 4:3) + USB + Compact Flash Storage (IDE mode). Includes adapters for PS/2, VGA, and Parallel Ports.

Also has pinouts for ISA 16-bit & ISA 8-bit.

It can run DOS, Windows 3.11, and Windows 95. Although note that this computer is below the Windows 95 minimum specifications, so it will be very slow and barely usable.

Note: The sound card is based on the Yamaha OLP3 chip, which is compatible with Adlib sound output but not Sound Blaster.

It has built-in mouse support. But reviews suggest this is not very usable, so a PS2 mouse is recommended.

AU price is inclusive of GST + Coupon + 3% bank fee + Mastercard Exchange Rate

Video review of this computer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVgITS8aLzc

Original Coupon Deal

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closed Comments

  • +55

    Nice to relive the 90s with MSN messenger and icq.

    Asl pls?

    • +59

      16fNigeria

      • +38

        Hello my underage princess, we shall meet again after I serve a 10 year jail sentence for sending this message to you

    • +3

      or may be Netscape Navigator or Navigator Plus/Gold :)

      • +3

        Ahhh, the good old Netscape.
        I remember all those internet Cafe days, everyone be typing in xxx

    • +19

      Believe it or not ICQ has still been around all this time, shutting down this week.

      • +4

        Indeed a sad day.
        It saved me many dollars with all those free sms messages to Vodafone network

        • +16

          Concur, being a 90's kid, what a time to be alive when the Internet was just getting off the ground

          • +11

            @adrianhughes1998: Best time to be online.

            Although slow internet speeds and hogging up the only landline in the house,
            all the curious types were trying to help each other, and make friendships,
            when there was no social media, from self-facing camera phones.

            • +4

              @whyisave: That's it, I resorted to using a Motorola v2288 and WAP on that to talk to randoms in the Optus chat rooms on there. You exactly nailed the atmosphere

              • +3

                @adrianhughes1998: ICQ and mIRC was the thing and you could meet randoms and felt comfortable with as the internet was new…

                • +2

                  @neonlight: Mirc, what a throwback. I actually still use it to get niche ebooks… but it's just not the same anymore.

                  • +3

                    @Assburg: mIRC was the preferred way to download 'large video' files before torrents took off. Bot would put you in a queue for Shrek…

                • @neonlight: Now I just use ozbargain

                • @neonlight: This too, I only used them for a little bit more branched out to others haha

          • +3

            @adrianhughes1998: www.freeonline.com.au does anyone remember that? 20 minutes (or was it 30?) of free internet per day per account. You would have to dial in using their dial up console). Using a lot of burner email addresses. For some reason I could still continue downloading everything beyond the time limitation on Emule

            • +10

              @Lucille Bluth: Free online was for noobs. Pros used go connect with the hack to disable the banner.

              • +1

                @Jaduqimon: I think I remember that, it sounds very familiar! The dialier was cracked or something. God was so many years ago

                • +2

                  @Lucille Bluth: Yeh I used them all. another was called globalfreeway and free.net.

                  Being a kid with no money had to resort to these lol

                  One.tel back then was charging 29.99 per month with 300mb download limit.

              • @Jaduqimon: Never forget the day I discovered how to remove that god forsaken green circle!

              • +5

                @Jaduqimon: TPG Nightrider

            • +1

              @Lucille Bluth: I don't but think there was some alternative I used, anything we could do to get online because data was still pricey back then!

          • +5

            @adrianhughes1998: 90s was the best decade of my life. Wish I could go back in time when life was so simple and a dollar could buy you so much candy

            • +2

              @easternculture: Play basketball, play cricket, go to deli and buy the candy you could get for a dollar. Jump the school fences to get into their swimming pools. You are so right, those were absolutely the days!

              • +2

                @adrianhughes1998: Also the playgrounds where you actually get bruises, scraped knees and splinters.

                And that weekly school swim day they took us to the pools

          • +2

            @adrianhughes1998: If you're a fan of early tech / internet nostalgia, this is one of the best docos I've seen:

            BBS: The Documentary (8 parts / 5hr)

          • @adrianhughes1998: I remember mIRC days and playing these text based games (facilitated by bots) in it! 😆 RPG text based games where you grind to level up and you can PvP others in the channel.

      • +6

        Wow. My first ICQ identity was sub-100K. It used to be a point-of-pride that it was only 5 digits long, something in the 60K range. I used it for years, even migrating it to Trillian at one point so I could consolidate all my instant chat clients into a single interface. I had friends all over the world, and even used it for work until it was supplanted by Skype.

        • +1

          That's legit cred…. Mine was 3xxxxx

          • @Ashburtonian:

            Mine was 3xxxxx

            Props

          • +3

            @Ashburtonian: Mine was 2xxxxx.
            Still remember the number better than my phone number.
            Met mrs muncan on there, and is still lying by my side.

        • +2

          migrating it to Trillian

          Trillian was too bloated.
          I was using Miranda, on a USB stick, taking it with me everywhere.

          • +2

            @whyisave: Yeh I went though a few diff clients, the last I remember using was Pidgin

        • +2

          My first ICQ identity was sub-100K

          I am very proud of my eBay account with only two characters "RF" created on Jan-31-98

          • +1

            @Lucille Bluth: Damn. Wonder who owns all the single character accounts

          • +1

            @Lucille Bluth: rofl - 26 years and only a 45 feedback rating! What was the point of joining eBay in 1998 though, they didn't launch in Australia until 1999.

            • +1

              @Mondorock: Yeah lol I have a few accounts. My main is "tstore", for when I was as a teen trying to sell used t-shirts! Then video games … Created Aug-11-01 - created exactly 1 month before 9/11 …

              What was the point of joining eBay in 1998 though, they didn't launch in Australia until 1999.

              Pretty sure you could still buy from overseas. I also created an Amazon account before they launched here. Latter was less useful

              • +2

                @Lucille Bluth:

                Pretty sure you could still buy from overseas.

                Indeed. My first ever eBay account was created in late 1998 to buy Pokémon cards & ephemera from the U.S. I re-registered when it launched in AU with a different user name as the original one had attracted unwarranted negative feedback.

                • @Chazzozz:

                  the original one had attracted unwarranted negative feedback.

                  Go on, don't leave us in suspense!

                  • +1

                    @Lucille Bluth: Nothing more than a disgruntled buyer who clearly hadn’t read the full description, then still left negative feedback even after I’d agreed to a refund. Quite an eye-opener of how people would behave badly on the Internet (which, in some ways, hasn’t changed much). It was simpler to cut my losses and start over with a new profile, especially since it said ‘Registered in Australia’ instead of the U.S.

        • +1

          I feel the same about my OzB account being under 1K 😄

        • People used to pay top-dollar for 5-digit IDs, even 6-digits sold well.

          • +1

            @fwhite: I remember debating whether to sell my 6 digit ID, I could have got around $300 for it when ICQ was at it's peak.

        • Mine is 4066088 - still works too!

      • No way.. I met my wife there. And now I live in Australia :)

    • Wrong decade. 386SX came out in 1988 (though I think 40 mhz version came out later).

      • +2

        Yeah, but almost no-one had them in their homes. We purchased a 386sx in 1992 for $3000, and another $1200 for a dot-matrix printer.

        Mum preferred using the typewriter over the computer because it was faster to type letters. The computer could not keep up with her typing and was usually several paragraphs behind. That was our only computer until 2000. Didn't have spell check and it took about 8 minutes to print a page. Had to wake up really early when assignments were due, as it would take hours to print them.

        • Why did no one have them, what did they have instead? My first PC was a 486SX 33 Mhz bought in 1993, with a Sharp laser printer.

          • @Mondorock: IBM was still mainly a business machine, c64, Amiga, and to a lesser extent Atari and Amstrad were the “home” machines in the late 80s.
            By 1991, when we got a 386, Windows 3 was making big in roads in the home, a big part of which was a big drop in PC prices. Our 386 with 4mb and a 100mb hdd was $1200, and a epson 18 pin dot matrix was about $300.
            I think frugalferret might be misremembering the prices, or using 2024 dollars.
            The pace and price changes of IT stuff back then was blistering, but with a laser printer in 1993 (and a 486) you would have had a very advanced and costly system for home.

            • @mskeggs: $1200 seems very steep for a dot matrix printer. I found a (US) ad online for an HP Deskjet 500 inkjet in 1992 for US$599, which I'm guessing would have equated to an Australian price of around $1000?

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n03r3qKE8wY&ab_channel=ewjxn

              • +1

                @Mondorock: I think that is a good rule of thumb, but prices fell very quickly. In 1993 or 1994 we bought a colour Deskjet 550c for about $300. There was a very steady drive to release new models and discount the old.

            • +1

              @mskeggs: Yeah when i started on the c64 my "internet" was sending data-cassettes then later floppies via post to the UK, USA and Germany and waiting for them to send the cracked games you wanted back. I got contacts in the classifieds of Zzap and Commodore Format etc, we would send a print out of what games we had and what we were seeking. It could be months for the turn around, but all the BBS were a long distance call and far too expensive.

              I actually have a Dick Smith yearly catalogue here somewhere either 1991 or 1994 with prices of 386/486 machines, i'll try and see where i put it.

            • +6

              @mskeggs: Found my Tandy 1992-1993 and uploaded some pics here https://imgur.com/a/SIOnTMZ

      • I had a 386 DX40. My first computer in 1992. Bought second hand.

        Still have the original windows 3.1 and DOS 5.0 5.25 installation media

      • My first ever laptop was a 386SX, bought for Year 11. The 386SX was the worst of both worlds, just rubbish. Did most of my school work in the ironically named Microsoft Works in DOS.

    • ICQ

      ICQ Shutting Down After 27 Years
      https://mashable.com/article/icq-instant-messaging-service-s…

      "ICQ will stop working from June 26," reads a message on ICQ.com.

    • +5

      cya on efnet

      /join #quiz

      • +3

        ayy #warez on AustNet, where my main man [[x]] at these days?

        • +2

          funny enough I've taught my daughter to pop into #ebooks for all her Kindle needs.. her mates are asking questions and her response is "my dad's deep into pre-darknet hacking stuff, it's like so old, there no graphics, it's pre-sms, there isn't even emojis."

    • +2

      14/f/cali

      • +1

        Yay correct answer!

      • Pic?

        • +5

          🚨👮‍♂️ This one right here officer

      • Uh-oh!

    • +1

      asl

      I’m a level 13 dual weilding paladin

      • I’m a level 13 dual weilding paladin

        Not sure whether you mean welding or wielding :-)

    • Last hurrah before ICQ closes down

    • Maybe if you want to run MSN and ICQ slowly!

      If you were chatting online at all in the 386 era, it was using mIRC and Forte Free Agent (via Trumpet Winsock).

      By the time ICQ came around, everyone was using a 486 at least… and more likely a Pentium.

  • +4

    386? portable pocket sized doorstop more likely :P

    • +6

      I'm holding out for 486 at least.

      • +5

        Yep. 486 can play Duke Nukem 3D

      • +1

        With the turbo button
        .

        • +1

          Turbo makes it slower.

  • +19

    Why?????

    • +52

      Because people from that generation are addicted to nostalgia. It's all we have that makes us happy.

      • +1

        Fair enuff

      • +15

        This is the sort of thing youll get excited about, then when it arrives, youll be reminded about how frustrating and slow the damn thing is.

        After 15 mins, you'll move onto something else and wonder why you didnt spend nearly $300 on something else.

        Want a retro PC experience? Just load it on you phone.

      • +2

        After 5 minutes of using it and satisfying your nostalgia what would one do with it?

        • +10

          Play minesweeper

          • @Lizard Spock: I can do that in a browser on my phone

            • +1

              @qvinto: Yes but is it 8bit?

              • -1

                @Lizard Spock: Does it matter? I'm the target demographic for this I guess as my first PC was a used 286 when 386/486s were coming out. However if you want nostalgia why not get the real thing and get an old computer to play with?

        • +1

          Play Tank Wars

      • +2

        I'm from that era and I'm not nostalgic for something like that. Now if I could get a Psion 5mx altered to run a more modern OS then you might pique my interest.

        • +1

          There is somebody who ported linux to the Psion 5mx.

          • +1

            @mskeggs: Right, time to dig out my old Psion! I chuck out most tech gear once it's past it's useful life, but the 5mx is such a beautifully designed bit of kit that it deserves better.

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