The Hidden 386 PC: Proxima RangeLAN2

Clint any chance you could do a small follow up video with you adding ISA Graphics and Sound cards, maybe using a. IDE to CF Flash and showing the BIOS options?, I'd love to see this taken to the next level dude :-)

I thought this was a very phat dvd player xD Bahahah

floverSaeu09

Great video btw ;3

Nokia 9000 series Communicator phones ran on 486 and used a GEOS-based system on top of modified DOS, someone gained access to the DOS and used it to run text mode programs :) Not each one works, because it's not really a miniature IBM PC (just the x86 processor and a modified DOS) but that's amazing nonetheless.

I had run across a similar thing in the early 2000s in a giant rackmount case - <a href="https://jedi.school.nz/gallery3/index.php/Machine/brouter" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://jedi.school.nz/gallery3/index.php/Machine/brouter</a> - these pictures were taken just after it was taken out of service where it was running a school's internet link at about 2Mbps - this was using an 802.11ish Karlnet radio, and instead of a floppy disk it had a solid state floppy (only a few hundred kb worth of software if i remember). Interestingly enough we had some proxim rangelan2 units as well, but they were stand alone desktop devices, you could get about 500Kbps out of them on a good day, more like 64-128k out in the field :)

Blair Harrison

This makes me wonder how much other old networking equipment back in the day have similar internals! Most probably quite a few to be honest.

Dan Milner

The soldered on battery issue is precisely why, when I get an old 386 or 486 motherboard the first thing I do is take wireclippers to the leads of the battery to remove it before it can do any damage. It does mean that I have to re-enter BIOS configuration every time I power it on, but that's not a problem for me.

What an interesting machine, I can only imagine how many people using this without any knowledge of its hidden parts at the time. Kind of cool!

SammyToesis

Oh how i love mainboards that have their battery as a separate pack. Because of directly mounted acid based batteries i already have two A2000 mainboards with that damage here. :(

BastetFurry

Better than theoretical dickens

LGR

Foone Turing here in the comments did, as it already is a real DOS PC! Runs DOS already, just needs an ISA video card to see what you're doing :)

LGR

Haha, well awesome :D

LGR

It turned away more viewers than it did anything else. Plus I just got bored of it, so it's not coming back. But feel free to enjoy the old intros and the videos where I remake it for old times' sake ;)

LGR

What the actual dickens?

Alyxx the Rat

Watched some old videos of yours recently. My conclusion: We need the old intro back! It gets one going to experience some cool tech stuff.

meisterolsen

This machine amuses and confounds me. Thanks for posting it

Garoninja

I'm sure there is someone somewhere trying to mod this "PC" into a real DOS PC. The sweet CPU demands it !

Maximilien Noal

I anticipate the Tech Tales requests already

LGR

If it makes you feel any better, it was probably corroded to no end inside :P

LGR

Yeah, it's my kinda weirdness, thanks for posting it!

LGR

Heh, I was going to comment that "whoa, I just found one of these recently!" and then you showed my retrobattlestations post. Neat! Glad you found it interesting.

Foone Turing

I saw one of these at a goodwill and totally dismissed it because I have no need for networking equipment!! Don't I feel like a fool.

Neat! This makes me wonder about the history of wireless networking...