Problems with the Book 8088

[alyssavance]

I really, really wanted to like this computer. A genuine 8088 PC, but factory new and built with modern parts, for less than $200? Sign me up! Unfortunately, the problems kept multiplying, so I thought I would record my tales of woe for posterity. I expect weird issues when I buy very old hardware off eBay, but this is largely brand new equipment, so I'm a lot less forgiving here. (I'm far from infallible, but I'm a senior software engineer with a decade of experience and several other vintage machines, so I don't think I'm a total noob. If anyone has ideas, please do tell me, but I'm honestly close to just giving up at this point.)

1. To start with the obvious, the keyboard is fairly small and annoying to type on. I often had to hit keys many times before the key press would register. There is no PS/2 port, so no easy way to use an external keyboard.
2. As the other thread documents (https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/book-8088-discovery-and-modification-thread.1245155/), VGA graphics often do not work at all, either on Windows 3.0 or some other software like MATLAB 3.5. The screen goes completely dark when the machine uses VGA mode.
3. EGA graphics sort of work, but the entire image is shifted to the left somewhat, so there's a black bar on the right and the left side of the screen is cut off. There is no video-out port, so no way to use an external monitor without installing an add-on video card. (The "mode 80" trick did not work.)
4. The expansion slots are only 8-bit, so various 16-bit (long) ISA cards do not work.
5. There is a slot for an 8087 FPU co-processor, but when I bought one and installed it, not only did the chip not function, but the entire BIOS refused to boot. (Granted, I'm not totally sure if this is a computer issue or a chip issue, but the chip was sold as working on eBay.)
6. There is no A: floppy drive, either a real drive or an emulated drive. This became a problem with various old DOS software, which came on disk images and expected to be installed via disk. Several programs refused to install, since the only way to install them was to copy them off their images and put them on a USB drive (assigned to D, but the installers refused to run without being located on A:. This also means there's no backup boot method if anything happens to the main C: CompactFlash drive.
7. There's no CD-ROM drive, or way to boot from CD-ROM. This may be expected for a machine meant to act like a PC/AT - I think CD-ROM boot wasn't invented until the 90s? - but makes things harder when there's also no floppy drive.
8. The game Star Control II did not work due to out-of-memory errors, although it should work on an 8088 with 640K. It failed to start even when mem said there was more free memory than it was asking for, maybe because of a memory map issue (?).
9. I tried to install FreeDOS on the machine, since it's more modern and conveniently comes packaged with tons of useful software. This didn't work, on boot there were cryptic errors about partition table bytes. I contacted the manufacturer, and they said that FreeDOS wasn't expected to work on this machine, but they didn't say why (it should work on 8088s, AFAICT).
10. After trying FreeDOS, I tried to restore the original OS, but it kept not working. First, I had saved a copy of the files on the CompactFlash card, so I tried just wiping the partition and putting those files back on the card. Boot failed. Then, since there was no floppy or CD-ROM drive, I started up 86Box, created a virtual hard disk, installed MS-DOS to that, and then copied the disk bytes over to the card. I tried both MS-DOS 5 and MS-DOS 6.22, neither would boot. Either the BIOS said operating system not found, or after saying "Booting C>>C", it just froze completely.
11. I asked the manufacturer for a copy of the original disk image, which they did give me, to their credit. Unfortunately, it was a .GHO Norton Ghost file, a proprietary format only used by an obsolete Windows-only disk backup program which was discontinued years ago, so it was annoying to actually use it. However, when I converted it to a standard FAT image and then flashed that to the card, even that didn't work and it still wouldn't boot.
12. The CompactFlash card I got with the computer acted very strangely. The initial disk partition was 512 MB, which was reasonable. But when I tried to use dd to wipe it before writing a new partition table, it kept writing bytes all the way out to 64 GB of data. I'm not sure if it was actually a 64 GB card with a 512 MB image on it, or if it was 512 MB and was misreporting somehow as being 64 GB. Using standard Linux disk tools (fdisk, gparted, etc.) gave weird results - sometimes I'd delete a partition and then it seemed to still be there, sometimes I'd make a partition and it was created in the wrong size, etc.

 

[sqpat]

I hope I don't come off as too harsh in this post. I'm not particularly a book8088 defender. Points 1-3 sound like legitimate hardware complaints (you get what you pay for, though, IMO). Points 4-12 just sound like unfamiliarity with DOS, hardware, PCs, XTs, etc.

4. IBM PCs and XTs do not have 16 bit slots. The 8088 has an 8 bit bus.

5. Other people have had their 8087s working in the book 8088. I would confirm the FPU works on another machine.

6. They did not advertise a floppy drive, did they? If you do not have a floppy drive, then you can use the 8 bit ISA extension to add a floppy controller and floppy disk. That's what it's there for. BTW I'm not sure if the bios on that machine supports 1.44 MB disks or not. 1.44 MB support was not standard on XT-class machines.

7. It is unreasonable to expect an XT-Class to support CD-ROM, much less boot from one. Besides, doesn't this thing have USB thumb drive support for getting files in and out?

8. Star Control II came out in 1992. I will take you at your word that you meet it's minimum requirements. With enough memory expansion cards for UMBs, maybe EMS, and some DOS wizardry you may be able to coax it into playing. If you want help with this you need to post more specific details, but it's probably a lack of conventional memory and you may just need to unload some drivers from config.sys.

9. FreeDOS is not really meant for older pcs. Personally, I wasn't even aware it worked on 8088s. If you want to run it on a machine this old, you probably need to be prepared to deal with some problems yourself.

10 - 12 Setting up CFs for XT-IDE can be a hassle if you don't understand the process well or have the wrong CF card and this is not a book-8088 specific issue. But it sounds like you had a working CF and sort of messed it up, so I don't think the CF is incompatible. Personally I stay below 32 MB for XT class though. You are mentioning very large sizes that may or may not have BIOS/DOS etc incompatibilities.

The XT-class machines have a handful of differences that make it significantly different even from ATs and up (like the lack of 16 bit slots, which you noted). It's also not really suited for playing many games - especially EGA and VGA era titles. I'd look into mid 90s era stuff for that.

 

[Yrouel]

I agree with sqpat response above and I wanted to add that while point 2 is a legitimate issue the seller (NZT) has been very accommodating in shipping for free a replacement LCD controller board with a fixed firmware if you mention this VGA issue.

And now you can fix it yourself if you have the means to flash that improved firmware on the controller eeprom:

https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/book-8088-discovery-and-modification-thread.1245155/page-15#post-1360265

As for doing a fresh install, I agree it's a bit of a pain but if you bought the ISA expansion board it's trivial to use an external floppy controller and drive (gotek)

 

[Sleveee]

i have the book 8088 version 2 and it seems to boot without issue and kicks around in DOS just fine but the CGA chipset gets extremely hot. When a game or a GUI tries to init a graphics mode i get screen artifacts like little -- --- -- flying all over the screen and the LCD starts blanking and seems to lose signal. All the while the CGA chipset seems to be getting hotter to the point where it's painful to touch. I've tried reseating the card and even flashed sergey's BIOS to a new EPROM with no luck. The system seems to fuction ok otherwise (serial,parallel) but is rendered unusable by the seemingly defective CGA card. Any ideas on a possible fix? The chinese ebay seller does not seem to be responding to inquiries.

 

[Plasma]

Unfortunately "new" does not mean "properly engineered." Book 8088 is much closer to a hobby project than a finished product.

 

[VileR]

From the Star Control II manual, p25:

Confirm System Requirements

• An AT-class IBM-PC compatible computer with a hard drive and 2x speed CD-ROM drive is required. A 20 MHz 386 machine or better is recommended. If you have a slower machine see Appendix II.
• Star Control II supports VGA and MCGA graphics only.
• You will need at least 580,000 bytes of low DOS memory available when you start the game.
• You will need at least 9.2 megabytes available on your hard disk if you want to play Star Control II from your hard drive rather than play off the CD-ROM.

"AT-class" - won't work on an 8088, or at the very least it wasn't tested on one. Even if it ran, you'd probably have a pretty miserable game experience.

 

[Timo W.]

A genuine 8088 PC, but factory new and built with modern parts, for less than $200?

There is so much wrong in this sentence. It's hacked together from parts that might be more "modern", but are still all out of production for ages. It's not "genuine" either, and you can get something way better for 200 bucks or less. Also, these things break faster than it takes for them to ship from China. That is, if what you get is not dead on arrival already. I just don't understand why people buy those. Get a Toshiba Libretto instead if you want a very small, legit PC.

 

[the3dfxdude]

On the aspect of the hardware design of this computer, I do think the computer itself was overhyped making it a questionable machine for audience where this was promoted. There are a few aspects that could make it nice for someone looking for a small portable 8088 where they can hack on a few things, when there aren't really any like this, but not much else.

I do want to respond on the comment on Star Control 2. There does seem to be an issue with people understanding the capabilities of an XT era system or what the DOS range really was. In the XT era, we played alot different games on them than what have been popularized today. DOS doesn't mean just 8088, or 386 or 486. DOS was used on a wide range of systems. Even within the XT/8088 era, there were various makes that weren't exactly compatible with each other. There ended up cases where the exact speed of the system was an issue, but even sometimes the graphics to the game in question. The Book 8088 doesn't fit anywhere really in the XT spectrum, at least for running the games that were made for the 8088. I'd never thought about running VGA games on an XT. By the time I had VGA, we had faster systems. Star Control 2 falls more in the 386+VGA era (although 286es were still around). When it comes to CGA/EGA games, I'm not so sure how compatible the Book 8088 hardware is. It may be too fast for some CGA games, and may not emulate CGA correctly. EGA might not have ever been leveraged much in the 8088 era, but also many EGA games were made for faster systems too, given when pc gaming really started to take off. So if the 8088 hardware is designed competently enough, it might be ok for some CGA or some EGA games, that aren't too demanding. I can't be so sure for the soundblaster aspect, if games that supported that can run on a slow system. So perhaps, in some cases, adlib, but many games were really pc speaker on the 8088.

So you can see, it's hard for me to guess what the Book 8088 was really intended to do given it's design choices, unless you started writing some software that it would be capable for. But if you ask me, if you have vintage machines kicking around, I'd rather use those for 8088 games you are familiar with as that was then what people did really play on, and not limited in its form factor.

 

[furball1985]

honestly i don't know why i bought one, maybe the hype?

i could have bought any older laptop or desktop off ebay or goodwill and it would have been better.

i guess i saw everyone buying one and figured what the hell.

as a gift my book 8088 arrived broken. my CGA Rom was corrupted and thus he demos for the graphics card were all messed up.

i had to burn 2 roms to make it work right, a new CGA rom from the files members posted on VCF and then that new BIOS and all the little revisions.

next i had to get that better USB driver so i could actually use the usb for transferring files.
i had to by a compact flash drive adapter and i had to copy the 512mb image so i could make copies as i burned out a drive by trying to use it in the USB port.(worked until i tried to delete a file then it nuked the drive)

i had to 3d print a external ISA case so i could have serial and parallel and a game port.

now i have a mouse in windows 3.0 and that is when you also realize you can't use windows 3.1 or 3.11 since its a 8088 cpu(v20)
then you realize you need the windows 3.0 media version and then you just kind of give up between the lcd not centering properly.

so all in all i spend dumb money on something just to keep my brain going on trying to fix it when its really pretty awful and i could of just ran dosbox.

i guess it is the joy of being tortured.

 

[n0p]

My Book V1 actually came broken
Keyboard was not working properly, and it appeared XT-IO chip was a bit oxidized, so cleaning it and reseating helped.
Main selling point for me is having an almost real XT in compact form w/o need to deal with necroware (no offence).
Everything above XT is emulated nice in DOSBox for sure, but setting right cycles and stuff for XT game just feels somewhat off.
My first XT (and first PC) was a 5150 clone with emulated CGA card (hw character generator was cut out from design, BIOS displayed the chars in 640x200 mode), so i didn't expect much from Book. CGA emulation is quite good, but not complete for sure.
I still have my own game collection from that era, and they work as expected. I desoldered CPU from my broken Poisk-1 board and games work absolutely as i remember them with it.
Book8088 can be cycle accurate with real 8088 CPU (it's 6% off/faster with real 8088 CPU by default) - GloriousCow made the hack.
USB can be used to boot "floppy" - i extended BIOS functionality. It feels good to have some use for old decades-forgotten skills btw.
To sum up - it's an XT, compact and has pretty much everything you might want from XT. Not AT, crippled keyboard, but CF/USB/CGA/Battery and Adlib
--
If you feel adventurous - you *can* connect an external keyboard to Book hacking into XT-IO traces. And an external display, either real CGA or via RGBtoHDMI (V1 only)

 

[n0p]

Well, i would love that to be coincidence, but my V2 arrived today after almost two months, and it's broken from start too
CF card not detected (tried several), COM/LPT ports not detected.
I've tested with my BIOS fork - USB drive is not detected as well.
No reaction to CTRL-ALT-DEL, but Fn+F6 lights up turbo led.
So most likely is that CLPD chip again corrupted.
Just my luck.

 

[ChaosHusky]

Yikes! It seems i was lucky with my V2 then, everything seems to be working except the whole black screen trying to use VGA issue.. Thanks for posting the files, I'll probably get around to flashing it at..some point! I poked the seller to see if they reply with the same solution of sending me a replacement LCD board but i doubt it, they haven't responded yet to incorrectly declaring it so i got charged VAT twice lol.. Anyone have an image of the original CF card's condition at shipping? In case i end up bricking mine lol

 

[n0p]

Yikes! It seems i was lucky with my V2 then, everything seems to be working except the whole black screen trying to use VGA issue.. Thanks for posting the files, I'll probably get around to flashing it at..some point! I poked the seller to see if they reply with the same solution of sending me a replacement LCD board but i doubt it, they haven't responded yet to incorrectly declaring it so i got charged VAT twice lol.. Anyone have an image of the original CF card's condition at shipping? In case i end up bricking mine lol

Two-way Google translate will do the trick Actually they sent me a LCD board instead of keyboard chip i requested, so that kind of replacement is more than expected on their side
As for CF card - i've tried using COMPAQ DOS 3.31 for blank VHD partitioning and that did everything perfect on all levels.

 

[ChaosHusky]

Okay, i'm having worse luck than you mate.. Mine just suddenly shut off and is making very strange squealing noises...

It was working, the VGA fix had worked.. Now it sounds like a dial-up modem when i switch it on. It's managing the boot beeps sometimes then squealing its head off :/ AliExpress is awesome.. It took two weeks to get here, i get hit with customs charges even though i'd already paid VAT...and now its apparently dead. Hmm...can't really afford to lose that much money on a pile of junk! Just great...it *was* working perfectly but not any more. Battery isn't flat or anything like that... Ugh. Very quickly losing my passion for these kinds of hobbies these days.

 

[azog]

For what it's worth, I was able to install FreeDOS on my Book8088. I had to build a virtual 86Box machine, which got me very close to the Book hardware, and then I dd'ed the virtual disk image to a CF card...

 

[hunterjwizzard]

I've been following the Book8088 for a while and find it fascinating. I'm curious: if its possible to build one of these things using modern, off-the-shelf parts, has anyone made a similar project in an ATX form factor?

Don't get me wrong, the Book8088 is a neat little machine, but the same things that make it appealing to some buyers will make it totally unappealing to others. So if its possible to make it one way, can it be made another?

 

[sergioag]

I've been following the Book8088 for a while and find it fascinating. I'm curious: if its possible to build one of these things using modern, off-the-shelf parts, has anyone made a similar project in an ATX form factor?

Don't get me wrong, the Book8088 is a neat little machine, but the same things that make it appealing to some buyers will make it totally unappealing to others. So if its possible to make it one way, can it be made another?

There used to be a modern clone of the PC 5150 board: https://www.mtmscientific.com/pc-retro.html

Even though I have it (and a real 5150 as well), and I also have something more portable (a 5155), I still find the Book8088 a better fit for the most mundane tasks. Still, I have no plans to get rid of the real stuff.

 

[Plasma]

I've been following the Book8088 for a while and find it fascinating. I'm curious: if its possible to build one of these things using modern, off-the-shelf parts, has anyone made a similar project in an ATX form factor?

Don't get me wrong, the Book8088 is a neat little machine, but the same things that make it appealing to some buyers will make it totally unappealing to others. So if its possible to make it one way, can it be made another?

Some of the parts are new but many are recycled. Nobody is making new V20 CPUs.

The (micro)ATX version is the NuXT. It's more expensive but also better designed and guaranteed to arrive working...

 

[n0p]

Okay, i'm having worse luck than you mate.. Mine just suddenly shut off and is making very strange squealing noises...

It was working, the VGA fix had worked.. Now it sounds like a dial-up modem when i switch it on. It's managing the boot beeps sometimes then squealing its head off :/ AliExpress is awesome.. It took two weeks to get here, i get hit with customs charges even though i'd already paid VAT...and now its apparently dead. Hmm...can't really afford to lose that much money on a pile of junk! Just great...it *was* working perfectly but not any more. Battery isn't flat or anything like that... Ugh. Very quickly losing my passion for these kinds of hobbies these days.

That sounds like battery discharged for me - is that the same if you plug in charger?

 

[hunterjwizzard]

Some of the parts are new but many are recycled. Nobody is making new V20 CPUs.

The (micro)ATX version is the NuXT. It's more expensive but also better designed and guaranteed to arrive working...

In theory, if the patent has expired, could not someone do another production run of them? They were able to make 3rd-party bit-for-bit copies of the original Nintendo after all.

I'll keep tabs on the NuXT, that's a pretty great little system. At the moment I'm not exactly itching to get my hands on an 8088 but I love the concept.

Even though I have it (and a real 5150 as well), and I also have something more portable (a 5155), I still find the Book8088 a better fit for the most mundane tasks. Still, I have no plans to get rid of the real stuff.

I totally see the attraction. I was really just curious if desktop-format clones exist. Which they do. Which is cool.