Hackaday · Creativity & design

386 PC Emulation on RP2350

Microcontrollers are now capable of emulating older PC systems, allowing access to a vast software library on inexpensive development boards.

The tiny386 project emulates a 386 PC on ESP32 boards, enabling it to run a modern Linux kernel by enabling some 486 and 586 instructions.

This platform has now been ported to the RP2350, available for both the FRANK emulation platform and Waveshare Pi Zero boards, offering PC peripherals like VGA and DVI/HDMI.

While the ESP32 version is usable but slow, the RP2350 port is expected to offer better performance.

This setup is not intended for modern Linux distributions but can run older operating systems like DOS, Windows 3.1 and 95, or lean Linux configurations.

The project offers potential for 1990s-style general-purpose computing in a portable form factor, leveraging the extensive software available for these older systems.

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