James Cameron's 3D-Printed Housing Converts a Throwback 386 Handheld Into a Tiny IBM Desktop
While a handheld 386 may be something that would have appealed in the 1980s, Cameron prefers something more traditional — if tiny.
3D modeler James Cameron — no relation to the director of the same name — has turned an anachronistic modern 386 handheld personal computer into a tiny IBM-inspired desktop, ready for retro gaming as authentic as it can get.
"[I] got one of those Hand386 handheld computers," Cameron explains by way of background to his project, which puts an unusual modern-but-retro computer system in a rather more appropriate housing than its manufacture supplies, "but it looked too modern. A little 3D printing fixed that!"
The Hand386 is an odd duck of a machine, seemingly designed for interfacing with old industrial and embedded systems which lack support for modern hardware but advertising using imagery of period-appropriate games. Using genuine Intel 386SX processors, they're not emulators — and while there have been concerns raised about the legitimacy of the software supplied with them, the devices have proven popular among those looking to do a little bit of retro gaming.
The standard Hand386 is, as the name implies, a handheld, which puts an anachronistic widescreen display above a compact keyboard. Cameron's take on the concept does away with the in-built input device, in order to cram the hardware into a 3D-print chassis inspired by the IBM PS/2 Model 25 — a machine released in 1987, though based on either an Intel 8086 or 286 rather than the more powerful 386 in the Hand386.
The resulting desktop system uses the original widescreen display, though this time disguised as an IBM monitor, above a base unit which includes two floppy drives — entirely decorative, sadly, though given the entire unit has a smaller footprint than a 3.5" floppy disk that's to be expected.
Cameron has published a video walking through the features of the Hand386 and his IBM-style replacement casing on YouTube, and promises to release the 3D print files in the near future. The Hand386, meanwhile, is available on AliExpress for $198.67 including shipping.
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