Mini desktop PC

If there are two things that we love, they’re big versions of little things and little versions of big things. In both cases, they’re made twice as cool if the new version works as the original does.

Here, we’ve got a tiny version of a desktop PC, and it actually works exactly like the original. Well, almost. The original was a 286 from David’s childhood, while this version is based on a Raspberry Pi. That obviously means that the CPUs run completely different instruction sets but, thanks to the magic of emulation, this tiny PC still runs old DOS programs.

Cool-factor alone is enough to make this project worthwhile but, to David, nostalgia was also a motivator. “A big driver in my personal projects is the connection I have with the subject matter I’m working with. While retro-themed toys are nothing new (pun intended), I wanted to create something that was a close representation of an item that was a major part of my childhood. For me, building something like this was more than just a gaming nostalgia trip; it’s also a physical representation of other memories from that time, like school, the house that we lived in, and family. It’s also amusing knowing that the Raspberry Pi running it is about 7500% more powerful than the original 286 PC it’s pretending
to be.”