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  • I love it when I run across a new-old computer-y thing

  • that is much more than meets the eye initially.

  • Like this right here: The Proxim RangeLAN 2

  • wireless access point.

  • And yeah, I know it looks like a bland piece of networking equipment

  • at first glance, and... I mean, it is!

  • But if that's all it was I wouldn't be talking about it here.

  • And the reason I'm showing it off is because it hides

  • a full 386 DOS PC inside!

  • How cool is that? It's like a little secret computer!

  • Which is pretty much what it said on the Retro Battlestations subreddit post

  • that I first saw this on.

  • And after I was exposed to it there I just thought it was the coolest thing

  • and decided to track one down and turns out it wasn't too hard to do so!

  • It doesn't look like much in the front,

  • but hidden away behind this panel here

  • is a 3½″ floppy disk drive that it boots from.

  • It doesn't have a hard drive; it gets everything it needs to

  • as far as data from this floppy disk

  • that's never supposed to be removed, so they just covered it up.

  • Around back you also have an AT keyboard connector,

  • 9 pin RS-232 serial,

  • and there's two ISA cards with wireless functionality.

  • Now this one I've been showing is the CruiseLAN variant, sold by Zenith.

  • Although, since I found it really cheap,

  • I ended up grabbing the 0100 Access Point version

  • sold by Intermec.

  • And there are other ones out there as well!

  • In fact, there's probably 4 or 5 different editions of this

  • that I've seen floating around online.

  • All of them, however, were manufactured by Proxim Wireless.

  • And while it has more capable hardware inside

  • that could theoretically make it do a lot more,

  • the way this is built is only as an access point.

  • It's not a router, or a switch, or anything like that,

  • and actual required users to setup a “master station client PC

  • to work alongside it.

  • Now you might be thinking, “Hmm, a 386 with Wi-Fi? That's bizarre!”

  • Well, no! It's actually not using Wi-Fi.

  • This was introduced in 1994,

  • predating the 802.11 Wi-Fi standards,

  • and it actually uses it's own set of protocols by Proxim.

  • This was their RangeLAN 2, the 2.4 GHz successor

  • to the original RangeLAN from 1991,

  • which used a 900 MHz radio signal.

  • A company called Proxim announced a wireless LAN adapter calledRangeLAN”.

  • The product is an interface card with a small antenna

  • that transmits via spread spectrum radio frequencies.

  • Proxim says the network can transmit through multiple walls

  • at distances up to 100 ft. (≈30 m)

  • This sold for around $2000 for the access point in the mid ’90s,

  • $595 for the ISA card alone,

  • and $695 for a PCMCIA interface that could communicate between these.

  • Again, though, this is not Wi-Fi, but

  • it still can communicate with Wi-Fi,

  • at least the 802.11b variant

  • since it's on the same basic frequency of radio.

  • Let's get inside this thing for a closer look,

  • because it's fascinating!

  • First up is the AMD 386SX 40 MHz CPU,

  • which is actually one of the faster 386 procesors.

  • I'm skeptical if it even needed that much speed!

  • Considering what it's doing and also because it is severely bottlenecked

  • by 512K of RAM.

  • That's not the only setback! There's no video output whatsoever.

  • It has unpopulated connections

  • for what seems to be a Cirrus Logic chipset on the motherboard.

  • Now, what kind of motherboard is this, you ask? Well...

  • I had a bit of a time figuring it out because there's no distinct markings on it

  • but it appears to be a 4com FT386BL, from what I've read online.

  • And yeah, that matches up with it pretty closely.

  • It's unusual, in that it places the RAM in the bottom-right.

  • A lot of these 386 boards had the RAM at the top,

  • kind of behind the keyboard connector.

  • And there's also just a single ISA slot, meant to be used with a riser.

  • And it integrates the floppy and IDE controller on here as well!

  • Which is quite convenient, specially considering

  • most motherboards at the time relied on a controller card to be installed.

  • Like I mentioned earlier, though, it does not have any hard drive,

  • but you could theoretically put a hard drive in here, if you wanted to,

  • although there is no way to mount it with what it comes with.

  • It doesn't even include the parallel port!

  • The only thing it comes with is one serial port,

  • and they listed it as the local management port.

  • So I'm assuming that they just did this

  • instead of bothering to plug in any kind of video cards or anything else

  • whenever they needed to maintain it.

  • Also amusing is that some versions of this machine,

  • like the Intermec one I have here,

  • blocks off the keyboard port entirely! They just put a metal bar in front of it.

  • They were really sticking to their guns, being like...

  • And it's that wholegetting things done with what we havedesign philosophy

  • that really amuses me with this.

  • I love how it feels all hacked together!

  • I mean, for instance, the Turbo LED

  • is used for the wireless signal indicator on the front of the case.

  • In some of these connections they just tapped into existing circuitry and...

  • plopped some stuff to plug it in andThere ya go, it's good.”

  • There is a rather unfortunate aspect to this machines, though,

  • and it's common across a lot of 386s.

  • It uses these awful nickel-cadmium barrel batteries

  • and every single example of these RangeLAN 2 machines that I have seen

  • has leaked and corroded.

  • Neither one of them work, no matter what I've tried.

  • But the floppy disk still does!

  • So I can boot it up from another machine

  • and see what it would do.

  • It's interesting that it actually boots to DR-DOS.

  • That's Digital Research's answer to IBM PC-DOS and MS-DOS.

  • And then you get a long string of commands, and it doesn't know what to do

  • because it doesn't have all the stuff it needs.

  • But yeah, that's pretty much it. I imagine it would just boot up

  • and do the access point stuff and you'd manage it from the client PC.

  • So there's not a whole lot to do here; you just kinda plug it in.

  • And yeah, that's it! It's not a very useful machine,

  • in fact... it's probably the least useful 386 computer that I have.

  • But it's neat to poke around inside and see what they came up with

  • to get this access point idea working in 1993 and 94

  • and, presumably, to keep down costs,

  • both in design and manufacturing

  • by using a lot of cheaper, older off-the-shelf components.

  • Maybe there was a bit of a time crunch, too! I don't know exactly what went into

  • the design of this thing, but whatever happened,

  • I appreciate it and I like talking about this kind of stuff

  • and I hope that you enjoyed listening.

  • And if you did like this video, then perhaps you'd like some of my others!

  • There's new videos coming out every Monday and Friday here on LGR!

  • And as always, thank you very much for watching!

I love it when I run across a new-old computer-y thing

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一臺隱藏的386電腦!Proxim RangeLAN2接入點 (A Hidden 386 PC! Proxim RangeLAN2 Access Point)

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    林宜悉 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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