He Chunhui's Tiny386 Turns an Esp32-S3 Into a Fully-Functional 386-Powered PC
Postedabout 2 months agoActiveabout 2 months ago
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EmulationEsp32-S3Retrocomputing
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Emulation
Esp32-S3
Retrocomputing
He Chunhui's Tiny386 project successfully emulates a 386-powered PC on an ESP32-S3 microcontroller, sparking interest and discussion among HN users about its performance and potential applications.
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- 01Story posted
Nov 8, 2025 at 8:08 PM EST
about 2 months ago
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Nov 8, 2025 at 8:35 PM EST
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Nov 10, 2025 at 8:38 AM EST
about 2 months ago
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ID: 45861933Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 12:08:29 PM
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I wonder what the "effective" clock of the emulated CPU is, maybe we could run Speedsys or Landmark under DOS on it to see how it fares against a real 386. I happen to have a top-end 386 at 40MHz, 16MB FPM, and S3 801 VGA, but it's not quite fast enough to "enjoy" Win95 for me. :)
https://www.hackster.io/news/running-linux-on-an-esp32-s3-0d...
I guess those of you doing IoT / home assistant stuff would likely know about these. Just found out about ESPHome[0]
[0] https://esphome.io
https://wvshare.aliexpress.com/
https://spotpear.aliexpress.com/
There you can find the latest launches and different versions depending on your use case. Also, checkout the Luckfox Pico.