Question What's the smallest retail PC ever made that would run at least Windows '95 pretty well?

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

I was thinking about the old IBM PS/2 tower I had at one point that I affectionately nicknamed "Behemoth", because it was so very HUGE and blocky. (I think it weighed about 65 pounds, and was over 3 feet tall)

Then I started thinking the other direction, and how things have gotten so much smaller over the last few decades. I found myself wondering, what is the smallest PC (not smartphone) ever released for the retail market, which would actually run Windows '95 pretty well? Is the Nuc pretty much it, or were there other retail releases (with case) that were smaller?

Thanks!

 

[TheELF]

For a somewhat period correct option taxis/cabs used to have tiny PCs the width of cd-rom drives but somewhat longer/deeper for navigation and such.

The smallest you can get would be with an industrial board, there are some projects going on like the weepc, it has a pentium and VGA so it should be able to run win95 although it was designed for pure dos goodness.

weeCee - Tiny DOS Gaming PC - Share Project - PCBWay

The weeCee is perhaps the smallest MSDOS gaming PC ever made that doesn't use emulation.It is based around an ICOP Vortex86 CPU module, which is a pentium-class x86-compatible embedded system-on-modul...

www.pcbway.com

 

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

Wow, that is tiny - it only looks about 3X the width of a VGA port! I didn't see an actual price, though, so not sure if they are still available.

 

[Whelm]

if you are looking for something small and period correct FIC? during the 90's made these super tiny things for OEMs that a few brands seem to have sold under their own names/brands. Unisys as an example.
LGR did a video on the 486 model, but they also marketed a pentium version in the exact same cases with a different face plate that you could max out with a 200mhz P1. more then enough for win 95/98 use.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Eww.

 

[TheELF]

Wow, that is tiny - it only looks about 3X the width of a VGA port! I didn't see an actual price, though, so not sure if they are still available.

It's not a commercially available product, it's a free project, you have to source the hardware yourself and use the plans at the pcbway site to make one yourself.
Or just get an industrial board and figure out something on your own, there are videos on the youtubes of different people trying it.

 

[sdifox]

Computer

www.bee-link.com

 

[ElFenix]

For a somewhat period correct option taxis/cabs used to have tiny PCs the width of cd-rom drives but somewhat longer/deeper for navigation and such.

The smallest you can get would be with an industrial board, there are some projects going on like the weepc, it has a pentium and VGA so it should be able to run win95 although it was designed for pure dos goodness.

weeCee - Tiny DOS Gaming PC - Share Project - PCBWay

The weeCee is perhaps the smallest MSDOS gaming PC ever made that doesn't use emulation.It is based around an ICOP Vortex86 CPU module, which is a pentium-class x86-compatible embedded system-on-modul...

www.pcbway.com

is that a banana for scale? awesome.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

VIA made x86 thin clients designed to fit in, like, wall sockets and stuff. I think those can be adapted to run Win98 at least.

 

[aigomorla]

I don't know if you could get windows 95 to install on the SATA drive, as i think you would need drivers for them, and no one codes in dos for Sata Drivers.

So the box would need to be fairly old, and you would need it to support a windows 95 boot driver disk.