[wee bits of jazz music playing]
Greetings, and welcome to an LGR Thing all about the weeCee project,
one of the coolest hobbyist computers I’ve seen lately.
Not only is it small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, but it’s a proper x86
PC fully capable of running MS-DOS and Windows.
No emulation or virtualization either, the weeCee is compatible on a hardware level with
all sorts of PC games and software, with Sound Blaster support and SXGA 32-bit color graphics,
paired with an 800MHz processor and 256 megabytes of RAM.
There’s even General MIDI support, with MPU-401 compatibility for both
internal and external sound modules.
All running straight off a MicroSD card, no hard disks or IDE adapters in sight.
Fantastic stuff.
[Doom gameplay goin’ off]
At the core of the wee little weeCee PC, you see, is this: the SOM304RD-VI available from
ICOP, a “system on module” built using the ISA bus, intended as an embedded system
for use in legacy industrial environments.
Making this the latest, and smallest, one of these industrial solutions on LGR to date.
Y'all know I’m quite the fan of these things, from single board computers on an ISA backplane,
to specialized motherboards that pair modern processors with legacy I/O and expansion buses.
The form factor differs, but they’re all built with backwards compatibility in mind
to extend the life of legacy systems still used by businesses.
But they’re also a lotta fun as a retro PC enthusiast.
The problem is that, well, they’re often ill-suited to gaming due to their lack of
compatible graphics and sound.
And that’s where the weeCee project comes in, which is here courtesy of Andy, an incessant
hardware tinkerer behind the YouTube channel, TheRasteri.
Over the last year or so he’s been experimenting with various industrial modules and turning
them into tiny DOS gaming rigs, a pursuit I’ve been happily watching
from afar through his videos.
Well, after I left a comment on his first video on the weeCee, he reached out and asked
if I’d like one of the newer revisions to mess with on LGR.
Something I was more than happy to take him up on, so thanks again, Andy!
Because this thing is getting dangerously close to one of my dream devices: a miniature
retro PC, something along the lines of an NES Classic or whatever, but for old school
DOS and Windows games but without emulation.
And yeah, the functionality is on-point here, and we’ll get to that.
For now check out that solid, practical design built to suit the size and features of the
SOM304 it’s built around.
It uses an off-the-shelf metal housing measuring this much, looking a lot like a video scaling
device or some other kind of signal converter box.
It’d be amazing to have the weeCee in a custom housing, maybe something that looks
like a mini IBM PC or some other iconic desktop, but y’know,
this does the job and it’s all kinds of sturdy.
[metallic thunking]
The end plates are nice little custom jobs though, made using PCBs to save on manufacturing
costs, but also just because it looks cool.
And this is all your I/O, starting with micro USB for power, USB 2.0 and ethernet ports,
VGA output, and 3.5 mil stereo audio.
And on the other end, MicroSD for storage, a 15-pin gameport for joysticks and MIDI devices,
and a PS/2 port for keyboards, or both a keyboard and mouse
at the same time using a standard PS/2 Y-adapter.
There are no power or disk activity LEDs, unfortunately.
Nor is there a reset switch or a power button, so you just have to plug and unplug the system
to perform a power cycle.
I did address that last one by using a Micro USB power adapter
with a built-in power switch, but yeah.
It’d still be nice to have a reset button and some indicator LEDs in a future revision,
assuming it’s possible to fit them inside this veritable sardine can of cramped components.
The thing clamped down in the middle is the ICOP SoM itself,
packing the majority of the computer-y computer stuff.
Like the processor, a Vortex86DX running at 800MHz with 32K combined L1 and 256K L2 cache,
which performs kinda like a Pentium 1 clocked at 300MHz.
Along with 256 megs of DDR2 RAM, on this version of the board,
more than enough for late-90s gaming.
And the graphics are handled by a 32MB XGI Volari Z9S chipset, offering resolutions from
low-res CGA all the way on up to 1280x1024 in 32-bit color, albeit without 3D acceleration.
And it’s all built around the ISA bus, with integrated UDMA-133 IDE,
10/100 ethernet, serial and parallel support.
Although the latter two don’t have ports on the weeCee,
they can be added back by using compatible USB adapters.
All this awesomeness is thanks to this right here: the weeCee board itself,
revision 0.3 in this case.
Andy designed this as a custom interface board for the system module, breaking out all the
important I/O into full-sized ports going off to the left and right.
It also adds audio capabilities, which is vital since the SOM304
doesn’t have any sound options built-in.
So along bottom is an evolution of his earlier Wee86 sound setup, which uses the venerable
Crystal Semiconductor CS4237B.
A popular ‘90s sound chip with Sound Blaster Pro and AdLib compatibility, used on all sorts
of sound cards and motherboards back in the day.
And on top of that, this version of the weeCee now supports Wave Blaster add-ons, with a
header accepting General MIDI daughterboards.
Like the itty bitty McFly MIDI synth or Dreamblaster S2 from Serdashop,
the latter of which was included here.
Two things that are conspicuous by their absence is any kind of PC speaker,
or real time clock battery.
Meaning the system is silent on startup, and time/date and BIOS settings are lost
after each power cycle.
Though you can at least get PC speaker sound through the main audio out by loading a DOS
driver, and RTC features can be added by soldering in a 3-volt battery.
And finally, we’ve got the MicroSD card slot,
which functions as the system’s hard disk.
An excellent option compared to IDE adapters and disk-on-modules I’ve used before, especially
since it’s natively supported in the BIOS.
There are some awesome compatibility features in here too, like the option to throttle CPU
speed using a clock divider, taking it all the way down to 25MHz.
And you can crank it down even more by disabling the cache, highly useful stuff for software
that runs too quickly or refuses to start at all on a faster system.
Right, so!
With all that being said what can you actually do with the weeCee?
Well let’s get it hooked up, boot up Windows 98,
and test it out with a buncha classic computer games.
[computer switches on, monitor clicks to life]
No fans, no drives, not even a startup beep.
Only silence, it’s kind of unnerving.
But yeah, it’s working as intended, and this particular setup has
Windows 98 Second Edition installed on here.
Which is a great option since it supports real MS-DOS mode and larger hard disk partitions
so we can make full use of that MicroSD card.
Though the 128 gigabyte card Andy included here is admittedly complete overkill for 98
but hey, I'll take it.
[Windows 98 startup sound]
And at this point, it’s just your standard Windows 98 PC!
That’s the beauty of this thing, there’s no emulation options to set up or virtual
machine variables to choose.
The weeCee simply functions like any other late ‘90s PC,
because that’s effectively what it is.
The Vortex86DX processor inside is roughly equivalent to a Pentium clocked at 300MHz,
so with its 256 megs of RAM you could actually run Windows XP on here if you wanted to.
Though that wouldn’t be very practical for most games and software.
And besides, quickly being able to start up and run DOS things, either in Windows or booted
into DOS mode, is half the reason to choose 98 in the first place.
[passport.mid plays]
That Dreamblaster MIDI module sounds superb,
and of course you also get good old AdLib FM synth support.
The CS4237B chip is actually the same one used on the Orpheus sound card and IBM ThinkPads
like the 380XD, so yeah, it sounds great for being a clone.
[AdLib "Wacky Wheels" music plays]
Of course, you’re somewhat limited in terms of games that use CD audio, since you know.
There’s no CD-ROM drive.
But it’s easy to use programs like Daemon Tools or SHSUCD
for virtual drives in Windows and DOS, respectively.
And external drives can be plugged in via USB, from CD-ROMs to ZIP drives to floppy
drives or whatever else.
Just gotta be careful not to overload the power adapter, which is easy to do with even
a single floppy drive connected.
A powered USB hub gets around this of course, and chances are you’ll want a hub anyway
since there’s only a single USB port on the system.
This does start to erode the appeal of the weeCee
being such a small computer system, but y’know.
Sometimes you wanna have your I/O cake and eat it too, and it’s still a lot smaller
than a full-size Windows 98 gaming rig.
That being said, it’s nowhere near as capable as a big beast either,
due to the lack of hardware 3D acceleration.
Its graphics chip only does 2D, so you’re limited to software rendering only.
Bit of a shame since it’s got 32 megs of video memory on-board, though it makes sense
seeing as the SoM was built for industrial applications and not Quake II.
So it won’t have all the bells and whistles,
but it’ll still run. Usually.
[chuckle] Some games refuse to run at all, like Need For Speed III for some reason,
even in software mode.
It just crashes to desktop, even when patched.
But Need For Speed 2 SE runs perfectly fine right outta the box.
Or at least as fine as it gets using the software renderer on this particular setup.
Really the sweet spot for Windows games here tends to be from 1995 to 1997 or so, verging
into certain games from ‘98.
So Tomb Raider 2, Age of Kings, Diablo, Jazz Jackrabbit 2, Fallout,
Descent, Civilization II, Command & Conquer.
Yeah there’s a lotta good stuff to indulge in here, as long as you don’t swerve too
far into territory of games optimized for 3D accelerators.
On that note, a lotta games have no idea what to make of the CPU, so it’s common to get
a message saying the system isn’t compatible.
This is something you also saw back in the day
if you were running a CPU from Cyrix or NexGen, so it’s fine.
Typically you can skip the warning, install it anyway,
and try your luck with software mode.
It might take a while to load though, since the read/write on that MicroSD card is mighty
slow indeed, making install times and initial loading of games significantly longer
than a traditional hard disk.
It’s not bad once it’s loaded into memory, and there’s a lotta memory to spare thankfully.
It’s just slower than I’m used to,
even compared to other flash memory solutions I’ve used.
Eh it’s fine though, since where the weeCee really shines is with DOS gaming, no huge
loading times or 3D acceleration required!
All my personal favorites run, look, and sound fantastic on the weeCee.
Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Jazz Jackrabbit, Epic Pinball, Tyrian, SimCity 2000.
Even Quake turns in a respectable performance, and in many ways I prefer the look of 2D software
rendering with that one anyway so yeah, all good stuff in my view.
Although games like Crystal Caves and Commander Keen do suffer a bit from the lack of a real
PC speaker, requiring a driver being loaded in DOS
to output beeps through the regular speakers.
[assorted PC speaker noises]
Not a deal-breaker by any means, but having the option for a real speaker would be nice,
either through a 4-pin header or a piezo beeper being crammed inside somewhere.
Yeah this is simply one of those projects that I enjoy so much that I can’t help but
want just a little bit more, you know?
Like, it’s great having ethernet for multiplayer games and file transfers and whatnot, but
at the same time I’d enjoy having on-board serial too since I personally use that far
more often for various devices.
And how cool would it be to have some kinda floppy drive emulator built-in, so you could
load virtual disks without fiddling around with files so much?
Plus there’s the stuff I wished for already, like a reset and power button, activity LEDs,
and a true PC speaker.
All of this would make for a slightly larger system, but speaking for myself I wouldn’t
mind a couple extra inches if it made things that much more useful.
Well anyway, that’s the weeCee!
It’s such a neat little system that I’ve been having a lotta fun with, and man.
I wish I could tell y’all where to buy one.
Unfortunately it’s only a hobby project right now, and Andy doesn’t have any plans
on selling them himself.
He has made the design schematics available for free, so if you have the skills and the
components, you can plop it together for a total cost
of around £250 or $350 US dollars, currently.
So it ain’t cheap for the performance you get, as a much more capable Windows 98 PC
can still be built for that price.
And the labor involved in hand-making the weeCee, yeah that can’t be ignored.
But still!
That tiny form factor and excellent compatibility with DOS and Windows really is appealing.
So I hope that someone takes up the torch and starts selling them as kits
or complete systems, cuz I think there’s a market for it.
Either way though, the weeCee shows that this style of tiny DOS and Windows PC is possible,
and I love the fact that it exists at all.
[laid-back jazzy interlude]
And if you dug what you just watched then
do check out my previous videos on computer-y things.
Or stick around for new videos on all kinds of retro topics here on LGR.
And of course, thank you for watching!