PC-104 is a standard computer form factor that most people outside of industrial settings have probably never seen before. It’s essentially an Intel 486 processor with a lot of support for standards that have long since disappeared from most computers, but this makes it great for two things: controlling old industrial equipment and running classic DOS games on native hardware. For the latter, we return once again to [The Rasteri] which improves on the previous version with an even smaller DOS gaming platform, this time based on an even smaller platform than PC-104.
The key to such a construction is that it needs native support for the long-obsolete ISA bus to be able to interface with a SoundBlaster board, a gold standard for vintage video games. This smaller computer still has this functionality in a smaller package, but with some major improvements. First, it has a floating point drive so it can run games like Quake. It is also much faster than the PC-104 system and uses less energy. Finally, it fits in an even smaller housing.
The construction simply goes beyond running software on a SoM computer. [The Rasteri] He also built a custom interface board for this project, complete with all the necessary ports and an ISA sound chip, all while keeping the size to a minimum. The new version also allows it to give the build a better name than the old one (although it formulates this update a little differently) and will also allow it to extend some features in the future. Be sure to check out the first version if you are new to this saga.