Normally I'm a sucker for weird and wonderful hardware, but I'm trying to figure out what the target audience is, and I'm really coming up short. Anyone got any ideas?
Everything I can think of, there's a better alternative available.
The question seems to be why ship Windows95 preinstalled on a platform that can't run it, when highly integrated x86 clones such as the Vortex are available? https://www.vortex86.com/products/Vortex86DX
That was true in 1989 but modern x86 reimplementations like the Geode GX1 are much lower powered. The GX1 is discontinued but DigiKey still has > 100k of them in stock...
It's probably good for running TOTP authentificator or some kind of crypto wallet software, especially considering the lack of internet connectivity on this device, which makes it more secure for this purpose (though it may output QR codes on the screen, so actually it's kind of unidirectional data diode, rather than fully isolated device). I would install OpenBSD on such computer. Recent supply chain attacks on the dedicated crypto wallet hardware [1] indicate that we must rely on open source software if we strive to avoid low-entropy backdoors in the random number generator in such systems. The probability of a successful supply chain attack on such a gadget, given the number of user-controlled variables, is close to zero.
OpenBSD dropped support for 386 chips nearly 20 years ago. This is a 386SX chip first released 35 years ago. You're not running a crypto wallet on a 386SX. The cryptography would crush it.
> I'm trying to figure out what the target audience is
Probably it was some sort of terminal for industrial equipment; nothing to write home about by today's standards (and yesterday's too for that matter), but could be used for slow and not critical tasks such as EEprom/chips programmer, serial terminal for known soft/hard protocols and signals. I would find useful having one that accesses a shared directory on the LAN then can read firmware files and program chips or read/write on rs232 or i2c busses, work as serial terminal for debugging etc, and other tasks where a laptop could be overkill.
The 386 is the minimum viable processor for a lot of applications. 386SX class machines are the baseline for the modern x86 architecture: 32-bit internals, real MMU capabilities. It could probably handle a lot of legacy Win32, Win16 and DOS industrial apps. The heat issues could be a concern but lower power and solid state storage could still be a reliability win when replacing aging hardware.
Everything I can think of, there's a better alternative available.