netpliance hack

[Roscoe Brooks]

>From the i-opener Store at www.netpliance.com:

"By purchasing the i-opener you are agreeing to use the i-opener Internet
service. The fee is $21.95 a month and will be billed approximately 2 days
after the i-opener is shipped to you.

i-opener Internet appliances shipped after March 20, 2000 can no longer be
reconfigured in the manner described in recent reports. Modification of the
i-opener in any way is in violation of our terms and conditions.

[ACCEPT BUTTON]"

-----Original Message-----
From: michael d hoskins [mailto:michael.d.hoskins at mail.sprint.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2000 11:35 AM
To: kclug at kclug.org
Subject: RE: kclug - netpliance hack

At first glance, I thought the same thing, but then I started reading
more about it.  It's a good idea, but the economics don't work, unless
you REALLY know how to tweak it and stretch dollars.

I'm not sure about cheap; actually, it's very expensive, once you've
configured it.  Read the rest of the Slashdot posts, as well as the web
site.  See
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/03/11/1216231&mode=thread and
http://www.linux-hacker.net/iopener/ (may be down, though.)

To do it right, here's the skinny, according to the above posts:
      $99.00 for the machine
      $65.00 (minimum Internet commitment?)
      $35.00 (IDE cable, if you do not build one.)
      $??.?? (2.5" IDE hard drive, far more expen$ive than 3.5", assume
$150-250)
      $??.?? (Misc parts, can range in price up to maybe $15-25?)
      $??.?? (Ethernet is a slow parallel "pocket" device; USB is not
well supported, roughly $50-$80)
      ------
      $200 for the machine, Internet commitment, and special IDE cable,
plus shipping and/or tax
      $215 to $245 for Ethernet and no IDE drive, but you need a second
box, and a lot of patience
      $365 to $475, if you want a hard drive, without Ethernet, plus
shipping and/or tax
      $415 to $535 complete, plus shipping and/or tax
      (all rough estimates, this can range more than this, of course)

Now, this machine is roughly equivalent to a 166 MHz Pentium, you get a
10" strange aspect ratio 65536 color cheapy LCD (600 by 800, NOT 800 by
600), 32 M RAM, no floppy, no ethernet, no serial(?,) and you still have
to do a lot of work to set it up, and you, most likely void any
warranty.

If you can mass-produce these, and will invest in one setup, shown
above, you can use one machine to set things up, temporarily move the
IDE drive to another machine, and (if you know how,) re-flash the 16M
SanDisk with a small Linux kernel that knows about the "pocket" parallel
to ethernet converter, and boot whatever else you need off the network,
which would bring the price down (for subsequent machines) to about $215
to $245, for a thin client with no HD, plus tax and/or shipping.  Most
of the above concerns still apply.  At first glance, this seems like a
great lab setup, but 10" screens, slow machines, and little RAM, plus
you still need a server and a "deployment" Netpliance, initially?

A really innovative person might find a way to boot DOS or Linux off of
some USB device (floppy, Zip, LS120, SuperDisk, hard drive) to reflash
the 16M SanDisk with Linux, if the Award BIOS supports booting in this
way.  This would not require opening the case and can be a great way to
either mass-produce or getting a machine to 'net boot.  You would still
need a server, unless you like text-only Linux.  Many of the above
concerns still apply.

I'll not invest in the above when I can buy a brand new warrantied FAST
machine for $400-$900, which includes a big hard drive, lots o' RAM.
(Monitor not included in most configurations.)

FreeBSD supposedly has good USB Ethernet support, but we're Linux
bigots, so...

-----Original Message-----
From: mdmcvey [mailto:mdmcvey at att.net]
Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2000 6:12 PM
To: kclug
Cc: mdmcvey
Subject: kclug - netpliance hack

Have any of you tried the Netpliance hack in which this new webtv 
like internet appliace is converted into a fullblown pentium PC, 
capable of running x86 software?

I just read about it in the NY Times and am pretty curious--$99.00 + 
hard disk, mouse and keyboard is pretty nifty, especially when the 
machine is noiseless (no fan), tiny, and draws about as much power as 
a clock radio. 

Maybe not that practical, but it sure is cheap. Its tempting to try 
it.

Mike