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Go here Despite it's name the message boards are pretty OS agnostic

Personally I want a eVilla.

So, you want to hack it?

Well then I'd start here if I were you:
http://www.linux-hacker.net/cgi-bin/UltraBoard/Ult raBoard.pl

On this web-board, it's called the MSN Companion.

Random signature string.

If you're interested in knowing what kinds of hacks are available before purchasing one of these then take a look at the Linux Hacker BBS Forums.

linux-hacker.net has info on hacking this "MSN Companion" as well as other I-Appliances like epods and audrey. Lots of people have done some very nice work on these already. Thanks!

I'm suprised no one has mentioned the webplayer yet.. I picked up a couple in a co-op buy last winter and just now got around to hacking it (hows that for procrastination?) - You can pick them up at ubid or ebay for around $100 - There's a great webplayer hacking forum here and it's easy to hook up to a USB ethernet connection..

Linux-hacker mailstation board: http://www.linux-hacker.net/cgi-bin/UltraBoard/Ult raBoard.pl?Action=ShowBoard&Board=mswhatever There's a bunch of other devices hacked and described on that site too...

Then, hack it:

• http://www.audreyhacking.com
• http://www.canoma.com/audrey
• http://www.sowbug.com/audrey/hack_index.html
• http://www.linux-hacker.net BBS

We've already got various customization hacks worked out. It's only a matter of time before someone figures out how to:

• Add a hard drive
• Add 802.11b
• Get Linux running on it

Supplies are dwindling. You may want to go ahead and by one (or four) now.

Here is one of the more interesting toys I've gotten lately, the 3com Audrey. Now on sale at TigerDirect for $89. Take the plunge and get the 3com 3c19250 USB Ethernet adapter, available Here for $30.

The quick breakdown on the Audrey, they run QNX 6.0 out of a flash disk, and have a browser, mail program, scheduler, memo pad, and some other tools built in. It can also sync with your PalmOS device. Hardware-wise, it is a Geode 200mhz processor, with 32 megs of ram and a 16 meg flash. It has a built in 56k modem, 2 USB ports, an infrared keyboard, 640x480 touchscreen, stereo sound with built in speakers.

Once you have followed the directions listed in the threads at the I-Appliance BBS you will be able to install other applications from QNX 6.0, or even upgrade your system library so you can run 6.1 binaries. People have turned this unit into remote terminals, digital picture frames, mp3 players, home automation terminals, etc. You can't put linux on it because it (yet) because it doesn't actually have a BIOS, but once you get familiar with QNX you really won't mind. You get download QNX 6.1 for free, there ISO is Here. It is a pretty nice OS in its own right.

I've got two Audreys, I use one to run QNX-based ICQ and AIM, so I can dualboot to play ReVolt or take apart my main machine for whatever reason. The other one is my girlfriend's and she uses the builtin apps for scheduling etc plus for web surfing in the bedroom.

The only downside to the Audrey is that its pretty... Shall we say... Lacking in testosterone. Everything from the shape of the unit, to the bootup giggle, to the layout of the manual, to the clear, oddly shaped stylus... Definately was being marketed to the fairer sex. But that's ok, cause chicks will dig it.

www.audreyhacking.com

www.linux-hacker.net

I've used my epods as a console for a SUN Enterprise 6500 server with 10 CPU, 10 GB mem. Very nice, but I'd recommend adding a USB keyboard - handwriting recognition and vi editor don't mix ...

And while it's nice, the lack of a keyboard is more of a drawback than you'd expect. A downright pain, in fact.

I mainly bought it to use as a drawing tablet, and for that it seems to suffice.

Wireless internet connectivity would be neat, but it's a battery killer (unless I got a cable that would run to a cellphone, hmm...).

Look at http://www.linux-hacker.net for more details.

Jon Acheson

sorry Bad Link, Crappy formatting...was up till 4:00 am last night
I appliance BBS

So I guess I have to ask, "So, what's new?" This has been going on at Linux-Hacker.net for over a year. And they have a link to GCT-Allwell who offer a number of links to completed projects.

Anyone who thinks 'all-in-one' computers are 'unhackable' needs to remember the I-Opener phenom. Have a look at Linux-Hacker.Net to see that the same people who soldered their IOpeners are doing it with everything imaginable - specifically interesting is the GateWay Connected Touchpad (which originally runs Linux on a Transmita CPU), it has 802.11b and a touchscreen....

There is the IBM Thinkpad 730t, but you're back to the slow processors.

Ricoh put out a similar machine, but it has a color display and internal CD-ROM.

Symbol Technologies make pen based terminals for industrial applications. If you want to see one, go to Home Depot. They use them extensively. The newer Wal-Mart stores are using different units in their Auto Centers for taking orders.

QBE is making modern tablets, but they are a bit more expensive. It looks like they're cheaper on eBay.

And just to expand on what's already been said, what's wrong with the Pocket PC systems? I think that's where the promises for tablet computers ended up. For that matter, the earlier Windows CE palmtops are pretty nice. You can also get 802.11b cards for your system. Use that with VNC for Windows CE to control a real machine running a VNC server elsewhere.

Ok, the xbox won't come in a tiny rack mount enclosure, but at with a 700-some Mhz Pentium3 other pretty cool stuff, you'll come a lot closer to the beowolf-on-a-budget. Of course, there is the issue of having to use USB-based network adaptors, but never mind that.

Plus there's the fun-factor of seeing Linux run on a piece of hardware made (and sold at a loss) by Microsoft!

If this sounds like a fun way to void the warranty on a $299 piece of brand new hardware, take a peek at this thread over at linux-hacker.net.

As surely as you can bet they'll code it to only with their services, folks like Ken "Codeman" Segler will get one and start reverse engineering (if the hardware is worthwhile and can run linux). He's the guy who reverse engineering the iOpener. Rumor has it he works full-time reverse engineering products, sometimes for fun and sometimes on contract basis for surplus shops.

They were using the Netpliance iopener for email to inexpensively keep in contact with family and friends. Netpliance had some major financial problems and discontinued the 800 number support, which left my relatives high-and-dry after they became hooked on email.

I've modified their iopeners to run Linux. I set them up with Blackbox as the window manager because the iopener is rather underpowered. The iopener's function keys have iconic labels instead of F1-F12: a weather key with a cloud on it, a news key with a newspaper on it, etc, so I've configured bbkeys to run Netscape and pass the appropriate command line arguements to display the correct URL or email option. (I would have used Mozilla, but it's email support was too slow - 20 seconds to display an email vs 2 seconds in netscape).

Last year my mom traveled the country visiting relatives with her laptop and scanner and digitized all the family photos she could lay her hands on. So, as an added bonus, the iopener is also an electronic picture album and runs CHBG as a screensaver when the system is idle. The grandparents really love this feature.

Sure, I could have done this using Windows, but the non-upgrade price of Windows(since the iopener's originally ran QNX) would have been about twice the cost of the hardware I purchased to convert the iopeners.

I remember when the I-Opener, Websurfer, and others were the next big thing. What happened? Why is the iPaq the popular model suddenly? Is it purely the "Hack-a-bility" factor? If that's the case goto Linux-Hacker.net where they shows hacks and kits...

See EBay, or just stroll in to Target and plunk down $299. It's a fine X terminal running Jailbait, or check out the Linux Terminal Server Project if you don't want to put a disk on it but do want more than what JailBait provides. Or check out the bboard ; ; at http://www.linux-hacker.net for details on everything necessary to turn an I-Opener into a standard Linux machine.

See http://www.linux-hacker.net and read the I-Appliance Discussion Forum BBS . You can use an SMC 10/100 or similar USB Ethernet adapter (be careful, not all work).

There is more discussion over at www.kenseglerdesigns.com. Down near the bottom is a Virgin Webplayer discussion I can't link to because of /. inserting spaces in long links. And of course lots more info on hacking other Net Appliances www.linux-hacker.net.

I don't see how these loss leaders are going to make it until they begin to at least clear the manufacturing cost of the machine. Netpliance learned the hard way but at least they're still in business, sort of. And since their unit is now sold close to cost the restrictive TOS is a thing of the past. But the WebSurfer people bit the dust, now Virgin is pulling their project...

I think people really do want cheap internet terminals. But these companies are selling to the wrong crowd. Net Terminals should be going up at local businesses in little kiosks. Our public librarys running wasteful NT machines should go back to diskless stations. Our cities could be full of access that offered the same promotional capabilities. From there, you could sell home users a system that was at least used in their community rather than a dead product that's useless without the service.

(I took the liberty of cleaning up the spelling, and other nits ... :).

I guess that would be amusing, wearing computers with "touch" connectivity, then forming a human chain around an inner circle of cubicles around Christmas, singing, "O! Holy Quake, Nailgun Blight" while the wireless components shake Aibo robots about the office flashing their eyes red and green. (Can they do that? Would these folks have any input on this question?)

If anyone does this, please do make an MPEG2/4 of that and post an URL to it on Slashdot! I'd like to see that! 8^]

Here's my report on my DSL. I recently got 1040Kbits/sec up/down SDSL from MegaPath in Palo Alto (SF Bay Area). Overall, I'm getting happy with them, but I'm still in the installation hell phase. Once the basic wiring problem gets sorted out, I can see that things will be very good, because the company is responsive and committed, and the hardware and network seem basically sound. Still, the installation problems are trying and frustrating and I am trying to get through it whole.

• Wires:
  The Pac Bell wire from my house to the phone company is about 9000 feet, and runs Frame Relay to NorthPoint. There's been a problem from day 1 with the line going up and down, but given that it took Pac Bell only 3 weeks to hook it up and it's only been up 1 month, I'm still well within the range of startup time problems that people have, and am expecting smooth sailing once the MegaPath/NorthPoint/PacBell menage a trois is done. Knock on wood!

• Installation:
  A disadvantage of not going with Pac Bell directly is that there are three companies involved and they all have to coordinate. An advantage of not going with Pac Bell directly is that because of the competitive/cooperative relationship, NorthPoint has much more clout with Pac Bell than I do, and MegaPath has clout with NorthPoint, and MegaPath is very responsive by e-mail and phone, so I don't have to spend hours on hold or wade through levels of official sympathizers before I get to talk to someone who can understand my problem. Every person I talked to was well informed, well versed in networking, and very polite. Conversely, I think they expect some level of technical sophistication in their users, but I haven't tested this hypothesis.

• Service:
  As I said, the support and tech people are all very smart and pleasant. They never talked down to me, and they were able to diagnose problems I'd caused myself. They are persistent in trying to get my installation problem straightened out and I am confident that the process will work. I often here of people with DSL installation problems who despair or give up because it appears that the process will not converge. I don't get that feeling, but I do see that it's going to take some time, because all three companies have process that they follow, and when you have a 2-sigma or 3-sigmal problem, there are a lot of steps to go through (replacing house wiring, monitoring etc., etc., etc.)

• Connection:
  MegaPath sells you a DSL WAN/Router/hub, and the only traffic you see on your wire is traffic to or from your house. With many other DSL and cable services, you get a "Modem/Bridge" device, wherein you see other people's traffic (and vice versa). The size of this "local" netwok varies with the provider, but I read on dslreports.com about a Bell Atlantic (now Verizon) customer who saw a broadcast storm every 15 minutes. He was able to see the ethernet address (shows you right there that it's really a shared ethernet!) and found it was an iMac. The tech support folks turned a deaf ear and told him not to use a network sniffer (reportedly). Another guy on dslreports read this, did the same, and saw that he could see it as well, and they were 30 miles apart! Again, I'm just quoting: here's the link. This kind of issue was a major reason for my going with MegaPath, since they don't have a large bridged network.

• Security:
  Not having other home users see your traffic and vice versa is a big deal in security, and if your provider uses a router instead of a bridge, then this happens. The router I got from MegaPath (a Netopia 7100R) has a firewall built in, and it comes with a NetBIOS blocker and a no-incoming-connections-at-all blocker, and you get to pick which one you want, or customize it (which I have done).

• Performance: Throughput and Latency
  

  • Throughput
    DSL Reports has test tools, and my 1040/1040 connection shows up at about 940/920, if memory serves me correctly. Given the TCP/IP and Frame Relay overhead, this seems fine. Other providers who offer "nominal" 1.5Mb/384Kb often lag behind by a greater margin, especially on the uplink. I've seen in particular that cable modems often offer in regular modem ranges for uplink. (As a side note, I found this way the USB ethernet adapter on my I-Opener only gets 20Kb/sec up!)

  • Latency
    Most of the time I get <8ms from my house to www.yahoo.com, and less than 6ms from my house to www.megapath.net. Through VPN hardware and into my company at work is about 25ms, most of which is going from one backbone to another on the Internet. Occasionally, however, something in the local San Jose abovenet backbone screws up and I get terrible throughput, at night, for an hour or two, and then it mysteriously repairs itself. MegaPath is aware of this problem and is working with their backbone provider to get it rectified. It's not a usage problem -- it goes from fine to wretched in 10 seconds, and back again (after an hour or two) in another 10 seconds. Again, I'm confident that this is a transient problem I'm seeing and that it's not due to chronic oversubscription or poor network management.

If you want to explore the hack value further, go to Linux-Hacker where Ken Segler (a.k.a. codeman) has some modification info on the original Websurfer Pro, which is made by the same company. He has a BBS there too with alot of good technical info amassed by people using these things.

Shawn

WebSurfer Pro

The truth about this is that the only devices that have been exploited have been loss-leader type electronics, and built on useful hardware, which often makes the best loss-leader (ie, it's a good product).

Things that haven't done so well, and haven't been hacked have been *extremely* proprietary devices like the Mailsite personal email box (man that'd make a sweet portable bash terminal).

So... useful things tend to get reused if they're given to us. The only way companies can avoid a situation like this is to make something damn near worthless if hacked (funky hardware, no ram, no hd, odd processors, etc)... The problem of course is that those types of things don't always make good products.

----

Although the software looks impressive from the website, it is VERY slow. It seems to download the pages for the applications. I'm not sure if this is true, but you have to be online to run all of the organization software and every time that the page has to refresh, it takes about 30 seconds for it to refresh. This was the main complaint that my Aunt had.

If it's hackable, then I'm sure that Codeman will be able to do it. I won't get one because the flat screen I-opener is all that I need.

http://www.linux-hacker.net/imod/imod.ht ml

agree. you could buy a websurfer for $50 hackit into a full 300 Mhz machine using a $10 old HD and $5 assorted components. for $450 you will get 7 of these units, with a computing power larger than the one PCI card, but usable for other purposes as well, including some fun beowulf clustering

I'm planning to hook it up to my stereo, have it networked with my other systems via a USB ethernet adapter, and running Linux. Using the CGI client for MP3 Server Box I'll even be able to control the music from any system in my house.

Since the system will be in the family room, I plan to have a photo-slide show running as the screen saver.

take a look at http://www.linux-hacker.net, there's no more site!!!
--
BeDevId 15453
Download BeOS R5 Lite free!

I think they're both on the same controller.

From the website's DMESG output...

VP_IDE: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 39
VP_IDE: not 100% native mode: will http://www.linux-hacker.net/iopener/dmesg.txtprobe irqs later
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xe000-0xe007, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:DMA
hda: TOSHIBA MK2103MAV, ATA DISK drive
hdb: SunDisk SDTB-128, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
hda: TOSHIBA MK2103MAV, 2067MB w/128kB Cache, CHS=525/128/63
hdb: SunDisk SDTB-128, 15MB w/1kB Cache, CHS=490/2/32

Also, if you take a look at the picture, you can see the connector above the chips. Top of the pic.

I think they're both on the same controller.

From the website's DMESG output...

VP_IDE: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 39
VP_IDE: not 100% native mode: will http://www.linux-hacker.net/iopener/dmesg.txtprobe irqs later
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xe000-0xe007, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:DMA
hda: TOSHIBA MK2103MAV, ATA DISK drive
hdb: SunDisk SDTB-128, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
hda: TOSHIBA MK2103MAV, 2067MB w/128kB Cache, CHS=525/128/63
hdb: SunDisk SDTB-128, 15MB w/1kB Cache, CHS=490/2/32

Also, if you take a look at the picture, you can see the connector above the chips. Top of the pic.

Linux version 2.2.14-15mdk (root@kenobi.mandrakesoft.com) (gcc version 2.95.2 19991024 (release)) #1 Tue Jan 4 22:24:20 CET 2000
relocating initrd image:
initrd_start:0xc0faa000 initrd_end:0xc0fff935
mem_start:0xc0274000 mem_end:0xc1e00000
initrd_size:0x00055935 dest:0xc1daa000
Detected 200462336 Hz processor.
Console: colour VGA+ 80x25
Calibrating delay loop... 79.87 BogoMIPS

Now how is that possible?

The consensus: The SanDisk is NVRAM, not flash. The IDE connector must be fabbed via the instructions here. USB will support multiple NICs but is an I/O bottleneck. Stated by MrBlaq: If you bought the box from IOpener, do NOT boot the machine while it is connected to a phone line unless you want to start ISP service. You can see a dmesg at the URL above.

Details here. As for being "required to use their sevice to keep the machine" Circuit City never ID'd me on my cash purchase. Iopener assumes their machine will work only with their service and ID's you when you use it to sign up.