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50-Dollar Hackable "WebSurfer"
evilviper pointed us to a new hack on LinuxHacker. Last time it was the i-opener, but this time its the WebSurfer. It's 50 bucks and can be had at CompUSA. They show it booting Linux among other things. Has a wireless keyboard, a real (non win) modem, and a Cyrix CPU. Looks perfect for voiding warranties.
49.95 * 1.0825 (sales tax here is 8.25%) == 54.07
24.95 * 24 == 598.80
598.80 + 54.07 == 652.87
199.95 * 1.0825 = 216.45
Total money saved by using their ISP offer == - 436.42
Sounds like a deal that really sucks to me.
The chip has the following problems we know about
1. Some XFree releases have a lot of bugs in MediaGX support. Use 3.3.3.1 or 3.3.6
2. The RDTSC handling is funny. Linux will disable
the TSC and handle it fine
3. The SB emulation has bugs. 2.2.15 has workarounds for both the DMA counter bug and the DMA emulation bug.
4. The PCI bridge is a bit dim. Its fine for most stuff but put a tv capture card there and you may have issues. Its not clear whose fault that is
Otherwise its a good little CPU, it has 16K cache only but with good latency and the video from main memory does hit performance. Figure P120-P150 for a MediaGX 180Mhz.
Alan
http://www.virginconnectme.com/
this product is put out by a company called ian (internet appliance network). i had the opportunity to meet the guy who created this little piece of hardware. i can tell you that up front, the hardware is very sexy looking. i don't know much about the insides, but i *do* know that they are already working on a second generation, and they are hoping to support broadband access in that one.
the current model is limited to a supply of around 10,000, first come first serve.
the deal is you pay $50 a year for 3 years and agree to be online for 10 hours a month. that's it.
oh, and BTW, they fully invite you to hack it and run whatever OS you want, provided you stay online at least 10 hours a month. (at least that's what i was told a week and a half ago.)
i want to live life, not just go through the motions
...here's the FAQ for the Websurfer, it is a set top box that plugs into a TV and allows internet access (i.e. It turns your TV into a WebTV).
go to
http://www.i-opener-linux.net and look around.
There are lots of new hacks with or w/o opening the
box.
-- Slef
If this is anything like the i-opener then the machine costs more than it is sold for with the intention of making some back on subscription. Am I the only one who feels that this kind of hack is a little morally ambiguous at best? I know that is probably not against the fact of the law but in a world where we are taking stands against unjust law left right and center should we not be respecting the intent of deals like this?
The WebSurfer is $199.
They have a deal if you sign up for two years of Earthlink it is $49.99.
some people were able to get by this cuz the workers at CompUSA were stupid. They wised up, real fast.
-Davidu
# Hack the planet, it's important.
Hey look, these guys put out a neat little terminal that gets people onto the internet and lets the company make tons of money from ISP subscriptions. That's great. But if they screw up their end-user agreement such that it's possible for anyone to buy the thing at a low price without obligation to purchase the ISP, that's their fault. If I then come along and modify the thing to do what I want, I own it, I'm not violating anything, and I can do what I very well please with it. It's not like these guys are some kind of charity and we're blatantly violating the spirit of some covenental agreement we signed with them that happens to have a loophole in it ; we're doing what we want with something we own.
People get taken for a ride by the twisted wording of licencing agreements, credit card terms, and tons of other fine print every day. If it turns out that one of these big boys inadvertently gives everyone a much better deal than they originally intended, there is nothing legally or morally wrong with taking advantage of that.
Frankly, what really is disgusting, and IMO morally wrong, is for companies like iOpener to then turn around and cry outrage and blame "hackers" for "lost revenue". It's typical of our corporate culture to pass the buck for your own screw ups, and the iOpener fiasco is just another example of their willingness to scapegoat anything non mainstream to get their way.
At any rate, I was all excited about getting one for $50, to play MP3s on, but for $199 (and with all the other pieces parts I have lying around) I can build something just as good and more expandable.
Happy Beltaine!
Beyond the obvious "it's cheap because it's intended to be bundled with a service" similarity, there's another thing that this machine and the I-Opener have in common: they are physically small (they don't take up a lot of space) and a bit underpowered compared to today's mainstream PC, which is one of the reasons that they _can_ be so cheap.
People want these cheezy/cheap PCs. This WebSurfer machine, especially with its TV-out, reminds me of Commodore's ahead-of-it's-time CDTV. CDTV was really an Amiga 500 packaged in what looked like a regular audio CD player -- something that would look at home on your stereo rack. But it was really a general-purpose computer in disguise, and you could do just about anything you could imagine with it.
There's demand for this stuff, but it seems like the manufacturers are missing something. They seem to think that if a device is targeted as having a specific embedded purpose, then it doesn't need to be programmable. (Do any of these guys remember the personal computer market of the early 80s?!?) That's one of the reasons people are trying to rip out the embedded QNX (or whatever) and stick Linux on them. Some users want to really customize these machines to do whatever THEY want.
And that gives me an idea. When I was picking out components for my firewall/music box, I didn't really _want_ a conventional PeeCee case. I wanted something that would fade into the background and look inconspicuous, like a stereo component. I checked out a few Micro-ATX cases, but for various reasons, nothing was quite right for me. So I gave up on the idea and got a minitower (but at least it was a cool one ;-).
I think the world wants more variety in computer cases. And no, I don't mean another iMac clone. Start with the old pizza box or generic audio component size, make sure it has room on the front for
- a DVD/CD drive
- maybe a Matrix Orbital display
- an IR port
make it BLACK, then somehow figure out a way to put a regular-sized ATX motherboard in it, while also figuring out a way to cool it sufficiently. This would totally kick ass, and I think it would sell well to amateur hobbyists that want to build their _own_ appliances.Alas, I think the computer industry doesn't recognize the existence of hobbyists anymore.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The most informed speculation is that the price reduction (from $200 to $49.95) was intended to be for a bundle of the box plus internet service.
Comments on the websurfer-hacker mailing list suggest that these boxes are not as useful as the I-opener