Hacking The Bush IBX100 Internet Set-Top Box?
Matt asks: "I saw the Bush IBX100
set-top box the other day and have been searching the net for more information about it. At approximately £80 it would seem very hackable (i.e. upgrade to Ethernet and add in a larger hard drive). It would make an excellent 'consumer' device for those of us using PAL TV systems, perhaps, much like the devices from the previous Slashdot stories:
'Embedded Linux Box' and '50-Dollar Hackable Websurfer'. Has anybody seen inside an IBX100 yet? The fact that the built-in browser is Netscape strongly suggests it's already running Linux/BSD, but what else is inside?"
It doesn't run Netscape. It runs Fresco, an embedded-styley Web browser written by Ant Limited (http://www.ant.co.uk). The operating system is Pace NCOS, which is Acorn RiscOS under a more internet-friendly name.
I'd pretty much forget trying to hack it. The CPU (an ARM 7500FE) and architecture could in theory run ARM Linux, but it has RiscOS in surface-mount masked ROM, and there's nowhere really to plug an Ethernet card.
Peter (Fresco architect)