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Another $99 Web Terminal
An Anonymous Coward writes: "If anyone is looking for a fun $99 hacking project, Tiger direct has Compaq Ipaq's for $99, great little web browsing terminals, they support Flash, jJava, ActiveX. The parts (LCD screen etc) are probably worth more than this. You'll need to get a USB Ethernet adapter so you can use broadband." Tiger Direct seems to have a mixed reputation for service, but at under a hundred dollars, this looks pretty tempting even if only used as a digital photo frame, or an adjunct mail terminal.
My friend has one of these ipaq devices, and he fitted it with a 20 gig laptop hard drive. That makes it rather expensive toy I guess, but it's really cool running linux. Think about one of these babies in your living room, streaming music to the stereo, checking email on the couch, maybe even controlling the tv with the right ir port. It'd be very cool.
The downside though - that hard drive makes a fair bit of heat meaning my friend can't run his ipaq for many more than twenty minutes at a time. A fan is definitely in order, but he lost interest in the project.
If you're lucky you can one cheaper on eBay.
$76
http://www.thehungersite.com
What would be nice is if someone were able to make a boot floppy or boot ROM for a NIC so that this machine could be used with the Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP) or some similar software. At $100, it would be great for use in schools, libraries, internet cafes, and other places where little more than a browser is needed and the additional components of a PC such as a hard drive and multiple removable media drives are more of a hassle than anything else.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
Do people even read the article?
Features:
Easy to setup and use!
Turns on and off like a TV and automatically connects to the Internet!
Flashing light alerts you of incoming e-mail!
Tiny! Just 13" tall, 10" wide!
When the power is off, the screen becomes a digital photo frame!
Broadband-ready (requires USB Adapter). See compatibility list below.*
When the power is off, the screen becomes a digital photo frame
Secure and private - Shopping, e-mail and sensitive information remain protected
Use your own ISP!
(Does not support AOL/Compuserve)
no sig.
About one month ago I looked into buying my grandmother an internet device. I debated the Folowing a 486 win QNX runing on it(fast enough for web browsing a geting e-mail), an old pentium win linux on it(tried and true works with out any problems), an old pentium win win95 on it (would work ok as long as she didn't add any new programs but would be going against my beter jugment), a dreamcast (they cost 70$ hear in canada and they come with a key board), and one of theis babies.
I ended up being realy torn betwean the dreamcast and the I-paq. The dreamcast had the added bonus of being able to play games in 3d, plus to give it java compatabilty it would only cost 20$ us. I would then be able to us it a VNC terminal (thanks to vnc's jave aplet viewer). On the other hand the I-paq was a stand alone device and that would apeal to her since it's more like an other apliance (microwave, stove, blender, fax, tv).
Could I hack this to let my video output cable for my Dreamcast plug into the LCD screen? I currently have the two audio cables from the DC going into my hi-fi system... adding an LCD would rawk. Is this even remotely possible?
Anyone got one of these to work with 802.11B?
I wouldn't mind getting one of these and sticking it on my living room coffee table for the guests and drunkers that come over and try and use one of laptops while I'm working. (come-on man, lemme check my hotmail!) I got the whole network (cept for the gaming rig) setup on the wireless and I don't want to run ethernet back into the living room after I just got rid of it.
I live life on the edge