i-Opener
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The i-Opener was a low-cost internet appliance produced by Netpliance (now known as TippingPoint) between the years 1999 and 2002.
The i-Opener is a computer that was taken off the market in 2002. The hardware, cheaply available, became popular among collectors who modified the appliance to run as a normal PC. This made the device capable of running typical PC operating systems, such as Linux and Microsoft Windows.
The original retail price was $99. The actual cost of the device was roughly estimated between $300 and $400. The devices were sold as a loss leader for monthly Internet service. However, as soon as a hacking method became available on the Internet (in 2000), many customers canceled the monthly service, which eventually made the business model unsustainable. Similar business model and failure are also found in the 3Com Audrey and Virgin Webplayer.
[edit] Hacking
It was not too long before an engineer from Las Vegas, Ken Segler, discovered that the i-Opener was simply an x86 compatible PC inside a fancy case. By removing the back cover of the device, he found a Socket 7 CPU socket with an 180 MHz IDT WinChip C6 CPU, a SO-DIMM socket, an IDE plug (which allowed adding a hard drive and CD drive - making the device nothing less than a $99 PC with an LCD screen) and 16 MB SanDisk memory chip. However, the pins on the IDE connector were reversed, requiring the making or ordering of special cables and adapters to connect a hard drive to the unit. Attempts by i-Opener to thwart hacking included gluing the BIOS chip with epoxy and modifying its settings (rendering it unable to detect hard drives), limiting the type of CPU one could use to that included with the unit and even cutting the pins on the IDE connector.
[edit] External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: i-Opener |
- Modding information from Linux-hacker.net
- Modding information from Evernex.com
- Modding information from Fastolfe.net
- Modding information from Stonekeep.com, including diskless boot image
- [1] Photo of a modded i-Opener motherboard
- M4I A Linux distribution (for the on-board 16MB flash) which includes the Opera Web Browser
- M4I alternate site
