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Found an NIC (New Internet Computer)

Bungo Pony

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Rescued this machine from the recycler about a week ago. It's an interesting machine. It's about the size of a cheapo DVD player, but it's got integrated audio, video, ethernet, and USB. These machines came out in the year 2000 and were a total flop. Around 40-50,000 were sold at a price of $199 each.

There is no (real) hard drive in the machine except for a 4MB Flash ROM. The machine was designed to run off a Linux live CD (which was in the drive - YAY!) The only software that loads up is a copy of Netscape. That's all this machine was designed for - to run Netscape to access the internet. I suppose it's a pre-cursor to ChromeOS.

So I've been having fun with this little machine. I've tossed in a couple other live Linux CDs and they run 100%. Perhaps if I get bored, I could install DOS on the 4MB flash drive. Regardless, it's a neat little machine. Too bad it's not expandable, because it would make a cool DVD player replacement in my living room.
 
I remember those--about 5 years ago, the local recycler had a big pile of them for $5 the each. I thought about adapting one as a mail server by adding a USB pen drive, but decided against it and decided to pick up a bunch of new Farallon routers for $5 the each also. The routers are still being used as network hubs; I don't think the same would be true of NIC had I picked one up.

Speaking of limited-use PCs, what was the PC being sold with an internet account back around 2000 for $99? The gimmick was to sign up for basic email and net access and you get a free computer. A few people noticed that you could cancel your service at any time and did just that. There were a few hacks for adding an IDE hard drive, since the interface was present in the system. I wonder if the same is true of your NIC.

Edit: It certainly is true that you can add a hard drive to the NIC.
 
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Speaking of limited-use PCs, what was the PC being sold with an internet account back around 2000 for $99? The gimmick was to sign up for basic email and net access and you get a free computer. A few people noticed that you could cancel your service at any time and did just that. There were a few hacks for adding an IDE hard drive, since the interface was present in the system. I wonder if the same is true of your NIC.

You may mean the I-Opener, but there was also the Virgin Webplayer. I have a Webplayer that I was playing around with a bit but didn't get very far with. The 3Com Audrey also came with a conection deal, but it was more expensive. The I-Opener became very popular with Linux hackers because it was fairly easy to turn it into a full-function machine.
 
I remember those--about 5 years ago, the local recycler had a big pile of them for $5 the each. I thought about adapting one as a mail server by adding a USB pen drive, but decided against it and decided to pick up a bunch of new Farallon routers for $5 the each also. The routers are still being used as network hubs; I don't think the same would be true of NIC had I picked one up.

Speaking of limited-use PCs, what was the PC being sold with an internet account back around 2000 for $99? The gimmick was to sign up for basic email and net access and you get a free computer. A few people noticed that you could cancel your service at any time and did just that. There were a few hacks for adding an IDE hard drive, since the interface was present in the system. I wonder if the same is true of your NIC.

Edit: It certainly is true that you can add a hard drive to the NIC.
I bought one for my father-in-law a few years back. It was $99.00 and it was marketed by Microsoft. You'd run a telco hook-up to it and attach it to your tv and browse away. It never made it out of the box, still setting on a shelf in the closet. Oh well, I tried.
 
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You referrinf to the MSN TV box?
Gosh, I remember when WebTV was still around. There was so much usefulness you could make out of an INT-W200 but nobody ever bothered to mess with it.
 
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