Yup. Used to work (well a contractor) for Netpliance for a short period of time. That was during the webtv computer attempt by lots of vendors. This one was a bit different in that it came with it's own internet service/dial-up access. Effectively they tested the market by selling the original units (they ran off a 32MB CF card running a copy of QNX) for $100 despite the actual cost of making the thing (I mean, really this was a fairly nice flat screen lcd before they were common/cheap) was somewhere around $200-300. The first person with a screw driver and lack of care for the warranty opened it up and found that despite the system running off of a CF card, it actually did have an IDE controller on the motherboard and poof the hacking and popularity boomed at that under production cost ;-)
Anyway nice system and hackable for what it was. Lots of folks quickly had Windows 98 running on it and others of course ended up with linux. It was a nice small design, standard ps/2 keyboard with the built-in mouse. They go for around $20-30 probably without a box these days but I think the PS is proprietary, not standard (can't remember).
There are lots of (I guess nitch names like webputers) out there for vendors. They never took off for whatever reason. Sorta funny how the execs started marketing computers that connected to TVs as a specialty and repeating the (g)old days. Amiga had a fairly failed attempt at it as well with their
Amiga CD32 console which was a gaming system/computer in console format.
The other popular amongst our community is the
Audrey (extra points for female name?
) otherwise known as the 3com Ergo. Has had a few votes for the ugliest computer or design or some such in the past. I sorta like it though. It was meant to be in the kitchen computer genre I believe.
We've come a long way from the original
kitchen computer (Honeywell) target haven't we?