i-Opener

The i-Opener was a low-cost internet appliance produced by Netpliance (now known as TippingPoint) between the years 1999 and 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 PC operating systems, such as Linux and Microsoft Windows.

An i-Opener showing the main menu after a fresh boot-up

The original retail price was $99, including a keyboard with integrated pointing device. The actual manufacturing cost was much higher, 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 models and failures were also seen with the contemporaneous 3Com Audrey and Virgin Webplayer.

Specifications

The i-Opener had a 10", 800×600 LCD display with stereo speakers, a 180 MHz IDT WinChip C6 Socket 7 CPU, a single SO-DIMM socket with a 32 MB module, and a 16 MB SanDisk flash module housing the QNX operating system. Connectivity was via single PS/2, USB, and parallel printer ports, as well as a 56k modem.

Modding
View of the SO-DIMM RAM module inside the i-Opener

James Kmetz, a hacker from Indiana, discovered that the i-Opener was simply an x86 compatible PC inside a custom enclosure. When he removed the back cover of the device, he found an IDE connector, which allowed adding a hard drive and CD-ROM, thus making the device nothing less than a $99 PC with an LCD screen. 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.

Subsequent attempts by Netpliance to thwart modding included gluing the BIOS chip into its socket 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.

gollark: Oh, I thought you meant color somehow.
gollark: I think that's just lighting.
gollark: You'd have to estimate it from the size and shape, I think.
gollark: I don't think that would work, since you cannot easily separate out the volume of different parts.
gollark: I definitely didn't blatantly make it up.
  • "Modding information". Linux-hacker.net. Archived from the original on 2007-03-29.
  • "Modding information". Evernex.com. Archived from the original on 2007-03-09.
  • "Modding information, and frequently asked questions". Fastolfe.net. Archived from the original on 2008-11-21.
  • "Modding information, including diskless boot image". Stonekeep.com. Archived from the original on 2004-04-29.
  • 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
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