Dr. Dobb's Journal July 2000
Aside from all the free T-shirts, the real fun in hanging around DDJ is in seeing what you do with the stuff your fellow programmers write about. Whether it's someone porting a Forth interpreter from the 68000 to the MIPS processor, turning Al Stevens' Quincy into a hardware testing tool, or morphing a sorting algorithm into a server -- okay, that's a stretch, but you get the idea.
Of course, it's the nature of the curious everywhere to make things do what they weren't designed to do. Everyone knows this, except -- it seems -- companies developing Internet appliances.
Take Netpliance (http://www.netpliance.com/), maker of the very cool I-opener $99.00 web terminal, for instance. The I-opener is simply a keyboard, 10-inch flat-panel LCD, 200-MHz x86 CPU, 32-MB RAM, 16-MB Flash memory, built-in 56-kbps modem, and I/O ports, but with no mass storage. The system runs on the QNX OS, comes with a browser, and supports HTTP 1.1, HTML 3.2, RealAudio 5.0, Javascript 1.1, SSL 128-bit encryption, and the like. How can Netpliance sell this thing for $99.00? Well, by giving away the razor, but selling the blades. Netpliance, in other words, is a software and service company, not a hardware vendor; and when buying the I-opener, you have to sign up for Internet access. That's what puts food on Netpliance's table.
It didn't take long for the I-opener to attract the curious. Las Vegas electronics engineer Ken Segler led the pack by modifying a connector cable so as to attach an external hard disk to the device. That, in turn, let him turn the system into a really cheap, fully functional PC running Linux. When the word got out, Segler was so deluged with inquiries that he set up a web site (http://www .linux-hacker.net/) selling his modified cables at $35.00 a pop. Within days, he had taken hundreds of orders and, to its chagrin, Netpliance was selling hundreds of I-openers -- but with many buyers declining Internet services because of loopholes in the purchase agreement.
To its credit, Netpliance appeared to accept innovation by setting up a "Developer's Corner" on its web site and inviting programmers in for discussions. Behind closed doors, however, the company scrambled to plug the holes. Order fulfillment came to a halt and customers received letters informing them that their machines had been discontinued. However, the letters did offer the option of buying a new model if customers agreed to new, more restrictive terms of service. When released, these upgraded models prevented booting from external hard disks.
Still, nothing Netpliance could do stopped the curious who, like long-time DDJ contributor Mark Nelson, kept poking around under the hood. Instead of Linux, Mark ended up running Windows 98 on his I-opener. Here's how he did it.
For starters, Mark bought a system at CompUSA, paying cash and not agreeing to any terms of service (shrink-wrap or otherwise), nor setting up the machine to dial the Netpliance ISP phone number. Using a heat gun, microscope, and Exacto knife, he removed the epoxied-in 4/00 BIOS socketed flash memory chip and reprogrammed it to match the 12/99 BIOS. (Other programmers have since come up with ways to do this without having to open the case or remove the chip.)
Next, Mark purchased a notebook hard drive, attached it to a regular PC, formatted the drive, and put a bootable copy of command-line Windows on it. He then built a special cable to connect the notebook drive to the I-opener. Since the I-opener IDE connector pins are backwards, that meant swapping lines 1 and 2, 3 and 4, 5 and 6, and so on. After jerryrigging the cable connections, he booted the I-opener from the hard drive and installed Windows 98SE. Using the USB connector, he then connected an SMC USB Ethernet adapter to the I-opener to connect it to his home network.
Of course, Mark's approach isn't the only way to modify the appliance for general purposes. Other techniques can be found at http://www.linux-hacker.net/, http://i-opener-linux.net/, and http://fastolfe.net/misc/i-opener-faq.html.
Nor is the I-opener the only Internet appliance that has attracted the curious. The $59.00 WebSurfer, a TV set-top box (sans display), jumped off CompUSA shelves when Segler started offering $12.50 modification kits that let you connect hard disks to boot Linux or other operating systems. Again, the company did not make clear what the service obligations were; hence the great interest. Alas, the WebSurfer web site (http://www.websurfer.com/) seems to have disappeared. Other Internet appliances that have attracted attention include Cidco's $99.00 Mailstation (http://www.cidco.com/), which is also private labeled by Southwestern Bell; and although more expensive (therefore, less attractive), Larry Ellison's "New Internet Computer" (http://www.thinknic.com/).
What's clear is that, in their rush to market, many companies fail to think through their business plans, not to mention underestimate the insatiable curiosity of the technical community. However, by embracing developers as allies rather than adversaries, companies of all sizes can build better mousetraps and better serve their customers. And that, along with making a buck or two of course, is what it's all about.
Jonathan Erickson
editor-in-chief
jerickson@ddj.com