--
Adam Serediuk
adam@i-opener-linux.net

--
Adam Serediuk
adam@i-opener-linux.net

April 14, 2000

Dear Circuit City Customer,

We are writing on behalf of Circuit City regarding the i-opener that you recently ordered. The product you ordered has been discontinued, but there is a new model at the same price and includes all the benefits of the i-opener. The difference is that modification of the i-opener in any way is no longer physically possible in the new model.

In connection with your purchase of the new i-opener model you will need to activate an i-opener service account to be able to use the i-opener and agree to the Terms of Sale below. The Fee for the service is $21.95 per month and will be billed approximately 2 days after you purchase the product.

If you wish to cancel your order, or for a refund if you pre-paid, please contact the Circuit City location where you ordered your i-opener.

Sincerely,
The Netpliance Team


Terms of Sale

By opening the i-opener box from Netpliance, I understand and agree that purchasing the i-opener is contingent upon the activation of a new i-opener account. I further understand and agree that if I fail to activate the i-opener account within 30 days of purchase or cancel before 90 days after purchase date, Netpliance is authorized to charge my credit card a $499 fee representin the full value of each i-opener system purchased. I understand that the fee does not apply if the i-opener system is returned to the place of purchase in new condition with all components and the seal on the physical hardware is not broken, within 30 days of purchase. I have read the above conditions and understand my obligations under this agreement. I agree and consent to the delivery and tranfer of my name, phone number, and address to Netpliance to activate my new i-opener account.

7600A N. Capital of TX Hwy, Austin, TX 78731 TEL:512-493-8300 FAX:512-493-8399 www.netpliance.com

I have found a place called Badflash (www.badflash.com) that can reprogram
the I-Opener BIOS flash eproms. He has an image of the original I-Opener
BIOS and I have verified the image is good.

He can reprogram an I-Opener BIOS if the chips are sent to him, or he can
supply a new flash eprom and program that and send it. His posted prices
are $10 to reprogram a BIOS and $18 for a new 2Mbit BIOS programmed with the
I-Opener BIOS.

Check the site because he indicated if he gets a large demand for this one
part he can cut a deal on the price.

Lastly, he has some Flash eproms that require 12V to program them. Since
the I-Opener is designed for parts that are programmed with a %v source,
these parts would be essentially READ ONLY while installed in the I-Opener.
They could not be reprogrammed remotely by Netpliance.

I just got off the phone with a customer service rep with Netpliance. She
told me the following:
- My unit, ordered on March 16th, was still in Taiwan.
- The stories about a holiday or the IO were in route were LIES. They had no
direction from management as to what to tell customers, so they lied.
- The old IO has been discontinued and been replaced by a new model (The
"un-hackable" goo & cut-pin IO)
- She read me the service agreement that needed my approval before the new
model could be shipped from Taiwan.
- The agreement states (roughly): Customer will be billed 2 days after
shipping, 30-day money back guarantee if the seals are not broken and the IO
is still in new condition, Customer will pay for 90 days of the internet
service @ $20+ per month, If customer stops the internet service, he will be
billed $499 for the full retail price of the IO.

From: Kristi Copeland
Sent: Tuesday, April 04, 2000 8:52 AM
To: David Young; Denine Kennedy; Amy VanWyngarden
Subject: Scripting for Backordered customers
Importance., High
This is the text of the letters and email that we're sending to all the suspect hacker customers.
Dear Mr./Ms. Customer. We are contacting you regarding the i-opener that you recently ordered from us. The product you ordered was discontinued. The new model is the same price and includes all the same benefits. This lefter/email is to verify that you would like us to ship the new, modified i-opener and to confirm that you agree to our purchase agreement below-. By purchasing the i-opener you are agreeing to use i-opener service of $21.95, which will be billed approximately 2 days after your i-opener is shipped to you. If you decide to deactivate your account within 90 days of receipt, a deactivation fee of $499 will be billed to your credit card, Your i-opener includes a 30-day money back guarantee. The i-opener system can be returned for a full refund if it is returned to us in -new condition with all components and the seal on the physical hardware intact. to confirm your order.
We look forward to hearing from you
Kristi Copeland Director - Sales and Support Netpliance, Inc. Tel: 512-498-3990 Fax: 512-493-8498

Customer: "Hi, I'd like to cancel my i-opener internet service."
Rep: "Sure, no problem. May I ask why you would like to cancel our service?"
Customer: "Well after using a cable modem on my previous computer, dial-up is just too slow. Also the fact that I cannot enjoy and Java, Flash, or Shockwave media on the Internet is a real drag."
Rep: "That's too bad. Now you're sure you want to cancel your service?"
Customer: "Yes, cancel my service please."
Rep: "Sure no problem, we actually encourage customers to cancel their service."
Customer: "Why?"
Rep: "THANK YOU, THOU HAVE BEEN OWNED."
*click*

Hmm.. over the past few days, we have been recieving emails from people
who have been having problems with getting their I-Openers from Netpliance.

Apparently, I-Opener may have placed the orders, which where made during the period between March 16th through March 20th/23rd, on a "hold-till-they-call" status, at which point, they will read you your new terms of service agreement.

As for the Circuit City I-Openers, from the reports recieved through emails sent to us by would-be I-Opener owners, Netpliance may have issued a "recall" statement to Circuit City regarding "manufacturer's defect" on the I-Opener. Wonder if they might have been referring to the four cut pins. :)

Is it just me or did Netpliance originally make the claim that orders on or before March the 20th will be honoured as per before the new terms of service came up?

I surely hope this isn't any indication of how they plan on handling the "Dev Corner" portion of their business.

Wish there was good news to post, but hey, when lemons are tossed your way, make lemonade, right? :)

Keep the emails coming. :) We ARE reading them, but for the oddest reason, life keeps us busy. ^_-

Woo-hoo! There be BIOS logos a'changin!
http://briefcase.yahoo.com/tackhead_1999
Click on "Day 3" for today's hack:
- 8 pictures showing me gettin' funky with the cable.
The last cable pic (adapt8.jpg) shows evidence that
the plastic housing of the i-opener was probably used
in another, more expandable, design.
- 3 pictures of the boot logo hack described below:
Solution:

1) Acquire AWDFLASH.EXE 6.31
- This is the BIOS flasher you'll use to extract your old BIOS
image (which will also help you tell if running through the
tutorial or letting the unit be "updated" affects your BIOS)
2) Acquire CBROM130.EXE
- This is the utility you'll use to examine the contents of the
BIOS ROM dump and modify it accordingly. They were really
nice, including a /logo option for changing (ta-dah!) boot
logo screens.
3) Boot to straight DOS. In Win9x, will usually mean adding
a BootGUI=0 line to your C:\CONFIG.SYS file. You may have
to use ATTRIB.EXE to make the file writable first.

4) When booting, hold down the SHIFT key to prevent loading of
EMM386.EXE or anything else that ASDFLASH.EXE tells you it
doesn't like.
5) Help for AWDFLASH and CBROM in case you get confused:
AWDFLASH /?
CBROM130 /?
6) Extract your old BIOS ROM to a file:
AWDFLASH /Pn mybios.bin
7) Copy your old BIOS ROM somewhere safe:
COPY mybios.bin mybios.bak

8) We assume you already have a favorite .BMP of a penguin or daemon
handy. (640x464, 16 colors, Windows BMP)
9) For kicks, examine your old BIOS ROM:
CBROM130 mybios.bin /D
See the various components there? The one we're after is the logo
bitmap, by default "welcome.bmp"
10) Rewrite your old BIOS ROM:
CBROM130 mybios.bin /logo penguin.bmp
This overwrites mybios.bin, creating the file for your new BIOS.
If your logo is too complicated and doesn't compress well, you
may run out of space. You can use CBROM to tell you whether or
not your BIOS image with the new logo is "full" or not.
11) Assuming you didn't run out of space, flash your new BIOS and
just for paranoia's sake, make another backup.
AWDFLASH mybios.bin /Py oldbios.bak /Sy
12) Reboot - and pray for the best! As usual, don't try this unless
you're prepared to take the risk of turning your i-opener into a
doorstop.

I have just added a section to my web page about Controlling the LEDs
under DOS and Windows. Included is a link to a .ZIP file with six
programs I wrote -- on, off, and toggle for each LED. The .ZIP includes
the (trivial) assembly language source and a 9 byte .COM file for each
function. Many thanks to Roastbeef for doing the research to find out
what port and bits control the LEDs.

http://www.geocities.com/iopener_hack


--
Adam Serediuk
adam@i-opener-linux.net

I just got off the phone with netpliance.
He was unsure if signing up for the three month prepaid service would satisfy the license agreement.
He was sure that since my order was placed on 3/20/00 that I wasn't bound to the new "Terms of sale".

An Article @ LinuxPower.Org

Thanks goes out to Erik Levy of LinuxPower.org for running a story on the Netpliance's I-Opener, the modification to the I-Opener, and what impact it might have on the Internet and the Industry.

An interesting article pointing out some issues of a less technical nature regarding the I-Opener. :)

--
\\Wing//
wod@ourmag.com

Hello I-Opener Folk!

This greet hails from Silicon Valley(San Jose) where the local Circuit City,
like so many other Circuit Cities, is expecting their next shipment of
I-Openers sometime over the course of the next few weeks, though no definite
time was noted. (Gonna check again tomorrow to see if that has changed.)

I'm also a new news person on this site, so feel free to email interesting
info. I'll do my best to post interesting news to this community! ^_^

--
\\Wing//
wod@ourmag.com

This is Raja from IRC.
I was established contact with Tennmax(link to tennmax.com) Lasagna
Cooler , and they agreed for me to review a unit.
I will conclude if this actually is a suitable replacement for the
original I-opener heatsink.
I will also have a full report of temperature within the unit with
different cpu's and noise level with the addition of the fan.

I have been able to successfully modify the settings that are stored
in the NVRAM chip. I have currently:

1. Stopped the tour from running each time I turn the I-opener on.
2. Turn the modem speaker on.
3. *** Change the network/ISP settings so that it dials up to my ISP
instead of Netpliance's.

I haven't had a chance to look at the email settings yet - plan to do
it this week.

Also, all of this was done without cracking the case.

If there is any interest, I can write a mini HOW-TO on all of this.

Thanks
Chris Ryan
ryanch@onebox.com

and:

I also found and verified a post to the I-opener BBS. I created a setting
in the NVRAM chip to replace the entry in /etc/shadow for root's password.
Now, I no longer need to vi the passwd file each time I boot. I just
boot, run /app/stop-apps, and can log in without a password. (very simple
to do - just two commands).

Adam,

I haven't come across any info on your site regarding a free version of
the sound drivers. If you don't already have something, I've put together a
quick but detailed tutorial from several sources on how to get the ALSA
drivers installed at http://www.egr.msu.edu/~carrierc/iopenedit-sound.shtml
This would round out your "Site" section nicely to have sound support.(or
wherever you stick it)

Regarding the missing Northbridge chip that Damian's write-up mentions: I
think you will find that the "graphics chip" is really the entire
Northbridge chip with the integrated CyberBLADE graphics controller.
Trident entered into an agreement with VIA that allowed the integration
of the CyberBLADE controller with VIA's motherboard chipsets. The
chipset is probably the VIA MVP4.

Thanks for running the I-opener Linux site. I managed to get
one, and the resources you provide are invaluable to me.

Before my new hard drive gets deliviered, I'vce been playing
around with the QNX install. I found a couple of links that may be of
general interest to those playing with the I-opener:

http://stndstealth.cmdl.noaa.gov/qnxtoc.html
http://www.passageway.com/camz/qnx/

Also, I'm currently working on cracking the passwords that are
shipped on the I-opener; it looks like a standard value is placed in
/etc/shadow at boot, and I suspect it's the same everywhere. My
/etc/shadow looks like this:

root:6s}3tv3icWIh|:925158644:0:0
s06213:e0WlgXhQeS61Y:925158644:0:0

I'm curious to see if this is the same as other I-openers, and
if anyone else will want the cracked passwords if John the Ripper ever
gets them for me.

Thanks,

Been mucking with my i-opener all night, and I've discovered what seems like a security hole:
Hitting the Preferences button takes you to a URL located on 127.0.0.1, right?
Well, I got to thinking about this... I looked up my own IP, and replaced the loopback IP in the preferences URL with my actual IP, and viola! I was able to access and change my preferences.
So, it seems that knowing the range of IP addresses the i-opener ISP uses (a bunch via UUNet, it seems), one could scan for active i-opener connections, pop open a web browser and go about changing that person's settings. >:)

I don't know the directory structure of the QNX setup, but I assume there's more stuff accessable this way.

1. The latest Circuit City batch has arrived, at least on the east coast.
My Circuit City in the mid-Atlantic only received one iOpener, mine. The
build date was 3/9/00, and it was unmodified in any way from codeman's. To
find out what I surmise is the build date, just look at the outside label:
there is a build date and time label attached in one corner. (see overview
of box and the label itself).

2. When taking apart the i-opener, a 5mm socket is helpful for removing the
parallel port thumbscrew receptacles.

3. I have a 9mm IBM hard disk I plan to mount inside the iOpener. I have a
cable on order from NCCC, but I didn't want to hack up the R/F shielding.
Instead, I decided to take off the stock heat sink and replace it. The
heatsink is exactly .355 in/~9mm, and there isn't a whole lot more clearance
in there... so your choices for heatsinks are fairly limited. Tennmax
(http://www.tennmax.com) has the Lasagna fan combo, which for $22.00 comes
with a Socket 7 connector. They're now advertising it as iOpener
compatible, so look for that part number when you order. I'll report back
on fit and an install guide when I receive the parts.

4. I spent several hours playing with QNX before I finally hosed it when
trying to put in my own image to the flash. The iOpener will try to "phone
home" every minute or so even when you've dropped down to the root prompt.
You'll need to know three commands to do this successfully: ps, sin, and
slay. Use ps to get a list of processes. (You may find it helpful to run #
ps > /processes.tmp , then # vi /processes.tmp to view it inside vi.) Many
of these should be "phoenix" processes. Now I'm no qnx expert, but I
believe that phoenix is named from the mythical beast that always "rises
from the ashes". Most of the phoenix processes have another item next to
them, which is often also running. I guess that the phoenix is a daemon
that restarts processes over and over again. The best thing to do is to
"slay" the phoenixes to stop the processes from restarting. Each one has a
process number, and if you type "# slay phoenix", it will present you with a
yes/no list of each. Kill them *one at a time*, and type ls after each one.
Sometimes, one is the file system... and if you slay the file system,
you're done. Plan to reboot a few times to find all of the correct
phoenixes to slay. Once you're done, slay the other network connection
managers. If you're successful, the light at the top of the iopener will
not come on for three minutes or more. When you get that right, you can
bring up pppd and do the normal file moving stuff. Remember that the
ramdisk is mounted to /, and that all but two directories are decompressed
from an image stored in the flash, so you have enough space to store a
gzipped image of the flash as long as you keep it in the root.

I saw the below comment and would like to clarify. The smartNIC is indeed based on the CATC ASIC (but it is not a relabeled Netmate). The drivers were independently developed by us. We are currently doing the beta testing and quality check, after which the drivers will be fully released.

Test: Original WinChip C6 / WinChip 2
-------------------------------------
CPU Dhrystone: 252 / 406 (Wow!)
FPU Whetstone: 74 / 123 (Wow again! Remember, NO clock or bus speed
increase)
Integer MMX: 167 / 363 (Repeat last comment!)
FPU / 3DNow: 82 / 276 3DNow (Seeing a pattern here?)
CPU Memory Bandwidth: 53 / 63 (Better than nothing..)
FPU Memory Bandwidth: 58 / 62 (Same here..)

With NetPliance announcing the effective end of hacks on the I-Opener, one must consider the reasons for this. NetPliance stock has reduced in value since their initial offering. Many investors have backed out of buying stock in NetPliance due to fears that the recent hacks upon the machine will cause significant financial problems for the company. NetPliance's business model is based upon the belief that people will purchase the i-opener unit and use their ISP service, at $21.95 a month for an extended period of time. After NetPliance's IPO closed at $22.06 on the first day of trading on Friday, March 17, 2000, it fell to $14 by Tuesday, March 20, 2000. After NetPliance's announcement of their measures to stop unwanted modification of the i-opener, their stock went up $1.94, indicating a slight increase in the confidence of NetPliance's investors.

NetPliance announced a "Developers Corner" yesterday, March 22, 2000 as a service to the open source community. NetPliance reports that they are interested in alternative operating systems on the i-opener. One can be assured that if NetPliance chooses to release another i-opener like device for developers, it will not be $99.00. Don't fret yet however. With assumptions being that the i-opener costs between $400 and $600 to manufacture. A sub $1,000 lightweight, flat panel, low profile computer system has a market. Thousands of normal consumers would buy the unit if it shipped with Microsoft Windows 95/98/2000. College and University students would also be prime customers. Cramped dorms, small budgets would appeal to the use of a lightweight, low profile flat panel computer. NetPliance could market it as a Linux workstation, a sub $1,000 Linux computer would appeal to many trying to catch the open source wave.

NetPliance has a few choices in this situation, they can embrace the free publicity they have received by the open source community and its supporters. They could shut us out, decide to move on without looking back. With the introduction of the Developers Corner and the uncertainty regarding the hack proof modifications on the i-opener it would appear that NetPliance is choosing to embrace this situation.

Expect to see many i-opener like devices in the next few months. The i-opener is only the first of many internet appliances to come. These internet appliances are the future, weather you like it or not of consumer computing for those without any computing experience. NetPliance has only paved the path for many of these devices to come, cheap, powerful and attractive.

My two cents,
--
Adam Serediuk
adam@scizzors.net

I removed the Sandisk and rigged another IDE connector up in its place.
I used the soldering equipment from one of the labs here at MIT to do
this, a task such as this cant be done by hand and requires specialty
equipment. Any who, I have a HP 8100i CD Writer Plus working great with
my I-Opener. The CDRW sets in a carved out RadioSack projectbox along
with the powersupply. I took my case to a good CNC Mill operator and had
a slot carved out for the IDE. I got some basic diagrams attached to this
message - I'm working on getting some pictures up for you guys, this is a
work of art :p

We are looking into providing an open hardware package
for the developer community.

By purchasing the i-opener you are agreeing to use the i-opener Internet service. The fee is $21.95 a month and will be billed approximately 2 days after the i-opener is shipped to you.
i-opener Internet appliances shipped after March 20, 2000 can no longer be reconfigured in the manner described in recent reports. Modification of the i-opener in any way is in violation of our terms and conditions.

Netpliance, creator of the i-opener (reference
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/03/11/1216231&mode=thread),
announces support for the open source community. They have created a
site called Developer's Corner (http://www.netpliance.com/devcorner/)
which will be expanded in the future.

Hi,
I have done some audio mods I would like to briefly explain.

1) headphone jack with automatic speaker mute.

the amplifier chip is the LM4835 on the left hand side of the mobo

a)the headphone jack will of course need left and right inputs
these are pins 17 and 26 respectivly on the amp
these connections must be made through a 220uF electrolitic cap
and must each also be pulled DOWN with 1k resistors
b) the control pin of the headphone jack must be
connected to pin 21 of the amp through a 100k resistor,
this connection must also be pulled UP with a second 100k
resistor.

2) a switch for muting the speakers AND the headphones
on pin 5 of the amp(switch to vDD)
.... yea you could just turn down the volume but what fun is that?

3) PRE-AMP line out!!!!!!
Pin 9 and Pin 13 [right and left, respectively]
Output coupling capacitors need to be
placed in series with the load.
.33 to 1 uF should be fine...
and of course the volume slider has no effect on these outputs!

By purchasing the i-opener you are agreeing to use the i-opener
Internet service. The fee is $21.95 a month and will be billed
approximately 2 days after the i-opener is shipped to you.

Modification of the i-opener in any way is no longer physically possible
and is in violation of our terms and conditions and may be in violation
of federal law.

• BIOS update to disable the IDE port
• Security or hex screws
• Actually removing the IDE port(doubtfull)

The Mind Path IR remote and wireless keyboard set could be deeemed
extremely convenient with the wireless remote and extremely small
keyboard footprint. MicroWarehouse has the two bundled for $159. Here's
MWH's product specs on it
http://www2.warehouse.com/product.asp?pf%5Fid=IN5879

The manufacturer's site contains a bit more info on each:
remote: http://www.mindpath.com/Products/ir50fx.htm
keyboard: http://www.mindpath.com/Products/wireless.htm

This is to help clear up some weird information going around about the
I-Opener.


-> You can use the I-Opener keyboard to do everything.

To..

..get into BIOS: during boot, Ctrl-Alt-Home
..see boot screen: during boot (obviously), Tab
..get the login prompt: during boot, Tab (same as above)
..get console: anytime during the tutorial, Tab-4 (4x)
..make an escape sequence: Ctrl-[
..resize 'xterm': Ctrl-Alt-[ and Ctrl-Alt-]
..switch virtual consoles: Ctrl-Alt-Enter

-> You can 'complete' the tutorial and still get back into QNX.*

I went through the whole tutorial. At the end it sits there with an
animation saying something along the lines of 'updating i-opener'. Basically,
it's waiting for you to plugin the phone cord. I did not plugin the phone
cord because I have no intention of using their ISP service (although I'm
going to get one for my mom ;). In any case, actually completing the tutorial
requires you to plugin the phone line. If you reboot without plugging in
the phone line, it will come back up as normal and make you go through the
tutorial again. I have doubts that even really completing the tutorial will
lock you out. The reasoning is because if one of these were bad and sent back,
a tech would have to be able to get inside and see what's wrong. Since the
flash is soldered in, they won't try to remove it and read it, instead they
will use the i-opener itself. *This my real-life experience and may not be
true for you. Use caution and commonsense.*

-> Basic sequence of getting into QNX

1. Ctrl-Alt-Home to get into BIOS, make changes if necessary.

2. Reboot and hit Tab a few times to see the boot screen to make sure
your BIOS changes worked

3. When the tutorial begins, you hear the guy talking, hit tab-4 four times.
This will bring up a terminal.

4. You will have to move the mouse over this window to select it.

5. Now, you have to edit the /etc/passwd file so you can login as root.
If you type the following exactly, it should work for you:
(newlines mean hit Enter)

vi /etc/passwd
/root
/x
x:w!
:q

6. There is no time limit! If at any time the tutorial takes over the
screen, just hit Tab-4 until the term window comes back.

7. Back at the command prompt, type: /app/stop-apps

It will bring you to the bootup screen. Hit Enter and you should see
a login: prompt. Login as root. You shouldn't need a password.

8. Now you're in, have fun.

Ok, my I-Opener is now running a Quantum 80MB 3.5" hard drive AND a
5.25" Torisan 3-disc CD-ROM changer under Slackware. That's right, an
IDE CD-ROM drive. Here's how:

The Sandisk flash drive is on a very intelligent controller. Sometimes
too intelligent (arrogant?) for its own good. It's already been said
that when an IDE hard drive hits the bus in the Master position, the
Sandisk is bumped down to slave. And yesterday I verified for myself
that the I-Opener *will* boot with two hard drives attached to the bus,
recognizing both. The Sandisk is bumped completely off the map, off
into the ether. "Great," I thought, "I'll just hook up my little
CD-ROM and..." No go. With the hard drive as master and CD-ROM as
slave, the Sandisk didn't get completely bumped off. It apparently
doesn't recognize the CD-ROM as a high priority device and sticks
around. This causes major headaches -- constant interrupt errors and
the like. I couldn't even successfully shut down.

This got me to thinking... What if I booted with the CD as master and
the hard drive as slave? Might the Sandisk be completely discouraged
from appearing, or would it conflict with the CD for master? So, I
gave it a whirl, and rather than strange interrupt errors I got strange
LILO errors.. After a little reasoning and an idea from ZenShadow's
flash install attempts last night, I tried putting "bios = 0x80" in
lilo.conf to tell it that the drive would be the first BIOS drive..
Fired up the I-Opener and boom, it worked like a charm! Mounted and
pulled up a listing on the first CD.

So the hard drive boot is /dev/hdb, root is /dev/hdb1, CD-ROM is
/dev/hda, and the Sandisk is nowhere to be found. I'm currently using
another PC for power to the drives because I'm too lazy to hook up the
two separate drive power supplies I have. Theoretically, I could use a
notebook drive as the hard drive and reduce the power supply count down
to one for the CD-ROM. But that will have to wait until I get a cable.
=) Woohoo! Have fun!

anyways, as it seems, the reasoning behind why it always overwrites the root
password upon
reboot is because of the rc initialization scripts the iopener runs
post-boot. after a full boot (i let it go all the way through the
tutorial, without the phone line plugged in, brings up a screen that gives
an error about the phone line not being connected) then hitting TAB-4 a few
times to bring up the xterm window. when doing a cd / you should see a
directory called : rc. in
rc you'll see a file entitled 'startup' (from what i can remember from late
last night) in this 'startup', it overwrites the root password as well as
overwriting the 'service' login's password. the file is commented very
well, and pretty much comparable to rc.sysinit (linux). upon putting some #
in front of the lines to overwrite the root password (there is about two) it
will NOT overwrite the root password upon reboot. (it actually overwrites
the passwd~ shadow file, so make sure you edit that too). just thought i
would let everyone know! :)

Let your iOpener boot as normal. When the logo disappears, a smaller mouse
will appear. Wait for the mouse to turn into an ugly fat cursor, and hold
down ESC (on normal keyboards, which is required) and hit "4" four times.
An x-windows style prompt (focus follows mouse) will appear. Note the root
prompt ("#"). Simply type "vi /etc/passwd" (yes, you WILL need to use vi,
so brush up on your commands) and edit the password file so that the "x"
in the root info line is gone. Do not insert a blank space.
You want the line to look like this:
root::0:0::/u/:/bin/sh

Because the SanDisk is a little weird about how you write to it... do the
following:

Type in :w! to write to a read only file, then hit :q to quit. (":wq!"
will NOT work, you will get an error saying it could not write to the file)
You will be back at the prompt.
Next type "/app/stop-apps" and the iOpener tutorial will quit and you
will be back on your bios screen with a "login:" prompt. Simply type "root"
(no password) and you're in.

Keep in mind that this needs to be done when the tutorial is running (i.e,
you hear the speech through your speakers if the volume is up)... If at
any time the root screen disappears (the tutorial is moving along), simply
hit esc-4 again (just once) to bring the screen back up where you last
were before it disappeared. It is advised that you move as quickly as
possible, however, I was able to drag out this process for over a minute
without losing the tutorial screen and locking myself out of this hack.

If you mess up and need to redo the entire process, simply hold down the
power button to power off the machine or pull out the power plug, you
will simply start back to square one.

The problem with this hack is that if you do the above at any time after
you successfully drop to root, you will need to repeat it. For some reason
my changes will not stick, even after chmod'ing the files to writable.

dd if=sandisk.linux of=/dev/hdb

I just got some more pictures of the I-Opener in my email, there's 22 of em. Pretty good pictures too! Thanks Jeff! The pics are here.

--
Adam Serediuk
adam@scizzors.net

Since more and more people are doing the iopener hack and trying to use
alternate op. systems I think someone should setup a place to download
available disk images with the min os of choice already to go. this would
eliminate installation hassle for many users.

1) I bought my I-Opener as an open-box special from Circuit City (they
knocked $5 off for me), so the tutorial had been already run.

2) If you hit TAB at power-on to see the POST messages, then hit DEL once or
twice, after a pause you get a text-mode login prompt that disappears after
about 4 seconds as the GUI takes over.

3) A combination of techiques taken from the /. discussion, the NetBSD howto,
and other sites yields these:
If the tutorial has been run, the ESC-4 to open a termial window when the
'fat' arrow appears first leaves one precious litte time to do anything. If
one types in "slay usermgr", one of three things happens: boot goes on
uninterrupted, boot takes longer, or boot halts entirely, letting one work
unimpeded. In the last eventuality one can vi /etc/passwd to change the root
password (remove the 'x' from the root password field), but it isn't
permanent. One must vi /etc/passwd~ for it to be permanent, but when I try
to vi it, I get an error about the TEMP environment variable not being set.4) When I finally get to login and type "/app/stop-apps, I have to
CTRL-ALT-ENTER to get to the full-screen text mode.

Hey, just got done moding my I-Opener with a 233mmx

How I did this,

first I looked @ codeman's voltage setup. noticed he was just changing
the values of the resistor network.

Here some more info on the resistors

CPU CORE VOLTAGE>----/\/\/\/----(voltage reg
circuit)-----/\/\/\/\-------- r203
r202

I simply installed a 1.8K ohm resitor in parrallel to r203 whiched droped
the CORE voltage to 2.84volts

Then removed R60 & R61 (this can be done without a solding Iron) use a
pair of small needle nose and slowly twist the resitor off the board the
solder joints break easy)

Then installed a jumper in one resistor spot or two zero ohm resitors @
r184 & r185
---
WooHoo voltage settings done- now lets see if turns on..Figures crossed I
see welcome screen great! tab-tab and I see Pentium-MMX @ 200mhz :( only
200 hmmm, lets look at the closer

By using Codeman's bf0/bf1/bf2 info I looked over the area and noticed
that BF1 was shorted to grouand somewhere . Looked over board and found
right next to the area where you would set bf0/1/2 is a Zero ohm resistor
(r130) tied to ground and bf1.. So i removed it and turned unit back on,
So far so good. Unit came up @ 233mmx..
After all this I noticed my QNX isnt booting anymore? Dont have an IDE
drive setup yet- But everything looks good- will keep you posted. I see a
lot of people are curious on the CN12/rs232 comm2 voltages. as soon as I
get this thing up with an IDE HD. I will look into this and get it so
people can build there own adapter (if normal voltages no need for
special adapter)

To everybody out there trying to put a hard drive in your iopener, good luck.

I'm using a 12.5 mm tall laptop drive. Here are some things I learned
today:

- This is about the largest drive that would possibly fit in the case.
- This particular drive doesn't like having ANY stresses put on it, or
it won't boot. In other words, no jamming it in the case and slamming
the thing shut. Not sure if this is typical but I suspect it is.
- I was thinking I could gain some space by leaving off the RF shielding -
NOT SO. The "hinge" connection on the back bolts into the shielding - so
it must be in place to reassemble.

To get my drive in and the case buttoned up, I had to remove nearly half of
the CPU heatsink and the modem. I have no clue how anyone else got their
drive inside. If you've done it, please email me and let me know.

On the other hand, it would have been relatively EASY to mount the hard
drive externally. Could have used velcro to hold it on the back. Argh.

Details on my website by tonight. http://www.adamlotz.com/iopener.html

Adam

- Contrary to popular belief, you *can* get into the BIOS using the
included keyboard. Ctrl-Alt-Home will do it. However, the Home key is
not Escape, it's F12. Once you get into the BIOS, you have to press Esc
to get out of the submenus, and then you're stuck. So, this isn't really
useful :^)

- On my motherboard, and in the original site's photos, you can see a
small button above and to the right of the parallel port. The case
back on mine has a tiny hole for you to stick a paperclip through to
this button (think Mac floppy drives). Initially it seemed to be the
reset button. Later after boot, however, it seems to power the
machine off (hard off).

- My CPU is 200Mhz, acording to both the BIOS boot screen and the chip's
silkscreen. Also, the BIOS boot screen (press Tab while the
white-background boot logo is displayed) says
"(IPC_TRI) EVALUATION ROM - NOT FOR SALE" on mine. Hmmm...

- Are the signals on the COM2 (and COM1/Modem, for that matter) RS-232
level (voltages) or not?

- What is the maximum height 2.5" IDE drive someone has been able to
install?

- How to program the LEDs (Mail/Phone in use), so we can have NetBSD (or
Linux, or whatever) drivers for them.

IBM had a PL/I,
Its syntax worse than JOSS;
And everywhere this language went,
It was a total loss.

heh

Got the keyboard map by plugging the I-Opener kbd into a regular
machine..

Top row of keys (all special functions, back, forward, Web Guide) are
F1-F11. The Home key is actually F12. The Help key is Home (kinda
funny). Prev Ch. is Insert, Next Ch. is End. The blank key was pretty
disappointing. Corresponds to the Application key for Windows (the one
that brings up the right-click menus). And, the Pizza key is
(drumroll.. badabadabada) the Windows key! Gee, what a letdown. No
escape to be found. Pun half intended.

--
Adam Serediuk
adam@scizzors.net

New York, NY - March 17, 2000 - Netpliance (Nasdaq: NPLI), an innovative consumer Internet appliance services company, today announced that its public offering of 8,000,000 shares of common stock has been priced at $18 per share. Netpliance has also granted the underwriters an option to purchase up to 1,050,000 additional shares of common stock to cover over-allotments, if any. The shares of Netpliance will be listed on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol "NPLI.">

Another article on their IPO is here

--
Adam Serediuk
adam@scizzors.net

You can see the images, here.

--
Adam Serediuk
adam@scizzors.net

"More details to follow, but get a 44 pin (2 mm spacing) male-male header. I ordered both a straight header and a right angle header from digi-key. The straight header had shorter pins on one side than the other, and the cable kept falling off. Luckily the right angle header was perfect. Get two standard 44 pin laptop IDE cables. Attach them together with the header, but FLIP ONE CABLE. IE red wires do not line up."

Adam,

One more thing. For people playing with RedHat 6.1 or any Linux
kernel with a similar version you will need to patch your kernel
if the I-Opener or external SanDisk cards were manufactured
in late 1999 or after. Here is a summary of what I did on RedHat 6.1:
If the file: /usr/src/linux/drivers/block/ide.c
find the function: int drive_is_flashcard( ide_drive_t *drive ).
Next, locate the line that has the ident string: "SunDisk SDCFB"
and copy it to the next line (i.e. duplicate it).
In the copy, change the word "SunDisk" to "SanDisk".
(You need both a SunDisk entry and a SanDisk entry.)
The reason for this is that the CF card is treated as a removable
drive but since the card is not mechanical it complains when the
drive lock command is sent. There is a lookup table for ident
strings of known compact flash cards and SanDisk devices show
up under "SunDisk". This is the old name of the company and
they must have still used the old controller firmware until late
1999 where they changed ident strings to "SanDisk" which
is not recognized by the Linux kernel.
Hope this helps.

You can hack the IDE cable by using a male-male "header" and two laptop IDE
cables. Flip the cables, IE the red stripes do NOT line up. There is no
insane rewiring necessary. THIS IS NOT A THEORY - I HAVE IT SITTING IN FRONT
OF ME RUNNING.

It seems I-opener is wising up. I called to order one this morning, and there's a new policy: For any units shipping after this friday, you will be billed for the first month's service 3 days after the unit ships. It used to be that you were billed the first time you connected to their service. The sales rep said the reason was "Lots of people have ordered units back in January and still have not hooked them up." (I can't imagine why that would be :-). This policy change went out to their sales reps
this morning via email.

It's not 26 pin either. That was my main point. A lot of people are
calling it 26 pin. I see the 26 stenciled in but there is also a 1 on the
same end and a 25 and 50 at the other end. I counted them and there are 50
pins. I counted on the accual motherboard. I still couldn't guess what is
it. I think flash and floppy are ruled out. PCMCIA is unlikely. Maybe a
flash card or smart card of some sort. There is a 1 -5/8" x 1/8" cut out
in the frame below the mystery connector. No other clue on the bottom side
of the motherboard.

Also your site posted that the 10 pin modem connector was varified as com2.
That is misleading or flat out wrong. I forget what port the modem is on
but the connector is 16 pin, 10 of which are serial, 2 are power and 4 are
connected to the phone jacks. The other serial port is the 10 pin
connector next to the dip switch. I assume both ports are ttl level. A
cool thing would be to build a board that connects in place of the modem
with a connector to the other serial port that raises both to rs232 level.
The signals could be routed to the phone jacks although there is no room
for modem control signals.

Dear Mr. T.
Updated by editor: I can't help but laugh :)

We appreciate your interest in our product and our company.

We understand that a group of individuals recently developed a way to run
the Linux operating system on the i-opener by making modifications to the
hardware and removing our software. The modifications allow these highly
technical users to bypass the i-opener service network. These modifications
are isolated to the i-openers purchased by those individuals and have no
impact whatsoever on the Netpliance service network or its customers.

It's worth noting that the work-around these individuals developed does not
provide them with free Internet service. While it has opened up a complex
route to other Internet Service Providers, virtually all of our i-opener
customers have no interest nor the technical skills in manipulating the
complex inner workings of the device to achieve that goal. i-opener
customers are looking for one thing: simple, inexpensive Internet access
without a computer. As this is our primary audience, we do not provide
documentation regarding the QNX operating system.

That said, the small community of users who developed this work-around
actually offer a complement to the core technology behind the i-opener -
that it's robust enough to run an operating system like Linux. Netpliance
does not endorse the modification of the i-opener device to possibly support
alternative operating systems or other uses. However, these developments
have uncovered an additional opportunity that Netpliance had not been
focusing on, but will now consider. We'll keep you updated as to how
Netpliance plans to work with the growing community of Linux developers.

Regards,

Kristi Copeland
Director - Sales and Support

I've been reading the SEC filings and the 10 day period mentioned on your
page could use some clarificaiton. The period is 10 business days for
Quanta to review Netpliance's proposed changes to the i-opener design.
Within that 10 business days, Quanta has to come back to Netpliance with
updated plans, costs associated with the plan, etc. It is not the lead time
to actually implement the change on the production line. It appears the
period to actually make the changes in production would take signficantly
longer.

The SEC filings also mention that Netpliance prepaid Quanta $2.3 million for
i-opener units in December. So it's possible there could be a large
quantity of completed i-openers just sitting in some Taiwan warehouse.

This stuff was gleaned from the SEC filing:
- Quanta requests 10 days for review of an engineering change
requested by NetPliance - so we *might* have at least 2 weeks of product
run (enough to make all of the iopeners on order :) before they might
change the hardware... (Of course, NetPliance could always ask for an
expedite, so this doesn't really mean much)

- The modem is an ActionTec LF560LKQ , although their website doesn't
list any additional information about it... I have e-mailed Lucent to
ask for the pinout of the Venus chipset on which it is based, but have
not received any documentation as of yet. (I hope to figure out the
pinout of the Com2 port...)
- The keyboard is manufactured by Darfon Electronics of Taiwan. If
you look at their wireless keyboard design
(http://www.darfon.com.tw/product/keyboard/wl1.htm), you'll see how
similar they are. If somebody could find their wireless keyboard for
sale, it would be a nice replacement for the IOpener's standard...

Just for what it's worth - I have used a handful of wireless products in
the past and they have all been CRAP. HOWEVER -- the exception to the
rule is the Logitech stuff. I have a logitech keyboard and mouse, both
wireless, and I can't live without them. They are both PS/2 and tap
their power from the PS/2 connector. Batteries seem to last at least 3-4
months, with *HEAVY* use. The keyboard is full sized as is the mouse, which
may make them unacceptable for the portable uses people are thinking about.

BUT just thought I'd let you know that these are two wireless products
that are 100% as good as their corded counterparts. I will never use
a corded mouse again. Also note that these are both RF, not infrared,
so there is no "line of sight" crap to deal with. They have a range of
about 10 feet. One of my plans is to have my Iopener professionally framed,
hang it on the wall, and just put the keyboard and mouse on a table or
something in front of it. The screensaver will be a slideshow showing
off my digital camera photos... I'm also toying with the car MP3 player
idea but I think that may be more trouble than it's worth, consdiering that
that technology ought to hit the markets in the next 6-12 months anyway.

This is cool, it's a foldable, flexible keyboard which would be great for having an I-Opener in a car or something, the link is here.



This is a another wireless keyboard, similar to the compaq one I posted yesterday, apparently this keyboard is of much higher quality, here.

A good linux distribution to run on the sandisk would be the LRP(Linux router project) which is fairly similar to the gnat distro.

Dan Dzina apparently can get a hold of custom made touchscreens for ~$200 _WITH_ Linux and Win98 support! I'll update the poll in a minute seeing if people are interested, and then he can get things in a motion to suppy these things.

A couple of the folks outside of North America gave me a heads up this morning letting me know that the encryption export regulations have changed, you can read about them here and here.

The guy who's doing the I-Opener Today website dropped me a line for a link to it, since I'm there I should link to him :P

A few people emailed me regarding the power information I posted yesterday with some good points. We need to get someone with an I-Opener and a DVM to measure the voltage running to the unit, so that we can get a more accurate measure of the amount of power we have to work with.

The LCD Link I posted a couple days ago was pointless, it's only a 6" LCD with a shitty res.

My cousin dropped me an email about the LM317 regulator to make a power supply out of it, apparently you need two resistors and a cap to knock the original voltage to whatever our goal was :) The formula for calculating specific resistors needed for your target power is 1.25(1+R1/R2).

I read that one reason for the 2.5" drive was the lack of 12V in the unit.

I also read that the unit runs off 18V @ 1.8 A. Most engineers will give
themselves a minimum of 50% headroom on the power source. What this means, is that the power supply is rated at 1/3 more that what you need to run the
device at peak current loads. What you can do is get a simple voltage
regulator (LM317 from National semi) a resistor and a capacitor and you can derive 12v and even another 5 volt drop from the 18 volts supplied
Go to www.national.com search for LM317. You need to download the PDF
document and on the first page should be a basic schematic for an adjustable
regulator. Parts are typically less than $5 with a small proto board. If anyone is interested, I will build some for them for $8 each.

I've gotten a few emails about this, Quanta(the makers of the I-Opener's motherboard) webs ite is here not that this helps, as there is no information on the page. I gave Quanta a phone call today hoping to get a hold of some tech docs on the motherboard, unfortunately I could not get a hold of anyone who spoke english.

Dan Dzina picked up one of the 19volt dc-dc adapters and since the specs are not listed on the radio shack website, here they are:

Input: 11-16VDC 4A MAX
Output: 6-21VDC 30W MAX
Voltage Regulated Output (+/- 5%)
Dimensions 1.7"x1.4"x2.6"
Low Input Voltage Shutdown (if voltage drops bellow 10V, shuts off)
Fuse in Cigarette-Lighter
Uses RadioShack "Adaptaplugs" It comes with 3 of them (5.5x2.1mm, 5.5x2.5mm, 6.3x3mm), I cannot say if one is the right size for the Iopener, but it fits a Toshiba, NEC and Gateway laptop.  RadioShack sells dozens of other sizes separately. 
Reversible Polarity

By the way, the link to the IBM Space Saver keyboard with built in nipple pointer is here. This keyboard is the best small profile keyboard I know of.

Apparently the Dauphin mini black keyboard at Extreme Computing is pretty cheap and junkie, I should have figured as much. Most mini keyboards are a lot more expensive than $40. My favorite mini keyboard is still IBM's mini, black keyboard with a nipple pointer. Thanks Kermit!

Eric came up with a great idea for a contest - xmms/gqmpeg/winamp skins. The contest would be to create a 800x600, full screen skin for xmms/gqmpeg/winamp. The skin would be of a rack component stereo system. I think it's a great idea for a contest and we will most likely do it, in a couple weeks once everyone has gotten an I-Opener. *hint* start now!

Buy.com has a cheap PS/2 Y-Cable, it's probably cheaper than making your own.

i-opener from #I-Opener-Linux is starting to make a Linux distribution designed for the I-Opener. He wants YOUR input on what YOU want included in the distribution. He plans on making two versions, one which will fit in the 16MB Flash and one which will use ~550MB HD space. Drop him a line here and give him your input! Also, if you can assist in making the distribution i-opener would greatly appreciate any help you can give him.

First things, additions to the site. I've added a picture gallery. Hopefully more people can send pictures of their I-Opener in and the interesting things they have done to it.

Apparently a company in Taiwan named Quanta manufactures the motherboard. They don't have a website unfortunately. They can be contacted at +886-3 397 300 and their address is +886-3 397 300. I might be giving them a call later today to see if I can get some techdocs regarding the motherboard. These are the same people that make the Dell Latitude laptops, so this is probably high quality stuff.

Looks like it's possible to connect a $99.00 TFT LCD display to the I-Opener, TFT displays are much nicer than Dual Scan displays and have a better viewing angle.

The parallel port could be used to drive a car MP3 player.

Reportedly the Dual Voltage hack works, which means you can buy a dual voltage converter and use a dual voltage cpu in the I-Opener. Apparently a 233MHz Intel MMX cpu has been reported to work like this.

eCost has a fairly large listing of 2.5" Laptop hard drives that can be used in the I-Opener.

Apparently, through a source at I-Opener tech support the max memory these units can take is 64MB, and that BIOS restrictions might be in place to prevent larger RAM capacity. Apparently SODIMM's for the Apple iMac will work in the unit.
A 64MB SODIMM can be bought for  $50.00 here, DEFIANTLY a worthy upgrade.

Here's the press release for NetPliance to use Trident's Cyberblade i7.
Here's the S1(IPO) filing from NetPliance(warning this text file is over 400k.) Additional information regarding NetPliance is here.

A clock multiplier device is available here which will allow you to change the multiplier of the cpu manually, which means it might make it easier to install faster cpu's. There's an article here which describes how-to install faster CPU's into older motherboards which might apply here.

Extreme Computing carries some cool devices which would be a worthy addition to your I-Opener, my favorite had to the black mini keyboard.

A 1.2GB IBM Notebook hard drive can be had for under $60. IBM drives are extremely well suited to this type of application as it's a well known fact that they produce little heat.

Apparently HardData does NOT have any of the 44-Pin IDE cables in stock, bummer.

This is the best cable hack and explanation I've seen so far, it's here.

It has been suggested that geeks with that hardware at their disposal back up the BIOS image on their current I-Openers so that if NetPliance changes the BIOS, people may patch theirs. The easiest solution to NetPliance's problem is to flash the BIOS to disable the IDE port and/or disabling the keyboard's ESC sequence. Both of these solutions would make tech support a bitch for NetPliance and make repairing RMA'd units more costly.

Cool mounting options.

We are looking for individuals willing to assist in making a PHP3/MySQL back end to this website so that adding new news is much easier and done via a web interface rather than a manual basis.

We are still trying to get some tech docs regarding the motherboard, if you have any information please send me a line.