[Lf] A <$200 machine ?

[Andre' Kesteloot]

HACKER CREATES SUB-$200 PC
by Dave Murphy, member at itrain.org

Electronics engineer Ken Segler from Las Vegas, Nevada
created a hacker's dream last month when he purchased
an Internet-only access station and for a few bucks turned
it into a Pentium-class PC capable of running any
available operating system.

In a previous article of this e-zine, I reviewed the
Netpliance i-opener, a $99 Internet appliance that I wrote
would be perfect for us to give to our mothers and non-
techie relatives. I still think it's great for that purpose.

But Segler created a hacker's dream when he figured out
how to connect the i-opener to a hard drive and then boot
the system. The hack will work with Windows, Linux, BeOS
... any OS that runs on a Pentium chip.

Starting last Saturday, news of Segler's hack spread at the
Linux  information and discussion site, Slashdot. In just
four days, Segler's received 200 orders for his cable at $35
a pop.

So for the cost of a cheap hard drive, a $35 cable, and the
$99 i-opener, you've got a new PC.

Netpliance is about to IPO, so it's keeping a lid on all this
news. I figure the $99 box has to be a loss-leader for the
company who's probably making a bundle of money on the
over-priced Internet service it sells with the PC. Call me
Bubba, but I figure most true hackers couldn't care less
about the bundled access; they're looking to hack out a
cheap system.

So say goodbye to your profits Netpliance. Hope you have
a fun IPO day.

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