iPaq IA-2

[quinterro]

I found a Compaq iPAQ IA-2 Internet Appliance at the local thrift store for $15. Apparently it boots from ROM and has a spot for a hard drive. So far that's about all I know about it.

 

[benjgvps]

That thing looks cool! How well does it do internet?

 

[quinterro]

I'm not sure yet. At the moment the main unit is in my office but the keyboard is in the car. Also you have to turn it on with the keyboard - a standard PC keyboard won't work.

Also there is no ethernet port and only 32MB RAM.

 

[Christopher]

I had 32MB of ram in my iBook 300MHz blueberry and it made DSL like Dial Up because of the low ram.

 

[benjgvps]

Does it use dial-up or does it use some obscure connector?

 

[quinterro]

Does it use dial-up or does it use some obscure connector?

It looks like dial-up. Supposedly it runs WinCE but can be hacked to run something else like linux.

 

[benjgvps]

What are all the connections on it? This thing sounds very interesting, if this thing would be able to connect with Ethernet or something easy to connect I would find one and use it for my alarm clock.

 

[iamdigitalman]

sounds sweet. I was just looking at some compaq evo t20 thin clients and thinking of getting them. Legacy free goodness.

I am also trying to hunt down a Virgin Webplayer. It is an internet appliance, 2 USB ports, integrated 10" LCD, but it runs a 200mhz geode proc, and is essentailly a x86 machine. People have gotten win 98 and ME running on it. It has a nice little laptop IDE header on the board, along with traces for VGA, serial, PS/2, etc. The keyboard/mouse uses IR, and it runs a stripped version of QNX I think, or some other Lin/unix.

-digital

 

[quinterro]

I finally got the keyboard and main unit in one place and so far it appears to be DOA.