2 Bit Hacker

Over the past week or so I’ve been spending a decent amout of time working on the I-Opener, and at this point it is booting into Gentoo and able to run X just fine, so I’ve decided to add a section to the website about it. I’ll be posting more info in a little while, such as my XF86Config, kernel config, and whatnot, but first, I have a couple of issues to work out regarding the CueCat. The easy problem is that it doesn’t pass through the two reserved pins on it’s PS/2 connector, so the mouse on the I-Opener’s keyboard doesn’t work. I just need to rig up a bypass for those and everything should be fine.

The other problem is using the Cuecat in X. I want to run batchelor in an X terminal of some sort, but the CueCat’s output gets messed up in X. With some pointers from rgm I think I can work it out, just not sure how yet. Apparently instead of sending plain numbers for the barcode, it’s sending Alt-xxx codes, which in the console get translated to their ASCII equiv, but X doesn’t work that way. I think maybe an intercept script wrapped around batchelor will do the trick.

Also, I’ve got some pictures of the system that I’ll be uploading soon.

In my continued unpacking today, I came across my old I-Opener. I got to thinking that I really should use it for something, so for the first time that I can remember, I actually plugged it in and made sure it powered up and everything. It appears to be doing okay, so I decided to go about hacking it. After a bit of searching, I came across this site, which contains nice easy instructions for my V3 model. I just need to find a hard drive, and probably order a kit from Badflash then I’ll be all set.

In a fit on insanity, I also grabbed a modified Cue Cat barcode scanner off eBay. The plan that’s coming together in my head is to put the I-Opener in my kitchen, then run batchelor on it. Maybe get a USB 802.11b adapter so it can connect to my AP.

Sound be neat if I actually do it this time

Well, I finally have the I-Opener running Gentoo Linux. It turned out that I couldn’t install Jailbait on the SanDisk unless I modified the kernel that came with Slackware, which I tried to do, but the new kernel wouldn’t boot. So I ended up just pulling the drive again, hooking it up to my main PC, and installing the stage3 Gentoo tarball from Knoppix. It worked out pretty well, but now the poor I-Opener has to upgrade all the packages that are installed, which is going to take a while. In the mean time, I’m using it as a spare terminal to IRC from while I play Counter-Strike.

An open-mind reveals both sides; a narrow-mind reveals only one side