(last updated: 28-Sep-2011)
This unit is in pristine factory condition.
07-Mar-2011
Since winning auctions for my first two Webplayers, one and two years ago, they seem to have become much more common. This one was listed on eBay along with two or three others. I won this auction as the only bidder for $24.99 + s/h.
This system arrived USPS in excellent shape, in it's original shipping carton. All components are included:
- main unit: Model: 598-0013141 s/n: H0004A0294 - keyboard: p/n: 598-0013157 s/n: 2927009 date: 05/17/00 - power supply: ADP-25EB s/n: IID9948008345 - documentation: "Let's get Wired!" and "Member Agreement" - self-made CD: "Webplayer Utils & Apps (AVG scanned 2/28/2011)"
07-Mar-2011
This unit is pristine. No dust, grime or even fingerprints. It isn't in a shipping bag, so someone has indeed handled it previously, but it is in perfect condition.
Using my normal methods, I cleaned the system, power supply, and keyboard with Windex.
Because this is the third Webplayer I've acquired and it has not been hacked in any way as were the first two, I'll be calling this unit "Charm" as in "Three's the charm" hoping that this unit is fully usable as a simple but usuful re-purposed unit. The other two have been problematic in various ways.
07-Mar-2011
Power up is fine; after a about 15 seconds the unit presents the original Virgin Connect login screen. This unit, though un-hacked, appears to have been used at least once. The username and password fields are already filled in, no doubt due to the original owners registration of the device.
Oh, we have come a long way in the last decade!
11-Mar-2011
Virgin Connect ISP service was built on top of the Prodigy system, and since both of these ISPs are now defunct, in order to examine and explore the unit as a dial-up device from around the year 2000 I need to change the ISP settings to use my own ISP's dial-up settings. I located information on how to do this at:
http://www.larwe.com/technical/webplayer_original.html
Using the information found there I was successful at entering the config pages -- CTRL-Music(F1), then enter response code to challenge key which is the challenge key minus either 2400, 2401, 2402, or 2403 -- and once into the config pages I made the following changes:
PPP File Settings: - 'login' to [my_ISP_login_ID] - 'pap_user_name' to [my_ISP_login_ID]Dialup Settings: - 'modem.baudrate' to '56000' - 'modem.local.dial.number' to [my_ISP_number] - 'modem.local.phone.number' to [my_ISP_number] - 'secretsfile.secret' to [my_ISP_password]
Network Settings: - 'domainname' to [my_ISP_name] - 'primaryDNS' to [my_ISP_DNS] - 'secondaryDNS' to [my_ISP_DNS2]
User Settings: - 'displayname' to [my_ISP_login_name] - 'emailid' to [my_ISP_login_name] - 'local password' to [my_ISP_password] - 'local userid' to [my_ISP_login_ID] - 'password' to [my_ISP_password] - 'userid' to [my_ISP_login_ID]
For each section I clicked 'Apply' to save the changes, then when finished with them all I removed power, waited 10 seconds, and repowered the system. It works fine. I connected simply by clicking the connect button. No problem.
The system is dog slow. When I check the logs from my own server, the browser ID string is given as:
"Mozilla/4.61 [en] (Win32; Escape 4.0; I) Boundless"
It appears from the configuration change screens and other clues that this system is running X-Windows with Motif, so there is some kind of UNIX or BSD underneath. I'd sure be pleased if there were some way to get a terminal window with root access, but in all of my online browsing I have not come across any references to this. Probably it isn't even available, since the whole system fits on the 48MB Disk-on-Chip.
26-Sep-2011
Today I finally took some photos of the original VirginConnect sign on process.
The first image shows the initial screen upon power up.
The second is the idle screen ready for a click on the 'SIGN ON' button with my credentials already filled in from my earlier re-configuration. Then we see the dial-up action.
The factory-configured homepage no longer exists, of course, and we see a strange set of symbols indicating that the system cannot connect to the target webserver.
Lastly, we see a live website.
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