Homebrew Network Station 300 Software Projects and Hardware Experiments

Non-obvious uses

• The Network Station 300 should readily be usable as a network print server for serial or parallel port printers. The original, IBM-provided operating system should support this, although I have not yet tried it out in practice.

Hacks and extensions for the original OS

• The native Network Station 300 executables appear to be NetBSD ELF binaries when examining them in a hex editor. Would it be possible to somehow compile native binaries (for example, a local ssh client or a simple web browser such as Links2) on your own?
• Management of several Network Stations is a bit of a chore, especially if the original IBM management tools (Network Station Manager / Thin Client Manager) cannot be used. Would it be feasible to create an open-sourced alternative? It would not necessarily have to support all the functions the original management software does but even some rudimentary remote configuration support might help.
• There are probably some creative ways of manually enabling the use of whatever native applications come with the OS, without having to resort to the original management software. These have not been thoroughly explored or documented yet.
• The original OS comes with an implementation of a Java Virtual Machine. Although it is a rather old version, it could still be useful for running some applications locally—say, perhaps an SSH client?

An open-sourced replacement operating system?

An open-sourced Linux or *BSD distribution running on the Network Station 300 would, of course, solve many of the problems and create lots of new, interesting possibilites for utilizing the original NS300 hardware. As far as I know, no such project has been started yet, but I would gladly add information about any custom Linux or *BSD kernel experiments—however tiny and unsignificant—on these pages.

Here are some interesting links for starters:

• A Linux port for Network Station 1000 (A PPC603-based big brother of the Network Station 300)
  • See especially this kernel-related discussion
• NCD Explora 451 Linux Port (fairly similar to NS300 in hardware design)
• Linux/PPC for the PowerPC 4xx
• Discussion of buying and hacking a Network Station 1000
• Linux Terminal Server Project

Also see the hardware page which will give a general idea of which chips the replacement OS would have to be able to support.

Food for thought—envisioned usages:

These features cannot be implemented on top of the original OS, but in case a Linux- or *BSD-based open-souced alternative OS could be implemented in the future they would readily become possible as well:

• Wireless router. The Network Station 300 has a PCMCIA slot and a built-in 10 Mbps network adapter. The only thing it needs to turn into a wireless router is proper driver support for WLAN cards.
• Broadband firewall, NAT box, VPN endpoint. The NS300 hardware is capable of doing all this; it just needs an OS and drivers which would support an additional Ethernet adapter in the PCMCIA slot.
• Internet phone (VOIP). The Network Station 300 does not, unfortunately, have the necessary connectors for headphones or microphone, but there are PCMCIA sound cards, which can fix this problem. A sound card would also make it possible to play back MP3s, CDs etc. from a remote computer—Network Station does need to decompress the data itself.
• A network-enabled music player for listening to internet radio stations and MP3s. This would require installing a PCMCIA sound card unless you can get by with the built-in 8-bit beeper! The server-side software should probably decode any compression, as the NS300 does not have all that much processor power on its own. A simple headless user interface (with three LEDs) could be provided by cannibalizing an old keyboard controller and wiring a couple of buttons to it. A more advanced user interface could be provided via the serial or parallel ports.
• Web-tv-alike living-room network terminal. With suitable display mode timings and a simple adapter cable, the NS300 could be directly connected to a European-style PAL tv set, using the ubiquitous Scart connector and its RGB input pins. Think of browsing the web, reading your e-mail or chatting with a wireless mouse/keyboard combo while using a silent Network Station right beside your TV set. (The US-style HDTV sets would be possible targets as well, though you would probably need to have more logic in the cable in order to generate the necessary sync signals.)