Another Cheap Touchscreen Computer...

S

Stinger

Active Member
Thanks to some folks on the JDS maillist, I've purchased a couple Intermec 5055B units from EBay for around $99. It has an AMD 333mhz processor with 128MB of RAM. These are refurbished POS machines and come with embedded DOS. The B34 unit is capable of Windows 2000, however as I don't yet have mine, I am not sure how difficult it may be to install if it isn't preloaded by Intermec.

The units don't come with power supplies, but others have created their own with crimp connectors and laptop power supplies. I've started a compilation of the info posted in JDSusers on my website (Link), and also have a downloads section there to begin collecting tools to get these running.

I was hesitant about posting this, as this will most likely lead to an inflated price on Ebay, but please just keep in mind that the seller has approximately 400 of these units left according to his website, so we should all be able to pay somewhere around the $99 mark for these. This unit retailed for over $6000.

Definitely a project machine that will require some work and an active community.
 
I see that it has MS DOS installed. Will it run Windows? How could we use it run CQC? Or can it be used as a display/touch screen for another computer? Anyway, you gotta love the price. I think I may get one or two just to play with.
 
This is definitely unchartered territory, but there are a couple people that have W2K running on the B34. I think most of them had W2K loaded from the manufacturer.

Once people start receiving them, we'll have more info on them. In respect of fellow HA enthusiasts, keep the bidding low knowing that they have so many left. I have two already on the way, so I'll wait a while before bidding on a 3rd.

I'm looking to replace my Audrey's and put one in the wall. I'd love to try it with Mainlobby.
 
I look forward to following the progress of this.

If we can get it running CQC, it will be one of the best low-cost ts solutions.

When are you recieving yours Stinger?
 
I should receive it in the next week, but I'm not sure how far along I'm going to get with it this month as my wife is due within two weeks! :angry:

I'm hoping it comes in early next week and I'll start playing with W2K on it.
 
You mean the PC comes in a week early not the baby. :angry:

Congrats...we had our 3rd on 11/01/05.

regards
 
Just a quick update - Goodbye 3COM Audrey! Details and files on getting these to work can be found on my site. I hope to offer a syspreped image of W2K for these ready to go shortly.

interts.jpg


interts2.jpg
 
The touchscreen PC in the picture in eBay looks thicker than yours. Why the difference?

Also, I see that it works with 12v; but what connector does it have? Do you have to hack it or it uses a non-propietary connector?
 
Digger - thanks for asking! The baby is still cooking, but should be any day now!

Elcano - You're looking at an in-wall installation. I cut the drywall and placed it between the studs. You'll need a custom hacked power cord. I took a powercord from an old IBM laptop (rated 12v-16v) and have the CB connectors coming that will fit the unit. Meanwhile, aligator clips are used. We've found you may want to go a bit larger than 12V, especially if you add a spinning drive and/or PCMCIA card as most of us are.
 
elcano said:
I found only one vendor selling it on eBay, and while they have a really high number of transactions I would worry after seeing their negative feedback . <_<
Click to expand...
If you look at the feedback though a lot of it appears to be "buyer error", with people not reading the auction carefully or expecting to get things that aren't advertised as being included. Otherwise, a few shipping problems here and there...

I have the same concerns about the guy I'm looking at buying some Fujitsu Stylistic 3500s from right now (score of 9100 with 63 negative), plus he hasn't responded to any of the pre-bid email questions I've sent him. I may just buy one and see how it goes, and if all is well buy a couple more.

Good luck,

Brent
 
Well, I've received three so far, and can report the transactions were very smooth, as have many others that I've talked to. When you're talking $99.00 that doesn't have much risk when alternatives to this unit are few and far between. One of the units has a bad internal NIC, so I just popped in a wireless card, which I had planned on using anyways. It has two PCMCIA slots.

I hardly consider 98.8% positive feedback on 12,000 plus transactions risky. Especially considering they deal in used equipment. Being a powerseller myself (with much fewer transactions), I certainly would consider this a trusting seller as many buyers of used electronics such as this are clueless and expect it to do everything out of box.

I'm very curious at how many wary people we have here about Ebay, and I wonder if it's a generational thing. I average about 20 purchases a month on Ebay, and about 20-100 sales a month over the past 5 months and have had no bad experiences except the occasional deadbeat bidder, or buyer who expects the world. I did have two online purchases outside of ebay that I used Paypal for that had issues.. One was at Tigerdirect where I sent them my money and they said they were out of stock and didn't refund my money right away. The other was for an online store (small) that sold wireless cable TV units (Angeltrax) and didn't receive email or the items I bought. I filed a dispute in Paypal, and received my money back. It's really not as scary as some make it out to be. 90% of my purchases are online.

Back to the main topic at hand, I now have XP professional loaded on the Intermec 5055 and it's running excellent. Although I think Mainlobby's minimum specs are higher than this unit has, I will be trying it out soom. Worst case scenario, is that I can always RDP into another machine.
 
So can teh ELK RM run on this touchscreen? Thats what I would use it for mainly and maybe to view CCTV someday if it can.

I am not up on this end of the automation hardware as I am much more familiar with the Security hardware.

Thanks
 
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