Real-Life Hitchhiker's Guide With Old Tablet & Kiwix Wikipedia System

Ғылым және технология

I've been trying to find a use for this weird old industrial tablet, but it's too slow and proprietary to do much. I recently installed Linux and Kiwix to make it a portable, offline Wikipedia reader! This is kind of like the Hithhiker's Guide (from the series of the same name), a portable, searchable guide to everything!
Kiwix should work on most devices, including phones, tablets, Windows, Mac, and Linux. It seems like a cool way to re-use old gadgets that you have lying around.
You can find the Kiwix software here: kiwix.org/en/applications/
And library files here: library.kiwix.org/#lang=eng
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Пікірлер: 121

  • @theQuietWire
    @theQuietWire7 ай бұрын

    A prepping channel recommended a way of off-loading wikipedia and wikihow, in multiple ways, with pictures or not included, in order to access first aid instructions, for example, in the event of an existence with no internet access. This is a precious machine to access that kind of info on. It's a shame the plastics are wearing out, making it less rugged. Thanks for sharing!

  • @der.Schtefan

    @der.Schtefan

    7 ай бұрын

    Your generation has lost the capability of acquiring actual skills and rather would trust in a computer to come to rescue. A simple first aid or survival book would also help, but if you'd stop ONE WEEKEND of tik tocking your avocado sandwiches, you would be able to LEARN all these skills and commit them to your BRAIN

  • @swaree

    @swaree

    7 ай бұрын

    ​@@der.Schtefan silence old man

  • @geemcspankinson

    @geemcspankinson

    7 ай бұрын

    ​@@der.SchtefanThis reads like a parody with you being on instagram and whatnot yourself but have agree on a simple survival book would be more practical

  • @pavuk357

    @pavuk357

    7 ай бұрын

    ​@@der.Schtefanwow, that triggered you. Anyway, while I'm not against books (I have a small library myself), you should not put all eggs in one basket and should have options. Also, carrying waterproof, or at least water resistant, device with digital library is much more convenient and easier that several books. Tho not in case of this ancient proprietary AIO tablet PC lol.

  • @hotrodhunk7389

    @hotrodhunk7389

    7 ай бұрын

    There's an app that includes the army's book on survival. I always keep it on my phone... Never know.

  • @the20thDoctor
    @the20thDoctor7 ай бұрын

    Gonna need a PDF of the actual Hitchhikers Guide on there.

  • @Bananeisafree
    @Bananeisafree8 ай бұрын

    The form factor of this device is just wonderful, it tickles my inner child (not in that way) so much ! If the price on it was not so high, I would love to just hack one open, gut out the onboard computer, remplace it with a raspberry, and do my best to connect the different ports, keys etc ... Thank you for sharing that stuff with us !!

  • @user-hn7wt9uv9y

    @user-hn7wt9uv9y

    Ай бұрын

    was thinkinng of doing that with some old compaq lte laptops big lots of space and easy to connect ports

  • @YamunaWilder
    @YamunaWilder4 ай бұрын

    About Kiwix: THANK YOU. I'm gonna download many stuff that i need to use in offline

  • @MrMe4444444
    @MrMe44444447 ай бұрын

    Always keep offline copies of schematics,manuals, tech books(bunker of doom), vintage magazine(world radio history)survival books

  • @Stealth86651
    @Stealth866517 ай бұрын

    Always loved these weird mostly commercial grade tablets, they have some neat features.

  • @jonathangreenstein919

    @jonathangreenstein919

    7 ай бұрын

    Ditto- I imagine many went right to the landfill or shipped off by the multi pallet load to 3rd country e-waste dumps. What a tragedy

  • @user-hn7wt9uv9y

    @user-hn7wt9uv9y

    Ай бұрын

    @@jonathangreenstein919 most of the ones you find online are missing batts and hard drives the backing plates to becuse they don't bother to remove the drive an just shred it

  • @AnotherFreakingDude
    @AnotherFreakingDude6 ай бұрын

    The problem with loading programs may be because that old Atom has a very outdated x86 instruction set, compiling any program on the device should help (although it will take a long time to compile), cross-compiling from a more powerful computer is another option, both are rather complicated though. Great video as always.

  • @Ts6451
    @Ts64517 ай бұрын

    I seem to recall that Intel Atom was fairly common in Netbooks, sub-notebooks and that sort of thing. Intel didn't stop making Atom processors, either, though they have been more targeted towards embedded and server applications for a while. I believe Intel also used the architecture from their Atom line to make the E-cores they now put in several of their CPUs.

  • @jamiegwhite30
    @jamiegwhite307 ай бұрын

    Dude! for some reason, you are my fav youtuber. i cant tell you why, you have hit on the thing, lol

  • @Peter_S_
    @Peter_S_7 ай бұрын

    Will it work as an eBook reader for Vogon poetry?

  • @stormchaser300
    @stormchaser3007 ай бұрын

    Maybe you could use it as survival guide book to take with you for camping with maps on it ?

  • @Sting_ray
    @Sting_ray7 ай бұрын

    I’ve had Kiwix on my iPhone for YEARS now. Always handy to have Wikipedia without needing data.

  • @PU7MZD
    @PU7MZD7 ай бұрын

    The Kiwix project seems fun, thank you for the finding!

  • @mattparker9726
    @mattparker97267 ай бұрын

    2:07 you know you could probably scrape a bunch of youtube content and load it up onto SD cards as well. An Offline media reader/entertainment center would be really nifty I would think! I also noticed the pinkish purple 18650 cells on the broken bit of the battery, that means they're probably LG cells. High quality, but how old is this device, and since you have a 3d printer, why not make replacement batteries, and if you need to, destroy one of the batteries to find out the connections since it has two?

  • @McRocket
    @McRocket7 ай бұрын

    If you ever started a 'SaveItForParts Guide To The Galaxy? I would buy it - if I could. ☮

  • @Cameronsutubes
    @Cameronsutubes7 ай бұрын

    You had me at "laser"

  • @thebroshow6688
    @thebroshow66886 ай бұрын

    Next project: Big friendly letters that say 'DONT PANIC' for a screen cover or protective carrying case

  • @deillos1lee
    @deillos1lee7 ай бұрын

    i have the same series rugged tablet running a cracked copy of win 8.1 just mine is more bare bones and the drivers work for win 8.1 I also have a SSD replacement for mine since it came sans HDD i used IO Bits Game booster to get the missing drives iirc, btw i have had mine since pre covid.

  • @DonnyLA
    @DonnyLA4 ай бұрын

    Kiwix sounds coolios. I'll try it out. Love hitchhikers guide to the galaxy (tv show). Great vid 👏

  • @budiman1990
    @budiman19907 ай бұрын

    Never forget the Towel :D

  • @spookysammy7245
    @spookysammy72457 ай бұрын

    So long and thanks for all the fish

  • @patchvonbraun
    @patchvonbraun7 ай бұрын

    The thing about these little tablets is not the computer underneath, but the robust packaging. Drop an rPi4 or 5 underneath, and it could be quite cool for more "modern" field uses. I bet that keyboard is just USB, for example. The display, well, it might be HDMI, but probably VGA.

  • @resneptacle

    @resneptacle

    7 ай бұрын

    More likely the display is LVDS or eDP or similar and the keyboad may be scanned directly by some GPIO bus or I2C or whatever

  • @vegafisher2176
    @vegafisher21766 ай бұрын

    if you dont know this is what mail man use/ used. you can upgrade the keyboard with one of those keyboards ment for gaming systems like the one ment for an xbox controllers and hard wire it on and use velcro to make it semi detachable so you dont have to hold the hole devise

  • @nicholasks
    @nicholasks7 ай бұрын

    What a nice idea, I didn't know about kiwix, such a great tool...

  • @wire-guided1026
    @wire-guided10267 ай бұрын

    Been desperately looking for that keyboard for ages, hoping one eventually shows up again

  • @thomasklima215
    @thomasklima2157 ай бұрын

    Thats such a cool idea, thanks!

  • @madjack821
    @madjack8215 ай бұрын

    Bro you better set that thing up like a Pipboy-2000 lol

  • @jessen00001
    @jessen000017 ай бұрын

    You made my day with my favorite film ❤

  • @davinhunt7558
    @davinhunt75587 ай бұрын

    very cool use

  • @Sir-Mousey
    @Sir-Mousey7 ай бұрын

    I love your videos always something awesome interesting and useful

  • @mike97525
    @mike975257 ай бұрын

    Thank You, that device seems familiar 🙂🙂

  • @hacktheory1337
    @hacktheory13377 ай бұрын

    That's a great idea!

  • @mattparker9726
    @mattparker97267 ай бұрын

    I wonder what kinds of upgrades you could feasibly do with this tablet? Is the RAM soldered to the board? Can you swap out the ATOM chip for a Celeron of the same vintage? can you upgrade the SSD? Is there EMMC flash storage capability?

  • @kuukeli
    @kuukeli7 ай бұрын

    thank you for the video

  • @andrewstewartjacobs9678
    @andrewstewartjacobs96787 ай бұрын

    I don't care. I can't understand, well some I can, but I love his honesty, enthusiasm and self deprecation. And many other things, that seperate him from some of the god awful crap, and guys I mean CRAP, that some prople upload here on KZread.....Kudos @ saveitforparts and I hope you go on to also educate (as you do).

  • @centdemeern1
    @centdemeern17 ай бұрын

    This looks like something someone in a nuclear fallout scenario would use

  • @belisarius565
    @belisarius5656 ай бұрын

    Nice!

  • @tylerzerbe6861
    @tylerzerbe68617 ай бұрын

    now you just gotta build a little faraday cage for that thing and if nuclear war breaks out, you have a handy little repository of pre-cataclysm knowledge. y'know, just in case the world decides to play fallout the home version.

  • @ivanjakanov

    @ivanjakanov

    6 ай бұрын

    nuclear war isn't the only thing that can disrupt the grid or damage electronics, space weather like ICME, interplanetary coronal mass ejection, could also do that. usually the earth's magnetic field deflects most of it but the next solar maximum is coming soon and we've been seeing more solar flare and ICME activity in the past few days i have an old microwave oven i could put electronics in, not sure if it's as good as an actual faraday cage

  • @coondogtheman
    @coondogtheman7 ай бұрын

    I saw the thumbnail for this thing while flipping through the main youtube page and this thing reminds me of that little hand held portable computer used by the villain Geiger in the movie Speed 2 Cruise control. Still trying to find info on that tiny computer he used in the movie. But I have one question. . . Will it run Doom?

  • @joshuabessire9169
    @joshuabessire91696 ай бұрын

    I just want you to know I'm feeling very depressed... that it has taken me nearly 2 weeks to see this video. Had to wash my towels.

  • @seedney
    @seedney6 ай бұрын

    Better option would be some device, that doesn't require much power - like with e-ink display maybe?

  • @NintendoBoy64
    @NintendoBoy647 ай бұрын

    This thing looks like a Pip Boy

  • @leroymay8156
    @leroymay81567 ай бұрын

    I wonder if the Tablet qould run better with an arch based distro, since you can compile stuff from the AUR on the machine. (will take ages, but should run on the architecture then). Kiwix itself sounds interesting, i well take a look on that. Tks fer share. 73

  • @iamgriff
    @iamgriff7 ай бұрын

    A friend of mine and his Uncle got the First version of this, trying to travel through time. Both Napoleon and Uncle Rico were electrocuted 😂

  • @mastasolo
    @mastasolo7 ай бұрын

    While setting up the tablet, could you have plugged in a USB keyboard and mouse to navigate easier? Also, Wikipedia being only ~100gb? I thought it would be way more.

  • @yourfriendlysubaruoutback
    @yourfriendlysubaruoutback7 ай бұрын

    Hi! I have a quick question not related to this video, but I think it's definitely on your level of expertise. I have an old DirecTV satellite dish, and I'm wondering if there is any way I can repurpose it, and maybe use it to receive transmissions from weather satellites. Or, if there's any other use for it, I would love to know! Thanks, and also keep up the good content!

  • @saveitforparts

    @saveitforparts

    7 ай бұрын

    I've found the typical DirecTV dishes are a little too small for most of the things I've tried. I extended one with some cardboard and foil "wings" and could get L-band satellite signals (GOES weather satellite). I haven't actually tried a stock dish with low-earth-orbit L-band, that might work if you had a good tripod or other mount where you could aim it.

  • @leonardarola
    @leonardarola7 ай бұрын

    Had one, still have the os for it and the proprietary software. If ya dont like it, would by it from you.

  • @oetken007
    @oetken0075 ай бұрын

    Why not writing some Software for it and make it into an Agent gadget for a kid. Like the Tricorder from Startrack 😊

  • @bravohomie
    @bravohomie6 ай бұрын

    What about for navigation? Looks like a decent device for OpenCPN

  • @NoiseJoys-qq7gl
    @NoiseJoys-qq7gl7 ай бұрын

    I watched a lot versions of doomsday PC. Include on Kiwix. But I think now that's not enough. Doomsday PC should have gpt-3 or something like this.

  • @jestajoemc
    @jestajoemc6 ай бұрын

    Did you mark the app image has executable before trying it?

  • @Thats_Cool_Jack
    @Thats_Cool_Jack7 ай бұрын

    i wonder if it could this thing could run vlc, you could put a bunch of 360p quality movies and tv shows on it u could fit a lot on it i bet lol

  • @BeOurBee
    @BeOurBee7 ай бұрын

    Should have just loaded Encarta 97 on there! ;)

  • @azinfidel6461
    @azinfidel64617 ай бұрын

    Over the past 20 years I've managed to fill up two 2 terabyte hard drives , I thought I had everything off the internet ....

  • @dean5263
    @dean52637 ай бұрын

    I've missed it if you had given any specifications on the processor.

  • @SavvygeMediaGroup
    @SavvygeMediaGroup7 ай бұрын

    I want one

  • @DadofScience
    @DadofScience7 ай бұрын

    Shame it's so sluggish or that would be a really neat gadget to have sashed in the car or boat.

  • @paulgemperlein626
    @paulgemperlein6267 ай бұрын

    Curious why you picked Mint and also would love a video overview of Linux distros

  • @saveitforparts

    @saveitforparts

    7 ай бұрын

    That's been one of the only things that would install on certain weird hardware I have. I previously tried all the ham radio distros on this without luck. Also tried Lubuntu and a few others, most of them wouldn't make it past the bootloader stage. They all seem to be basically the same Debian underneath.

  • @richardvanasse9287
    @richardvanasse92877 ай бұрын

    Can you play any old school games on it?

  • @thesebi
    @thesebi7 ай бұрын

    Have you tried lightweight distros like Lubuntu or Kubuntu instead of Mint? These distros aren't perfect either, but they are a little bit more responsive on older systems.

  • @pavuk357

    @pavuk357

    7 ай бұрын

    I wouldn't call Kubuntu lightweight. It is just Ubuntu with KDE Plasma 5, that isn't particularly lightweight ny itself. I think Xubuntu, that uses Xfce, would be a better choice.

  • @saveitforparts

    @saveitforparts

    7 ай бұрын

    I tried Lubuntu and it wouldn't get past the boot loader, not sure why. Mint seems to be the most reliable on some of these oddball systems I've come across.

  • @thesebi

    @thesebi

    7 ай бұрын

    @@saveitforparts 🤔 weird, but i've also had weird system constellations before that some OS choices just rejected ... sometimes it just is that way 😅

  • @cuttinchops
    @cuttinchops7 ай бұрын

    I would gut it and reuse the case with something modern. Or a nice audio player lol

  • @seedney
    @seedney6 ай бұрын

    maybe compile everything from scratch, or at least use Gentoo? For me when I set up optimization flags system runs a lot faster than bloatware like ubuntu and similars.

  • @mattparker9726
    @mattparker97267 ай бұрын

    Did you bring a towel?

  • @ransomxvi
    @ransomxvi7 ай бұрын

    From the IT sector, I cringe so hard that things like this would have been deployed in the field. Some company gave these to their field engineers without knowing/caring that they were basically unusable. It reminds me of the ToughBook series from Panasonic. Great form factor and good on paper features, but really tedious to use in an everyday setting.

  • @Bobo-ox7fj

    @Bobo-ox7fj

    7 ай бұрын

    Bloody toughbooks still get passed out to linesman and telcomms guys here.

  • @paulie-g

    @paulie-g

    7 ай бұрын

    @@Bobo-ox7fj They're very popular with DIYers/makers though, who think they're great.

  • @evacuatedspace6946
    @evacuatedspace69467 ай бұрын

    You could use it for portable storage in the field, similar to how you use it with Wiki. Also put your Windows onto a a stick to run from, might be faster, then use this as I just said.

  • @xspydazx
    @xspydazx8 күн бұрын

    it cn run some embedded app ? it would be usefull to run emulators !!! such a mame and mess... ie zx spectrum games and amiga softewares .... retro stuff

  • @saveitforparts

    @saveitforparts

    8 күн бұрын

    That would be pretty fun! Maybe I'll stick some game ROMs on there :-)

  • @xspydazx

    @xspydazx

    7 күн бұрын

    @@saveitforparts it can probly run amiga adf files or winae (the amiga emulater) the amiga is still highly used among off gridders ... as well as the retor game consoles (which really do not take n=anything to run) .... as well as it has great use for the older systems such as comodore and spectrum emulation ( i say this becasue thier software is free on internet archives! even the game roms ) ... so it is a good use of the tech ... keep it within a certain domain and it will highly perform... bbut put it in the odern arena then you will notice the nature of the beast .. hence these emulated consoles and even early apple machine can be easily used due to they are generally less than a few K or even B or KB in size memory wise so they will not slow the systen down ... hence even early DOS software will run well !! often they are set for dedicated tasks !

  • @amtrak1007
    @amtrak10076 ай бұрын

    looks like a great host for 73linux!

  • @saveitforparts

    @saveitforparts

    6 ай бұрын

    I tried a couple Ham-based distro and couldn't get them to boot.

  • @amtrak1007

    @amtrak1007

    6 ай бұрын

    hmmm. this one is mint based was the only reason I suggested it.@@saveitforparts

  • @saveitforparts

    @saveitforparts

    6 ай бұрын

    I'll look into it if I get a chance :-)

  • @amtrak1007

    @amtrak1007

    6 ай бұрын

    @@saveitforparts rock on. Great content as always.

  • @CelestialxPanda
    @CelestialxPanda6 ай бұрын

    Make a solar powered, wsterproof, fireproof, mechanical shock proof, satellite info gathering, hand crank powered too... Cyberdeck pls. :) With a mechanical keyboard and some cool black shit. Oh and a black and white e ink display with a normal display. Also water turbine powered. And if lithium ion batter dies some 500 year lasting battery with solar power and stuff. Anyway you get the idea... Also add a mechanical keyboard pls.

  • @johnduty4505
    @johnduty45057 ай бұрын

    Try zorin os lite

  • @sphynxmaine
    @sphynxmaine7 ай бұрын

    DON'T PANIC

  • @sphynxmaine

    @sphynxmaine

    7 ай бұрын

    That's so cool though!!!

  • @filipa.g4542
    @filipa.g45427 ай бұрын

    22 seconds ago? wow im early...

  • @Bobo-ox7fj
    @Bobo-ox7fj7 ай бұрын

    Hope that's a silicone cover and not butyl rubber 😬

  • @programorprogrammed
    @programorprogrammed7 ай бұрын

    She's a beauty

  • @BurkenProductions
    @BurkenProductions7 ай бұрын

    too bad it has the wrong keyboard layout

  • @glitter_fart
    @glitter_fart7 ай бұрын

    i love it and all but these things are not going to save you from the end of the world. get real up to date maps and keep them with your bug out bag. you cant EMP a physical map.

  • @sarkybugger5009

    @sarkybugger5009

    7 ай бұрын

    Tinfoil is your friend...

  • @glitter_fart

    @glitter_fart

    7 ай бұрын

    tinfoil doesnt stop an emp@@sarkybugger5009

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