Type Internet Appliance Discontinued June 2003 (2003-06) | Introductory price $199 Units sold Less than 50,000 | |
Manufacturer New Internet Computer Company Release date July 6, 2000; 16 years ago (2000-07-06) | ||
The New Internet Computer (NIC) was a Linux-based internet appliance released July 6, 2000 by Larry Ellison's New Internet Computer Company. The system (without a monitor) sold for US$199.
The NIC boots from a CD-ROM with a custom Linux distribution developed by Wim Coekaerts. It has no hard drive and no way to install additional software. The system's only nonvolatile storage is 4 MB of flash memory.
Ellison planned to sell 5 million units the first year, but fewer than 50,000 units were sold. The company shut its doors in June 2003. PC World ranked the NIC as the ninth worst PC of all time.
References
New Internet Computer Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA