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

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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[@theQuietWire]

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]

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]

​@@der.Schtefan silence old man

[@geemcspankinson]

​@@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]

​@@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]

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

[@the20thDoctor]

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

[@YamunaWilder]

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

[@Bananeisafree]

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]

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

[@Stealth86651]

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

[@jonathangreenstein919]

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]

@@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

[@MrMe4444444]

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

[@AnotherFreakingDude]

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.

[@jamiegwhite30]

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

[@Peter_S_]

Will it work as an eBook reader for Vogon poetry?

[@Ts6451]

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.

[@PU7MZD]

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

[@stormchaser300]

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

[@Sting_ray]

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

[@DonnyLA]

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

[@mattparker9726]

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]

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

[@deillos1lee]

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.

[@spookysammy7245]

So long and thanks for all the fish

[@mike97525]

Thank You, that device seems familiar 🙂🙂

[@Cameronsutubes]

You had me at "laser"

[@vegafisher2176]

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

[@thomasklima215]

Thats such a cool idea, thanks!

[@davinhunt7558]

very cool use

[@nicholasks]

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

[@jessen00001]

You made my day with my favorite film ❤

[@Sir-Mousey]

I love your videos always something awesome interesting and useful

[@budiman1990]

Never forget the Towel :D

[@patchvonbraun]

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]

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

[@kuukeli]

thank you for the video

[@thebroshow6688]

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

[@hacktheory1337]

That's a great idea!

[@wire-guided1026]

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

[@madjack821]

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

[@belisarius565]

Nice!

[@andrewstewartjacobs9678]

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 KZbin.....Kudos @ saveitforparts and I hope you go on to also educate (as you do).

[@mattparker9726]

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?

[@tylerzerbe6861]

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]

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

[@joshuabessire9169]

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]

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

[@centdemeern1]

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

[@coondogtheman]

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?

[@leroymay8156]

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

[@mastasolo]

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.

[@bravohomie]

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

[@iamgriff]

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 😂

[@oetken007]

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

[@NoiseJoys-qq7gl]

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.

[@dean5263]

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

[@Thats_Cool_Jack]

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

[@jestajoemc]

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

[@yourfriendlysubaruoutback]

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]

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]

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

[@seedney]

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.

[@BeOurBee]

Should have just loaded Encarta 97 on there! ;)

[@thesebi]

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]

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]

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]

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

[@paulgemperlein626]

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

[@saveitforparts]

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]

Can you play any old school games on it?

[@cuttinchops]

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

[@DadofScience]

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

[@NintendoBoy64]

This thing looks like a Pip Boy

[@SavvygeMediaGroup]

I want one

[@xspydazx]

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]

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

[@xspydazx]

@@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 !

[@ransomxvi]

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]

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

[@paulie-g]

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

[@evacuatedspace6946]

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.

[@azinfidel6461]

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

[@amtrak1007]

looks like a great host for 73linux!

[@saveitforparts]

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

[@amtrak1007]

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

[@saveitforparts]

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

[@amtrak1007]

@@saveitforparts rock on. Great content as always.

[@johnduty4505]

Try zorin os lite

[@mattparker9726]

Did you bring a towel?

[@filipa.g4542]

22 seconds ago? wow im early...

[@programorprogrammed]

She's a beauty

[@CelestialxPanda]

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.

[@Bobo-ox7fj]

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

[@sphynxmaine]

DON'T PANIC

[@sphynxmaine]

That's so cool though!!!

[@BurkenProductions]

too bad it has the wrong keyboard layout

[@glitter_fart]

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]

Tinfoil is your friend...

[@glitter_fart]

tinfoil doesnt stop an emp@@sarkybugger5009