date: Tue 12 May 2026 10:15:02 PM PDT subj: before there was raspberrypi there was pogogplug --------------------------------------------------------- My silly hoard of computing junk. Its a compulsion, maybe an addiction. I think about it, write about it, and I've talked about it. I sometimes tell my wife I should just get rid of all my stuff. Well these very thoughts caused me to mentally inventory some of my computers. My mind went back to a time when I was enjoying the computing journey. The miser in me finds a system that had intention without completion: the pogoplug. Several days pass, and on the tail end of my lunch; for the first time in years, I pulled out the little pogoplug mobile. At one time the little device was given sanctuary at my girlfriend's (now my wife) home, connected to her Cisco WRT54G router; by the way, happens to be in my humble opinion, one of the most prolific, and best lines of routers deployed. I plugged in the network cord, and power to the little Pogoplug Mobil, then attempt to login to the device. Not an easy thing do to it's depreciated key exchange. Luckily I knew about it from years prior. I eventually logged in, browsed around, and thought this thing needs more functionality, which lead me to where sat for so long in the cabinet. It was resting next to a pogoplug pro in its box, which resides next to a pink pogoplug (non-pro), formally used as my first small computer. Year 2012, before the raspberrypi, I was looking for a computer system that would sip power compared to my desktop, in order to minimize cost running my daughter's Terraria server, and phpbbs. The Sheevaplug was a candidate, but the money I would spend on a Sheevaplug would not offset the energy bill I was seeking to reduce. Back then I never thought of the cost of leaving a computer on 24x7 days of the week. One day I got the bright idea of calculating the cost, all thanks to my co-worker talking about energy costs. He brought in a small device to plug in between the outlet and the appliance being powered, allowing the consumed energy to be measured. With that information at hand, I had the great idea of finding a smaller, cheaper system. My desktop would average $30 a month while powered on twenty-four hours a day. The ~$200 Sheevaplug form factor fit my needs, but the cost was out of my price range, plus the reviews I read showed complaints about it over heating. I saw a Pogoplug, the cost was significantly less, and I read it's OS was linux with telnet and ssh access. I purchased a Pogoplug pink. During my search I found a forum Jeff Doozan's forum discussing how to replace the boot loader on the ShevaPlug, and the pogoplug in order to run debian. At the time Debian was my choice of linux, so I set out to taking the chance at "bricking" my hardware in order to replace uboot and run a regular debian OS. It all worked out, and I was estastic, I had my first little computer sipping power, running ssh, phpbbs. I don't recall if I actually hosted terraria. I played with debian on that system, and remotely connected to it from work, it was awesome. Then I bought the pogoplug mobile. At that point I was hooked. Shortly after the pogoplug mobile was out raspberrypi just came out with their "B" board, so pre ordered one. I was hooked on small computers. Well between running Pogoplug pink with Debian, several raspberrypi computers later, I had obtained two PogoplugPro systems. One was used, the other was really cheap off amazon, probably because the company who made them was closing shop. At one point I even took the pogoplug software and ran it on my raspberrypi, or beaglebone black. Yes beaglebone black devices also made their way into my possession. Back to the month of May 2026, I remebered the PogoplugPro has a wifi device, but given the connection to the mother ship (central pogoplug service server) was dead and the stock system is very customized, no WPA suplicant, or much software to connect the wifi device to a modern router, the pogoplug linux build is decapitated. Time to see if there is any information left from 2012 on today's internet. Lucky Jeff Doozan's site is still there, and sure enough there is still some activity around these SoC devices. Specifically the PogoplugPro with an Oxinas processor, the variant of the Pogoplugs I own. What makes the pogoplug so awesome, the power supply. Its got a basic plug for the wall similar to an original XBox powercord. The powersupply is enough to power each usb port with a full drive attached, no just tiny usb thumb drives. What makes it suck is the 128 Megabytes of ram, and the dual core ARMv6 processor, running about 390KHz. These little systems are very constrained. I updated my pogoplugpro systems to use the uboot loader on Jeff Dozan's board. Running Debian OS. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with them. I'm also getting ready update the boot loader on the pogoplug mobil. Is there any use for these little devices today? Not sure there is. I know in the retro world there are computers in use with even less system resources compared to the pogoplugpro. At least I got the devices updated with uboot, so there is the freedom to use them as an ftp, sftp, samba, or webdav server.