Whilst at the tip rooting around for bike bits, I found a tidy Acer Apsire 1.

Its the flash version - not the more desirable HDD model but it does have 8 gig SSD memory.

I was wondering if it would be able to run XP. But if not, can I run a Hyperterminal program via Linux? I guess the obvious answer is a resounding 'yes' but just need to tick some boxes.

I need a small lightweight computer for hyperterm type work. I am rebooting and updating units via a USB to Serial adaptor and need something smaller than the hefty Toshiba I have.

The Acer is perfect as other than the password locked OS, its tiny. Oh, and it was free. My kind of recycling.

Jolicloud will take about 12 hours to download on my current fraudband.

I had an aspire one with the 8GB SSD. I upgraded mine to 1.5GB ram pretty easily.

Don't run full fat XP - the SSD is too slow for all those writes. I ran a cut down version of XP called "Tiny XP" - there was a customised image out there specifically for the Aspire One (check the aspire one user forum if it still exists).

I ran VAG-COM and numerous car diagnostic programs, used for running chrome to browse the web. Battery life when it was new was awesome!

Some of these can take a normal hard drive - you may or may not find it has the required circuits and cradle already in there.

I have the Packard Bell version (nearly identical specs to the Aspire One but with a 120GB HDD).
Based on the videos I found on Youtube and my experience working on mine, I'd say that the hardware is actually the same, but the shell is different.

The 8GB SSD should be the same size as any regular 2.5" HDD, so it should be easy to upgrade to any HDD up to 500 GB (some 1TB ones may fit, but most are too high to fit the HDD cradle).
There's also 2 SD card slots, one of which is claimed to seamlessly integrate with the SSD. So with a 32GB SD card, you can have 40GB of storage. I haven't verified this claimed integration myself, but read it while looking for the exact specs of the SSD version.

Like was8v, I upgraded mine from 1GB RAM to 1.5GB. The upgrade required a nearly complete tear-down, but was easy enough with the help from this video.
I also swapped my original 120GB HDD for a 250GB WD caviar black while I was at it.

I can verify that a full XP will run with the stock 1GB of RAM, but it stands to reason that "Tiny XP" or Linux will be faster.
I'm running fully loaded and updated XP, Vista, Win7 and Ubuntu 10.04 in quad-boot configuration on mine, and can't really complain about the speed in any of those operating systems.

Unfortunately mine is starting to have problems with the right-click button, so I'll need to look around for a replacement soon.
Shame really, as I recently purchased a 10.200 MAh battery (which boosted working time from around 3h to 12h+) and was planning to replace the HDD with a 240GB SSD.

You can get XP into less than 1Gb of disk storage, easily into 4Gb, please don't forget it is a 10 year old OS, it will run on anything.

1Gb of ram is plenty for XP.

The 8Gb SSD is possibly on a card? so not easily (cheaply) replaceable.

I have Windows 7 Ultimate on my similar model with 8gb SSD, so you should be fine.

8gb ssd, will be very cheap nowadays, prices are tumbling, and these ssd are different from the desktop variants

I ran XP until a few years ago on my CF27, it had something like 192mb ram and installed into 320mb. Try a program called XPlite.
I used it for all my surfing, autocad work, html coding and even
ran solidworks[as remote desktop;-)] occasionally.

Have just remembered a girlfriends sony notebook, it had
32mb, which was it's max. I couldn't install xp, it said
something like "you have under 64mb of ram, piss off".
I went into Orca Logic and they let me try some ram,
we found we could fit 64mb. It loaded xp, it was slow.
it was her only computer and she had to have xp for
some bit of software she had.

IIRC, all Acer Aspire Ones with Linux had the same password.