From: mark@taylor.uucp (Mark A. Davis) Subject: Re: X terminals: Suggestion for projects like SLS, MCC, etc. Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1993 12:32:08 GMT
ajayshah@almaak.usc.edu (Ajay Shah) writes:
>I can think of one interesting application for Linux: to turn cheap
>low-end PC hardware into dedicated X terminals.
As I have said in other postings, I think this is a good idea.
Although X terminals will still probably be cheaper, much faster, easier
to maintain, Linux/Clone would sove problems for existing machines. And if
prices continue to drop on clone hardware while video cards get faster and
cheaper, this could start to compete.
>We could probably get away with one or two floppy disks at runtime!
>(I.e. we could turn a hard-disk-less PC into a X terminal).
>In this case the kernel could use the smallest (minix?) of the
>many file system implementations available.
Not sure you can cram everything you need onto a floppy. Unless it could
fit on one, nobody would bother with it. A more interesting approach would
be to have a small card with 2MB or so of ROM or EEPROM.
>Hmm, this sounds interesting. Suppose someone "normally" uses a MS-DOS
>computer. He could just reboot through these two floppies to get a
>X terminal.
Again, I don't think people would really bother to go through that each time...
>Sounds like one could have a good commercial product here, since
>there is already a small industry of software turning PCs into
>dedicated X terminals.
It's especially interesting when you look at these mico-motherboards and
micro-cases. With two 1" bays and 3 or 4 slots, the footprint is nice and
simple. Still, a card would be the best way to go. It would cost less than
a hard drive, require no maintenance, and is not mechanical (less failure,
etc). Minimal you would need a mono-vga card and monitor, 386 MB, 4 MB RAM,
mouse, KB, ROM card, and Ethernet adapter (T-10 probably). No drives.
Of course, you could also scrap the drives _AND_ the big ROM card if you
"boot" the terminal over ethernet. Then you would only need to replace or
augment the boot ROM's with a small loader or something.
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