Thin Clients

[danieL baueR]

>
> Message: 5
> Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2007 13:14:42 -0800
> From: Bill Campbell <bill at celestial.com>
> Subject: Re: Thin Clients
> To: filepro-list at lists.celestial.com
> Message-ID: <20071116211442.GB13175 at ayn.mi.celestial.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> On Fri, Nov 16, 2007, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Nov 16, 2007 at 09:29:13AM -0800, Bill Campbell wrote:
>>
>>> The biggest issues I see with dumb serial terminals are running
>>> cables if they're not already present and/or support for
>>> reasonable serial multi-port boards on current operating systems.
>>>
>>
>> You can fit a serviceable serial circuit down a TIA 568B wire run;
>> terminal servers are cheap, used.
>>
>
> Certainly one can run serial over standard cat-5 internal wiring.
> I have a couple of boxes of adapters I've made from RJ-45 to
> DB-25 just for that purpose.
>
> I do have customers in facilities where *ANY* cabling is a major
> PITA, and wireless is far easier and less expensive to set up.
>
>
>>> I have a stack of old Specialix hardware in my back room, but no
>>> current hardware supports ISA boards today.
>>>
>>
>> Indeed.
>>
>> Thank ghod we shifted from Intelliport to Intelliserver early.
>>
>> Buy used Pentium-2 motherboards, and use Linux to build terminal
>> servers out of them.
>>
>
> Buy them?  I have a room full of them :-).  I don't know how easy  
> it is
> though to find CPU fans and such, or replacement AT power supplies  
> which
> are often the achilles heel of these systems (as opposed to cheap,
> exploding capacitors on newer main boards).
>
> Ten years ago we were building and deploying diskless Linux  
> stations for
> data entry use (originally booting off SCO OpenServer systems).  We  
> moved
> away from them mostly because keeping the server side configured  
> was more
> trouble than it was worth, and it was easier to deploy stand-alone  
> Linux
> machines, particularly when Frys and others started selling them  
> witn Linux
> installed for under $200USD that we could just plug in and go.
>
> About two years ago we started replacing old Linux diskless work  
> stations
> with Mac Minis, plugging them into the existing keyboards and  
> monitors with
> USB/PS2 adapters.  The customers really like them as it's easy for  
> them to
> use with the existing applications, and they get pretty GUIs for web
> browsing, e-mail, and other applications which weren't all that  
> great no
> the old systems.
>
> Bill
> --
> INTERNET:   bill at celestial.com  Bill Campbell; Celestial Software LLC
> URL: http://www.celestial.com/  PO Box 820; 6641 E. Mercer Way
> FAX:            (206) 232-9186  Mercer Island, WA 98040-0820; (206)  
> 236-1676
>
> There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he  
> does not
> want merely because you think it would be good for him.  -- Robert  
> Heinlein
>

On a side note here I'd be interested to know if and how you connect  
the Mac Mini's to the filePro server. I'm running Parallels on my Mac  
just so I can use Anzio to connect to assorted Linux and SCO  servers  
running filePro. Thanks

Dan Bauer
Online Management
dan at onlinemgt.com