Thin Client

We got the eval X300 kit. It comes with small PCI card which is essentially 3-head video card with 3 ethernet ports.

You connect the units (about size of cigarette pack if I remember correctly :-) via Cat5e or Cat6. Hook up the PS/2 keyboard and mouse and connect VGA monitors. Thinclient.org used a couple of 17 inch monitors and a 19 inch monitor.

You boot up and install the software. It will ask if you want updated version from internet and agree. Its a quick download even on a wireless broadband that I use (sierra 595 revA evdo).

Thinclient.org had the units up and running in about 2 hours.

Thinclient.org have the units running a lockdown browser to totally captive the units.

The units run in 1024x768 and 16 bit color (64K) and they "pop" just like a normal console would. I called up youtube and ran the Jonathan Winters interview from the PBS Pioneers show and the units did just fine. The audio is stereo and sounds closer to 6K than 15K response but it was fine.

My host machine was a Dell 620 minitower with a 2.8 Pentium and 512Mbyte of memory. Definitely worse case.

Memory pagefile runs about 540M with the three stations and when running the video simultaneously the CPU pegged at 100% (idle is about 60%).

Not ideal but what are the chances three users run video at exactly the same time?

All in all very impressed. Thinclient.org will try Core2Duo 6550 with 2G of RAM and that should have lots of headroom.

The X300 with 3 terminals retails for about $200. That gives you basically 4 terminals + if an extra PCI slot the ability to add 3 more terminals (for $200).

These little dudes are great...Thinclient.org