look, someone has reinvented the minicomputer architecture!

[Jon Pruente]

I think the main "leap of technology" here is the use of multiple
video cards and keyboards with a single computer.  That is a large
step above simple serial terminals or remote sessions.  While the idea
certainly isn't new, the methodology and the features are much more
advanced.  For most office work a 500MHz machine is fine.  Once the
general overhead of the OS is accounted for each user only takes up a
fraction of the CPU power for their application and the I/O involved.
By using independent video cards they can take more load off the CPU
by not needing to compress and send display info for a remote session,
which would also clog the network with multiple users having
simultaneous access.

I like their idea, but I think it's something that could be added in
to Linux fairly easily with PCI video cards and USB devices.  Once you
work out a frame work of assigning particular groups of I/O to each
other, start an X session for that group and off they go...

Jon.

On 12/13/06, Jonathan Hutchins <hutchins at tarcanfel.org> wrote:
> Somewhere, buried in a box on the back porch, I have a ~ten port serial
> expansion module intended for just this sort of arrangement.  It had
> terminals running off of a PC.  Obviously, no sound or USB, we're talking
> pre-Windows hardware here.
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