Modern minicomputer?

[einstein4pres]

I was curious if there was any hardware or software solutions that would work like a minicomputer, where there are multiple terminals all connected to the same box. Each terminal would have its own monitor, keyboard, and mouse, but would run processes on the same box as the other terminals, and access the same hard drives, etc., all locally.

Modern computers seem to have plenty of processing power for most applications, and investing in only one box could be cheaper than maintaining two computers. Any thoughts, or is this mostly impossible without special dumb terminals?

Joshua

 

[akhilles]

You're absolutely right that a modern computer has the power to run multiplie terminals for the entire family. See, most of them just want to browse webpages, chat in IM, check email, listen to music, etc. And yes, it'll be much cheaper than multiple computers both hardware- & software-wise (multiple licenses for the same software).

Is it any wonder that Japan's pc industry is on the way out? The people prefer cellphones for checking emails, web browsing, and now watching movies.

 

[einstein4pres]

No suggestions then? I was hoping that with the prevalence of multi-core cpus that there would be a good way to split up processing power, and run virtual machines or something so that each terminal could have some dedicated hardware, but I guess that demand for such systems is not present yet. Oh well.

 

[chunkymonster]

No suggestions then? I was hoping that with the prevalence of multi-core cpus that there would be a good way to split up processing power, and run virtual machines or something so that each terminal could have some dedicated hardware, but I guess that demand for such systems is not present yet. Oh well.

Given the cost of computer parts, it's just "easier" to built a machine and implement a centralized back-up solution.

VMWare allows you to virtualize multiple OS's on mulit-core hardware but that is mostly implemented in server/data center environments with gigabit/fiber LANS and SAN's with terabytes of storage and where redundancy and minimal fail over is priority.

[thinking out loud]From a home/office user standpoint, theoretically it could be done where you could get a multi-core proc on a mobo with large amounts of RAM (8+GB's) and then set-up VM's with a standard XP image and then telnet/virtual desktop in to the main box and run everything as it were local. But even in that scenario the local machine would still need the bare essential hardware (i.e.; mobo, proc, memory, hard drive, NIC, etc) necessary to be able to access the main machine; albeit the hardware would be greatly marginalized and could be a little as 1000MHz proc with 512 RAM the fact remains that there would need to be a local machine. With the right linux distro and a gigabit or fiber LAN, it might be possible for basic office use or web surfing but nothing as substantial as gaming or video encoding[/ thinking out loud]

Neat idea but I suppose not very pragmatic. I get what you want to do and it is something that I wish was more feasible becasue it would be an excellent alternative to the mulitple pc's around my house for myself, the wife, kids, guests, etc...

A friend of mine has his VM cert, I'll have to ask him about this idea up the next time we get together for beers.

 

[elpresidente2075]

Check out "Thin clients" and "Blade" systems. They do basically what you want it to do, only with a little extra hardware. There was a company a few years ago who was making motherboards with two sets of inputs, two procs, two sets of ram that would run two completely separate computers on the same hardware, but that's probably not what you want.

Get some Thin computers, one good computer, and have a good network. Then you can put the terminals anywhere you want. Get a wireless enabled thin computer and you'll be all over the house!

 

[Jim_L9]

You can buy multiple thin clients and point them to one central server with multiple virtual machines. The expensive part is a Windows license for each virtual machine. Here is an example thin client: http://www.windowsfordevices.com/news/NS9177022069.html

 

[bic]

Linux Terminal Server Project

http://www.ltsp.org/

 

[einstein4pres]

There was a company a few years ago who was making motherboards with two sets of inputs, two procs, two sets of ram that would run two completely separate computers on the same hardware, but that's probably not what you want.

Actually, this is more like what I am interested in, except with only one set of RAM and processor. My wife and I (no kids) don't really need quite the level of processing power currently available, but when we do upgrade, it would be nice to just connect up 2 monitors, mice, and keyboards to it, and both be able to use what bits of the computer we need at the time.

Thanks for the suggestions on thin clients. Unfortunately, with only two of us and an apartment, I don't think that's really what we need. I'll keep it in mind, though!