Re: Some fodder for marketing, perhaps -- MIDRANGE-L

Thin clients...

What about "Thin Clients" on the manufacturing floor?
 How about a device with the footprint the size of a textbook, no moving  
parts, just a few ports for connecting monitor, keyboard, mouse,  barcode 
reader, etc., with a specialized edition of Linux, and just a  few programs, 
including Firefox browser, all loaded into some sort of  flash memory, which is 
only updated from a server?      Low maintenance.  Nathan Andelin

I think thin clients are underrated, and they're going to catch on inever increasing numbers and impact.

Naturally IBM, HP, Microsoft, all the heavies on the block preferselling gobs of big-disk PC's for the obvious reasons.

But thin clients used properly could have most of the benefits of the5250 screens plus the benefits of the GUI's where appropriate.

The 24x80 and the 27x132 grid has worked wonders, but I find myselfyearning for getting more on a screen,

But I agree also that especially for heads down data entry, where that'sstill done, you have to have a keyboard-based system, meaning set it allup so they can use the keys for everything. That includes the cursorsfor scrolling, and the rest.

Once a shop got the hang of interfacing to thin clients, using Linux canbe cost effective for your programming, Linux plus browser, even loadingJava back on a more powerful server behind it (like an i5, eh). Yourcounter guys can show the customer the new models of the newwidget-maker while placing the order, or the salesman, all that.

I think they're going to replace out the 5250s over time, eventually.Sigh. And for companies in general, somebody mentioned that the besttalent will be going into new areas. I think that some of the best andbrightest of us are still pounding out those green screens (ahem)because it is taking real slow to reach critical mass, but it'll comesoon enough.

Might be more work for upgraded RPG programmers too, what's wrong withthat? Put pretty pix with your apps! We really should be doing more thandishing out Excel spreadsheets to our users, because they need to seethe beauty in our meat and potatoes apps! :-) And I'm not just talkingabout browsers, although users are now used to that, but Java interfacesare fine too as long as you can get them running fast enough!


--Alan