On 25 Nov 00, at 21:31, Ronald G Jobe wrote:

> A friend of mine, who is a doctor, would like to set up a new
> office computer system.  He would like to use a Windows platform
> and full graphical access from 4 or 5 attached terminals (not PCs).
>   He would like to do this as cheaply as possible.  Any suggestions
> on the necessary hardware and software to do this?
>
> I know that a Unix/Linux box can support dumb terminals using
> X-terminal, but those are limited to character-based displays and
> he doesn't have the knowledge to run a Unix/Linux box.  Would a
> "thin-client" work in this configuration?  What would be required
> to run a thin-client server?
>
> Thanks for all your help!
> Ron

  "X terminals" are neither "character-based" nor "dumb".  Under X,
an application running on a compute system -- typically Unix/Linux
but not necessarily -- uses network protocols to talk to a bit-mapped
(graphical, may be colour) display, keyboard and mouse, typically on
another machine.  An "X terminal" is a special network device which
provides access to these peripherals, and nothing else -- or a
PC/Mac/Workstation running "X server" software.

  Windows NT Terminal Server Edition is based on the Citrix/WinFrame
system; it involves a central x86-based server running Windows
applications, which are accessed via dedicated "thin client" machines
(typically, small boxes which accomodate a standard PC keyboard and
mouse and SVGA monitor) or Windows PCs running a client program.
  I think this is what you want.

David G

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