Hacker News Reader

Sun kind of did this in 1999 with the Sun Ray (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Ray)

This enables another notable feature of the Sun Ray, portable sessions: a user can go from one Sun Ray to another and continue their work without closing any programs. With a smartcard, all the user has to do is slip in the card, enter their password when prompted, and they will be presented with their session.

View on HN

Not just "kind of". They had a bunch of Sun Rays at my University, and this worked great. Just pull out your card, and plug it in somewhere else, and it'd be like your session had just gone on screensaver.

Of course, obvious flaw in the model: If you need mobility, you have a laptop. If you don't, well, the feature isn't really that useful. Also, the Solaris 9 user experience leaves something to be desired, but that's not the Sun Rays fault. (I compiled almost everything from source in my homedir.)

Really cool thing: It is (was?) possible to configure a multi-monitor setup with several Rays, purely over the network.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com