Plugable Thin Client: The $50 Computer | Hacker News Reader

Plugable Thin Client: The $50 Computer

kickstarter.com

12 pointsrevorad15 comments

Whats the point of this kickstarter? Theres nothing new here. Citrix, Vmware etc have been doing this for years now and thin clients already exist by the hundreds. The $50 price point is towards the lower end but the client featured also cuts back on a bunch of features that competitors at $75-100 range have.

> Whats the point of this kickstarter?

Pluggability (to a single computer).

I think was a great idea, ten or fifteen years ago. But not today because the era of growth for desktop computers is essentially over.

I have no idea what I would do with this today. I have a MacBook Pro, and my wife does, too. Nearly everyone I know has an iPhone, and an iPad.

Why would any of us use this? Each of us already has two or three computers of some kind that we carry everywhere, nearly all the time.

I'm not trying to be mean. I just don't see how a $50 computer that you have to plug into a keyboard, mouse, and monitor is something that anyone with mobile devices would want.

I would think the average person isn't lucky enough have an inventory of multiple thousand dollars of high-end computing equipment. This kind of system would be perfect in developing countries, or as the project suggests, for education.

Many people in developing countries have mobile phones, and smartphones are rapidly becoming the computer of choice for them.

Also, remember that today's high-end is tomorrow's low-end. Why develop stuff for the past? Don't think of the developing world as a dumping ground for our worn-out ideas and wares, because that's not what it is.

A related HN post from a few weeks ago, a bit more technical: http://hackerne.ws/item?id=3916647

As the blogger suggests, this type of tech would most likely be used in internet cafe environments, or classrooms. It might not work out so well at home but I can definitely see it being used in public environments.

This doesn't seem like it's that hard to implement though, I wonder if commercial operating systems decided to neglect this type of feature fearing that a few multiseat users is a few potential licenses lost?

On top of that, the Rasperry Pi costs $25 and is full computer in of itself (which, in of itself, is a testament to the growth of the mobile system hardware market)

Slap a case on it and a copy of Ubuntu, double (or triple) that price, and you still have a cheaper option than this USB solution.

At first I was wondering about the benefits of using such a system vs. something like deploying the raspberry pi en masse (which is a full system for under $50), but after some thought it comes down to the fact that the average utilization of any computer most of the time is very low, but we really notice the CPU power when we do something intensive (although not very often). Each user on this system could potentially feel the same power as a full desktop, as the probability of multiple users requiring intensive computation at the same time is relatively low. Kind of like how web providers quote 10MB per customer, but their infrastructure only has to cater for a tiny fraction of the potential full utilization.

I'm still wondering why we couldn't just make thin clients using raspberry pi.

The hardware in question very likely has computing power (and associated cost) not that far off from that of the Raspberry Pi.

You also have to factor in the cost of the machine used to drive these USB display drivers -- with 4 users on a $500 machine, you're still talking about $125/user.

Ok, so they're making something that already exists. I know the HP version costs about $80.

What I want to know is how are they planning on bringing their costs down to be able to provide something cheaper than a larger company that already has the ability to produce whatever they want.

It seems it's not in fact a thin client - as far as I can tell, it's a USB hub and USB graphics card which then gets hooked up to its own X session on the host.

It's much more limited than the HP devise you're referring to, so I would think it needs to be a lot cheaper to make sense.

This also means it has to be in pretty close proximity to the host machine. No connectivity over Ethernet or wifi...

Not to mention you have to have (or buy) the keyboard, monitor and mouse. Some people may have an extra keyboard or two kicking around, not sure how many people keep extra monitors handy for very long (though you can come by monitors cheap on craigslist).

I didn't call it a thin client client for a reason (because it's not a thin client).

These things are often referred to as zero clients, although even the details of that name are a little muddy.

The devices I'm referring to are the exact same thing, and these devices are the entire idea of Windows Multipoint Server, and can also be used with linux, although un-supported.

This looks great. I suppose this will help a lot of class rooms in poorer countries.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com