Thin Terminal Windows CE units?

I was wondering if anyone has experimented with using a Windows CE thin terminal as a standalone machine?

I ask because from time to time a fast WinCE 4.2 device comes available on eBay at a reasonable price (e.g., the 1 GHz Compaq t5000 currently at auction at http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=11221&item=5761106087&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW)

If it is possible to load such a unit with TextMaker, PlanMaker, Conduit's PocketSlides, etc., it seems to me that one might have a very fast, very capable machine at a relatively low cost. Such a unit might also be useful for certain types of development.

What do you think?

Bruce
MP890 Evangelist

Full Size PC built around PDA Technology?


Bruce, I had a similar question I used to raise on enthusiast PDA sites. Someone finally told me about HP Thin Clients, which are a success for HP. They are basically a smart terminal version of a dumb terminal for servers. The focus is enterprise, as you know.

I researched it. If you search thin-client on Google and look over the hits, you'll find some people experiment with adapting Thin-clients for independent PC use.

Overwelmingly, I am told it isn't practical or possible. I do not agree. The MobilePro 900 and some even larger PDA tech notebook type PCs are proof that a full size PC built around PDA tech is certainly possible and the $500 question is why hasn't HP ever taken a stab at it? After all, they invented the Thin-Client, a full-sized semi-independent PC. There would not be much additional investment involved to try selling independent thin-clients to consumers. HP Thin-Clients a high quality, inexpensive PCs that run PC programs off servers.

I think the answer is simple. Microsoft is hostile to the idea. HP and others fear MS will revoke their Windows license if they 1) offer dual boot, Windows & Linux PCs or notebooks 2) offer desktop PC cased PDAs.

You can get information by looking into the hits you get from searching "Thin-Client" and PDA technology + desktop computer. Most of the discussion I found involved trying to run desktop Windows programs independently with a modified Thin-Client.
Logically, I see no reason why you could not simply load and run PDA and Handheld programs on a Thin-Client.

An issue that is discussed by experimentors is desktop monitors. I do not see the larger screen size as a problem for PDA technology, since HP had a card and cable for jornada 600s & 700s to display on a full sized monitor.

While technically, software developers could make this possible, we as the end users would need to wait for them to do it.

The biggest problem would be the different CPU. If I'm not mistaken, these 1GHz machines run on an x86 architecture CPU. That means any software you want to run on these natively would need to be compiled for x86 WinCE, instead of MIPS or ARM etc. There was a thread where someone listed 3rd party software that were available for x86.

Another problem is compatibility. If your company wants you to use a certain PC software, you need a PC. It's often hard to find a directly compatible application on another platform, let alone a rare one. Just recently there was a thread about playing Quicktime movies, which is Apple's multimedia format. Both PC and Mac have players for it. But WinCE? I am still investigating. Whatever the solution, I'm pretty sure if someone sends me a link to a webpage with a Quicktime clip, I would not be able to watch it on a WinCE machine.

The point is, WinCE is still far from being able to replace a PC, even if you are a casual user. But the popularity of the PocketPC is going to change that, eventually.

I think that I am (half)successfully doing exactly what you are asking for. Read more about at:

http://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=765&posts=8

In my first post you'll find links to older threads. It works fine with a Wi-Fi card but still have some problems with GPRS. A friend of mine is using Windows Terminal but on a WM2003 PDA for accessing his work computer (not in my company).

takwu is correct that most (all?) of these machines are based on the x86 architecture and that compatibility with "standard" applications might well be a problem. BTW, the list of x86 supported software that he referenced was provided by TFGBD and is at http://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=546&posts=13

I started the thread partially as a matter of intellectual curiousity, but also because I have wondered for some time whether such a system might make sense for a family or small business. Based on TFGBD's list and my own subsequent correspondence with Softmaker and Conduits, I am inclined to believe such a system does make sense.

The good news is that there are x86 versions of TextMaker, PlanMaker, and Pocket Slides available; the bad news is that AMD has exclusive rights to the x86 versions of TextMaker and PlanMaker for use in their Personal Internet Communicator device (see
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/DownloadableAssets/32081bprodbrief.pdf) Of course, the fact that AMD has developed such a device would seem to indicate that they find merit in the idea -- at least in India and the Third World.

Softmaker has been gracious in providing me with copies of the x86 versions for experimental purposes in my role as a professor of information systems. Unfortunately, I cannot share the files, but I will share my results with the forum.

Thanks for all the feedback.

Bruce
MP890 Evangelist

After all these replies I am not sure whether I was wrong or the others did not understand the problem correctly.

What is a thin client? Is this a kind of a window into a remote server that really runs the application, has a hard disk; thin client provides just graphical interface to the application and does not have a hard disk? Or something else? If the first statement is correct (I am quite sure it is!) then Citrix ICA client is the thin client. Check more about at:

http://www.thin-world.com/

In this case you don't need your applications to be able to run on x86. They do it naturally. This is what I tried to describe couple of replies above. I have a Jornada 720 (ARM) and I am able to virtually run all of the Windows (2000, XP...) application on my Jornada. Jornada, of course, is not a very good device for such activities:

a) low resolution (480 x 240),
b) not very fast processor,
c) quite slow graphics.

I think that a 500 Mhz device (CE 3.0 or Net 4.2) with 800 x 600 TFT LCD can be a very good client for the users that only need Word, Excel and mailer. In my case the bottleneck is not Jornada but the link (128/64 kbps).

Because of Jornada I can consider my use of Citrix ICA more like an experiment than a real state-of-the-art device. But it works. And I can access my work computer and applications running on it from anywhere with a Wi-Fi connection.

vjurkas,

I am not 100% sure about the terminologies in this regard, but here's my interpretations:

- a "terminal" or a "client" is any machine that connects to a server and provides a user interface to that server. This can be any machine using any software. If you Telnet to your local library, you are using your general purpose computer as a terminal of the library server.

- a "thin client", or a really old term "dumb terminal", is a machine/device dedicated to being a terminal. These are not designed to do anything when disconnected from the server. Using the library example above, if you walk into the library you might see a lot of machines that can be used the same way Telnet works, except that it doesn't do anything else.

In the old days, a dumb terminal would have a standard text based interface and a keyboard. As technology advances, today we would need GUI and pointing devices as well, just to connect to a Windows Terminal Server for example. That's why these new "thin clients" are often built on a small OS, in particular Win CE.

But as we all know, Win CE can do way more than just being a terminal. So this thread was created asking if we could use a Win CE based thin client to do more stuff, maybe even replace a desktop, when it isn't being used as a client.

I hope this isn't too confusing

My mistake. I read once again the initial post; thanks Takwu!