[nabbed]

Hey, based on the picture, I used one of those 3179 models for about 6-7 years until my company replaced it with a desktop PC running terminal emulation software.

Years later, probably around 2003, when desktop apps started getting replaced by web apps (at least at my job), I remember making that connection between web browsers and 3270s. In the 1990s, clients got very fat (think powerbuilder), but then in the late 1990s and early 2000s much of the fat went to the server-side and the web browser became the thin(ish) client. The web browser was sort of acting as a block device (like the 3270) in the sense that the end-user filled data into fields and then sent the whole thing at once by hitting some button.

With Web 2.0, the client started to put on weight again. Then with mobile apps, the fat client was back, baby! It just keeps cycling.

[Aloha]

I wonder when thin clients will come back into vogue again.

I've considered the BLIT to be the platonic ideal, a seamless environment there local or remote behaved the same, looked the same and acted the same - I guess the modern equivalent to that would be Citrix applications - but thats still not as seamless.

[0928374082]

the 'wheel of reincarnation' paper: http://cva.stanford.edu/classes/cs99s/papers/myer-sutherland...