5 ms·

What’s old is new again! This is how mainframe terminals worked.

• hawski 5y ago
  That's a setup I wanted for quite some time and I know it was available for some time, but ubiquitous fast and cheap wireless Internet is something new I guess, also with all-day batteries all in a lightweight package.
• my_usernam3 5y ago
  Can you explain further? I'm guessing you mean once a mainframe's resources were outdated, it became a terminal?
  • Macha 5y ago
    No, the users had crappy devices (terminals) which worked because they could access the compute resources of a bigger device (the mainframe)
  • Jtsummers 5y ago
    No. In the heyday of mainframes people would remote in, with a terminal. That's where the terminal protocols many people still use on a daily basis actually come from. Sending text over the wire to display on your terminal screen, you type into a keyboard which transmits your input across the wire to the mainframe which responds with new screen updates. Using your desktop remotely from a cheaper but more portable device is pretty much the same model (not the same thing, but model) as the way many people interacted with mainframes last century.