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Keep going further back, we had thin client terminals (not sure of the terminology, this was just before my time - I remember using them to look for books at ou
by Izkata 3mo ago
Keep going further back, we had thin client terminals (not sure of the terminology, this was just before my time - I remember using them to look for books at our town library when I was a kid, green or orange text on a black screen, no mouse).
- RetroTechie 3mo ago"Terminal" will do. These were text user interface (TUI) based browsers accessing a remote database, before web browsers appeared (or even the web itself). Fixed, very limited feature set, talking to database over plain LAN, a dedicated phone line or similar. Possibly not even that: just a dumb terminal sending keystrokes & displaying text returned by the server. Setups like this have been around almost as long as computers exist. I recall that these replaced library catalogs in the form of drawers full of cards. Each card representing a book located elsewhere in the library (or available upon request from a central location). Man I'm old...