Dumb terminals and silicon evolution

This won't exactly be your 'normal' news commentary. You have been warned.

David Lightman and NORAD terminal

Some time ago, I had been tinkering around with a Linux distribution - CentOS minimal, for those who care - trying to see if it's feasible to set up a web server at home. Logically, the distribution I chose was a "barebone" version, which means, no Windows-like environment, no fancy graphics, no frills. Just the basic 'console' interface and nothing more.

Now, so far, this shouldn't sound too interesting, let alone something that would justify a blog post. Well, bear with me for a minute.
The basic concept behind this, is that a web server would be a machine that would be working 24/7 and have no keyboard, no mouse and no monitor, since most of the time it'll just be... serving the internet. Usually, communication with the system is being done remotely, i.e. from another computer, through a "terminal", which is a programme emulating the function of the old computer terminals that we've all seen from the '70s and early '80s. Having that in mind, and being a lover of "antique" technology, I started thinking that I'd really love to have an actual terminal (machine) on one side of my desk and administer the server from there, rather than from a terminal (programme) running on one of my 'modern' Windows computers. Now, 'wanting' one and 'getting' one are two entirely different things; even more so since there are very very few on sale and even those few that are, would have to be shipped across the Atlantic from the United States, which in itself is forbidding because of the weight and size -- not to mention fragility of those things.

What's the alternative? Well, unsurprisingly, terminal emulators have been around since the very beginning of personal computers. In fact, the first personal computers began their careers as "smart" terminals, which were... intelligent enough to be used independently, if their level of "intelligence" was enough for someone. So my second thought was... to get one of my old PCs out of mothballs and use it as a terminal. Obviously, size was a deciding factor so, after checking out what motherboards and cases I had,

Toshiba 486 on mission: terminal (stock image)

I decided to settle on an old Toshiba notebook, equipped with an Intel 486SX CPU, 12MB of RAM and a Super VGA adaptor and monitor. It isn't the oldest nor 'weakest' I have, there are other 486 boards, 386, even a couple 8086 boards in my stash. The Tosh was the smallest, though, taking into account total desk footprint.

And right about then... it hit me.
I was going to use a 486 PC as a 'dumb' terminal.
A 486 !!!


For the record, the first PC I laid hands on was an 8086 (or 8088, who knows) XT compatible. The second was a 286. The first PC that I bought (well, my father but you know how it is) was an -- at the time almighty -- AMD 386 at 40MHz. A mean machine for its time, but even as such, a 486 was the wet dream of everybody, and all of them were really expensive -- roughly an order of magnitude more expensive -- and notebooks were equally, if not more, expensive. A 486-based notebook was something almost nobody could have back then, as they cost more than a new car.
Fast forward to today, where we have one of these machines just about to spend its final days serving as... a terminal!
For the record, the 486 notebook is about 100 times more powerful (in processing power) than required for even a 'smart' terminal and about 10,000 times or more than a 'dumb' terminal.

So, finally, we come to the "conclusion". How far have we come, fair ladies and dear gentlemen, where a really powerful computer is being assigned terminal duties. But in today's world, we don't even see it. No, the 486 was not a miracle chip of the '80s with processing power rivalling today's Cores and Pentiums, nor can it run Windows 8 (nor 7 for that matter). It cannot run a modern operating system, cannot run a browser like the one you're using to read this and cannot even play an mp3 song at the same time.
However, it could very easily run a version of Windows and Word or Excel and serve as a fine office computer. Such CPUs serve even today in devices you can't even imagine. Trust me when I say, a 486 is a powerful CPU, a lot more powerful than any of the CPUs of all the 'home' computers we had in the '80s as kids (Spectrums, Commodores, Ataris or Amigas).
Still, today it's going to be a terminal.
Today, even a 'stupid' cellphone is based on a processor much more powerful than the lowly 486, much smaller and consuming a tiny fraction of the 486's power.
Today, we're surrounded by incredible processing power all around. Think of cellphones, tablets, netbooks, notebooks, PCs, smart TVs, but also things you don't think about, like your wireless router, your fancy new washing machine or even your new car with its GPS, ABS, anti-spin and parking system. All this computing power which, a few years ago could only be dreamt of, today just goes unnoticed.

We are living in a science fiction world of only 20 or 30 years past, guys.
Think about that and look around you... you're surrounded by yesteryear's magic...