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Stretching The Possibilities of my HP Thin Client

I agree that the thin clients (mine are Neoware, so older than HP) are useful. For a couple of years, one ran my junk call filtering software; another ran my EPROM programmer (which required a real parallel port). The longest-running one ran a mailserver, router and Internet radio server. That last task is now handled by an Orange Pi PC, which sips power and is faster.
 
I have heard the topic of PI come up time & again. there is no arguement from me on any of them. I own a few. And in most cases they do a much better job. I think at least for me I get satisfaction from taking something that is for all intents & purposes it's just flat out obsolete. Then with some tinkering & a few dollars it lives again. My biggest surprise is the stability of the "Thin Client". I have made my PI's lock & freeze on a few occasions. Granted I am stretching them till they break. But I have also done the same with my Thin Clients. They never freeze or lock. They just slow to a crawl. :)
 
Since we have some thin client fans here, anyone heard of TABC clients? I have an Alpha Micro thin client here which is allegedly a rebadged, value-added version of either the TR3310 or TR3330, but there is little or no information on these things in the wild.
 
I used a couple of the Neoware CA21 boxes around here (they have an HP part number also). I replaced the 1GB flash in it with a 44 position 2mm female-female ribbon cable hooked to a laptop CF-to-IDE adapter. I ran 5, 6 and 8GB Microdrives in it. No write fatigue and reasonably fast--they last for years. 1GB DDR2 SODIMM runs older headless Linux just fine--a couple of years ago, the Debian kernel people dropped support for the VIA IDE controller (which you also have). However, OpenBSD and Windows XP/98SE also runs fine.

I've got a bigger CA10 with the PCI connector--I've got a SCSI card fitted in that one and a 40GB laptop IDE drive inside. I picked it up for a project that I never got around to working with.

Some of the more recent HP thin clients (e.g. t610) have SATA and dual-core CPUs--but, alas, no parallel.
 
I have built all kinds of mods on so many different types of computers. I have taken RIP Stations and made them into Retro Gamers, or even a early ITX and made it a LAN party Gateway. But I still get the most joy from my "Thin Client" mods. :)
 
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