Couldn't resist this cute little thin client. It's a Computerlab International ST5500 ca. ~2009. Most of the info on these is barely accessible & teetering on the edge of the internet, about to fall off. What else is new.
As you can see it gets dwarfed by a "proper" computer:
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Has all of the ports you could want including DVI, which is nice. Usually only newer ones than this have it.
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There's a 1GB disk-on-module inside that I really want for something else, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to open the damn thing. A project for another day I guess.
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^^ Furious button mashing at the startup image (a full-screen, 256-color dithered 3D rendering of the thin client itself - why?) got me into this bog-standard BIOS, thankfully.
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Tons of options for boot devices!
I fired up Linux (AntiX 16 32-bit in this case) just to see what it was packing:
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Via C3 500/800MHz(??), S3 UniChrome graphics, 8237A HDA audio. Pretty much what I expected. I was hoping it would have the 82C686B for sound but I guess it's too new for that.
Amusingly despite this being the "Windows Embedded" version (CLI also make dedicated Linux thin clients) the DOM held an ancient copy of Damn Small Linux - version 4.0, which dates to about 2007 (this machine was built in 2009.) I guess it uses DSL to bootstrap until it receives its Windows Embedded image over the network. Or who knows.
Nice little machine! I've got a use in mind for it. Would still like to figure out how to open the thing though.
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