IBM Corp’s AS/400 division has built a PowerPC-based thin client prototype. The prototype AS/400 thin client has no local storage and will use a 403 embedded PowerPC processor. It has between 4Mb and 32Mb memory, Token Ring or Ethernet connections – coax and thinax connectors will be added later – running a thin AS/400-like operating system with printer, serial and audio ports, a PC Card slot, a monitor, mouse and keyboard. The processors will scale up and iAPX-86 processors could be part of the picture later. It is about 1 thick and 10 by 8 in the other directions. It will include full 5250 and 3270 terminal emulation and will run all existing AS/400 terminal sessions and green screen applications. A Web browser, TCP/IP stack and Java Virtual Machine will download from the server upon start-up, and as such, there is no real operating system other than that, as far as the end-user is concerned. It is essentially a Java terminal. OS/400 will shortly include software to attach the thin clients to IBM and non-IBM servers. As there is no operating system on the client, it is an AS/400 device only inasmuch as that division made it and will market it initially at its AS/400 green-screen users. It will be able to access any Java-enabled server. It is expected to cost nearer $1,000 than $500 and will be shipping in volume by the year-end. All told within IBM, there will be six Application-Centric Terminals as the company unfortunately calls them, by year-end, costing between $500 and $1,000, and pilots are under way; the AS/400 device is not part of any pilots and is not being tested outside IBM.
