Hi Darius,

According to your description, Nebraska is what you want. The only parts it
doesn't handle from your message are the ability to start a remote image
when a client connects to the server and some of the multi-media handling
(most notably sound). 

Starting a remote image isn't that hard - anything that'll listen on the
right port and know how to identify the location of the image for the
particular client would work. For example, the client could make a request
to some "Nebraska launcher" which would handle the request by launching the
appropriate image and hand back the port to use for this particular nebraska
session. This could even be done by adding this functionality to a
SuperSwiki so that you can browse through the projects, click on one, and
once clicked it will run on the (remote) server with a (local) Nebraska
client.

Handling some of the "remote media content" is harder though. It would
require a significant extension of the Nebraska protocol including some
sophisticated caching. And, besides playing, it may (depending on your
needs) require the ability to "upload" recorded sounds which again requires
some significant changes.

Finally, don't underestimate the needs of Nebraska itself. You can't have
cool media stuff running at interactive rates without a decent amount of
memory locally and a fast CPU which can handle the graphics operations. If
anything, the requirements on the overall infrastructure are higher as you
are now also relying on network bandwidth, latency, server resource
availability etc.

Cheers,
  - Andreas

> -----Original Message-----
> From: squeak-dev-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org 
> [mailto:squeak-dev-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org] On 
> Behalf Of Darius
> Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 12:19 AM
> To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list
> Subject: [Q]Is there "Terminal Services" type ability in Squeak?
> 
> 
> MS' Terminal Services has become popular here at my 
> employer's company and in 
> many other companies to reduce TCO and maintenance time.
> 
> Has anyone accomplished something similar in Squeak? 
> 
> I know Nebraska is close, but the client can't start or stop 
> the session/image 
> remotely if it's not already running in the host's memory. 
> Each session 
> shouldn't need its own IP address on either the host or the 
> client, just one 
> for each machine.
> 
> - Objects/image would stay and run in the host's memory and 
> store on the host's 
> drive.
> - Only the streaming of the display would be received at the client.
> - Only the keyboard & mouse movements return to the host.
> - Each client would have his own session/image (or multiple 
> sessions/images) on 
> the host.
> - Access to objects/multimedia content in other images for 
> workgroup content 
> sharing.
> - Should be able to stream video.
> - Not a headless Squeak -- but a "virtual long-neck" Squeak.
> 
> This might be helpful for schools and reduce complexity for 
> students. Schools 
> could have beefy servers, central control, fewer hardware 
> upgrades, and a 
> minimal fat client (Squeak) for older hardware rather than a 
> thin client 
> (browser).
> 
> Is there a better word for this type of tiered configuration 
> in Squeak?
> 
> Cheers,
> Darius
> 
> 
>