I have a soft spot for sun rays. Back in college I had one set up in my dorm room that I grabbed from a surplus supplier that hooked into the school's servers so I didn't have to go all the way to the computer lab to work on my assignments. (I still have my smart card somewhere)

I remember thinking back then (2013) when this tech was getting sunset that we had somehow gone the wrong way, and that thin clients were the future, especially from an efficiency standpoint.

I still believe that, but we're still a ways off from general purpose compute accessed over the internet for the majority of use cases.

See https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2022/10/23/1700 - the dream lives on, although people still prefer local compute.

> and that thin clients were the future, especially from an efficiency standpoint.

I feel like we keep inventing thin clients and then making them thick; I consider Chromebooks the next step in the cycle.

Many years ago, I was working in a public institution where every PC had a Sun Ray station with its own screen sitting besides.

When newcomers came, they were shown the demo the remote desktop feature activated by smart card. Otherwise, these beautiful Sun Ray stations sat unused.