When desk space costs too much - Chip PC's JackPC!
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- Опубліковано 29 чер 2024
- In this episode I give an overview of the JackPC, also called the Xtreme PC, a 2000's thin-client made for business to reduce the desk space required for computers in the office... Or rather not use any of it at all! I also show some other parts included with this promotional kit put together, and then try to look at running the management software, the X-Calibur Global Management system. "Try."
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● Chapters:
0:00: Intro Skit
0:17: The ChipPC promotional pack
1:00: History and context
2:20: JackPC overview
3:32: Documentation overview
4:09: Windows CE
5:28: IVE BUILT A WALL AND ITS THE GREATEST WALL. AND THEY WILL PAY FOR IT.
6:05: Playing with the JackPC
11:41: "100% Theft proof"
14:14: Technical Difficulties
16:53: Credits
● Music in order of Appearance:
Wehrmut - Godmode
A Night Alone - TrackTribe
Soul and MInd - E's Jammy Jams
Erstatz Bossa - John Deley and the 41 players
Bet on it - Silent Partner
● Official Patreon Page:
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Discord: / discord
● Episode Links
• The Strangest Computer... - LGR: Strange Computer Designs of the 2010s
● Licenses:
The following are licensed under the GNU Free Documentation license, a copy of which can be found here: www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3.txt
Wikimedia - Eee PC White
Wikimedia - Clientron U7000 - Розваги
I'm amazed this form factor was never revisited. With the current tech we have available, you could fit a fairly powerful but low power ARM computer in there.
UniFi has a switch / access point that fits in the wall, not a PC, but darn useful and elegant
@@zg-it that switch/access point isn't intended for user space, it's intended for the mechanical room. it's a good idea in theory but it's not this idea.
@@TheObsesedAnimeFreaks access point U6 in wall
They still make these. They have intel atoms and 4 GB ddr4
i think the fact that even today, hardware can rotate so easily, people just dont bother.. But yeah, compute sticks been around for a while now.
Having used these devices and their predecessors 15 years ago or so. The theft proof isn't just about how hard it is to take the device itself. Back in those days they would open the case and steal the memory/cpu/storage. With thinclients that's not an option. And even if they stole the whole device, there is very little you can do with it without the whole server infrastructure. You needed signed binaries to run on the default OS and the device was underpowered even for it's day. Also, the lack of user-accessible local storage meant that even if the device was stolen, there wouldn't be any valuable/sensitive data on it. The management software uses mac-based licensing, so even if the device gets stolen, you just report it as such to ChipPC and it get's permanently banned.
Fascinating, that would make a lot of sense, thank you for sharing that!
what makes me laugh, is why would anyone even bother having a go at stealing one, as you say you cannot do bugger all with it really, maybe nick the storage system etc, but again what gain will you get out of that? Things like that wouldn't have any data on it worth stealing off, as everything would be on the server.
@@procta2343 Ignorance. From a user perspective there isn't much difference between a fullscreen TS/ICA client and a locked down Windows desktop computer. So if one of the students/employees tell his criminal friends about neat little computers they have at his school/office, they might think it worth a burglary.
@@SirBlade666 Indeed. 24 or 25 years ago, we had a server shipped to the office to be installed after its RAID failed. The next morning someone had nicked the RAM---server modules that wouldn't even fit another brand's servers. What a waste for no gain.
@@procta2343
If it's not bolted down and someone thinks they can fence or pawn it for any amount of money, it could potentially be stolen.
I used to work IT for a supermarket chain and one of their locations was in a not-so-great part of town. The wireless inventory scanners (the machines that stock workers use to scan items and get counts, order more, etc) would constantly be stolen. Nevermind they require a base station to be paired to, and a server to process ordering (which requires yearly licensed software). But that didn't matter to thieves, the scanners looked expensive and weren't tied or bolted down.
Looks like ChipPC now make an updated version that runs Windows 10 and has all modern interfaces like USB3 and HDMI etc.
You're talking about the new jack PC?
@@madmax2069I just checked, they actually do. It runs W10 IoT, has DP with 4k support and USB-C, USB-3.0. Still just a thin client though.
@@Evelas22351 i ended up going with a minis forum n4020 mainly for its size and price ($70 new).
@@Evelas22351 It won’t be anything but a thin client until Windows on ARM doesn’t suck butt.
“Year of the Linux wall pc.”
@@progenitor_amborella to be fair, that one in particular uses full Intel Atom CPUs- not an ARM device. It's still resource limited but that one could be a little bit more useful
I wonder how many of these things are sitting in walls abandoned in Old corporate buildings that people walk by every day and have no idea what they are
Part of me sees that question, and wants to raise with _„How many people see these things mounted in the wall and plug a USB drive in them thinking it's some sort of dead-drop?“_ 😀
@@dieseldragon6756 Or charge port!
If those are still powered, most people probably use them as wall mounted USB chargers
Assuming that the desks still have a PC, they’d have been replaced with standard network sockets using the same wiring.
@@G0RSHK0V If they're doing that, then we still need to educate people about the existence of bad chargers and their vulns. 🦠
Especially ones like that JackPC which by design have a CPU and system _directly attached_ to them... 🔌☠📲😉
Fun fact: Wyse is now a subsidiary of Dell (Dell Technologies Inc.).
Well, we all know that nothing better will come out of it then..
My dentist's office used these briefly years ago. They were quickly abandoned for a typical Dell USFF box strapped to the wall, occasionally over the top of the plug PC. Amusingly, the "anti-theft" is so effective they had to leave them behind when they moved offices this year. I imagine these are going to be a general societal menace well into the future...
I bet that was down to support, when i 1st saw one, was i like yeah in the office environment, that wont live long. But in other industrials i can see them living at lot longer.
You could power them using PoE so they took up even less space. I used them in a couple of them in some Cat3 containment labs where desk space was measured in many thousands of dollars a square foot. Basically used as terminals for remote desktop because when the room was active I didn't want to be going in to resolve support issues. They worked really well.
I did power it via PoE but used an injector as I did not have a PoE Network, nor did I want to use it on my real network 🙂
Server based computing was really the original model of major computer deployment. In the UNIX days of the early 1970s you used a 'dumb terminal' to access the computer, and it was a time sharing system. Having your own stand alone system was the revolution of IBM and its aptly named "Personal Computer".
I mean, if you want to go back further, the old mainframes were too expensive/big to give everyone one, so you accessed the system over Telnet (which still is in use! Albeit probably not often, due to a lack of security...) for Teletypes (basically an electronic typewriter). I think there were earlier systems, but Telnet was the big standard over.
We all know.
@@UncleKennybobsExcept, perhaps, the marketing types that want to act like this is a brand-new and exciting phenomenon rather than a technological regression.
Nice little computer. I once installed a Raspberry Pi into a plug socket. so in the same vein. I always find windows CE devices interesting I keep meaning to have a play with some more 'modern' CE devices.
I might have to get the xcaibur software working afteral
My school used these exact JackPC's in a couple of our computer labs, and sure enough they connected via RDP to a Server 2008 Terminal Server!
When i was at college studying Microsoft, we were shown one of these, and i think the college were evaluating going that way. This was when we were studying windows XP and server 2003. Not sure if it ever came to fruition, because we left that year. Then about 4 to 5 years later the college was closed down and the site cleared for a housing estate.
Newer style thin clients often have an Intel Atom or AMD APU and are way more reusable for projects today. Can run stock Linux and be used as a mini server or emulation/video set top box. They often originally came with Windows 7 embedded to be used as a remote desktop client.
i think a lot of PCs etc, from the late windows 7 era can still be used for other projects today, because the hardware side of it now has practically become a stale mate.
Honestly... these were an absolute win in heavy industry applications. I installed dozens of them in steel manufacturing plants for system displays, notification screens and equipment controllers. Super heated steel produces an absolute s**t load of interference and, obviously, a load of dust. We installed them in 12mm thick steel housings with remote air intakes/exhaust to provide shielding with low power displays in polycarbonate cases. Power delivery was simple using shielded CAT lines and the outlet was protected with a silicone boot. Last time I heard there's still a number of them running sensor systems and a few machine diagnostics.
laugh is where i worked i was expecting to see something like this knocking about, but they just used the standard PC, and thin clients with the wifi. The thin Clients were touch screen ran windows 7, those took care of the booking in system, which was a pain in the arse. Due to connection etc. They had more trouble with that, than the old time sheet system.
@@procta2343 paper always wins out in steel plants. Especially for the vital stuff like test certificates. Too many cases of data loss from EM issues... £1M of tested and certified steel suddenly becomes £300k of regular 🤦♂️🤣
@@hesperhurt yeah the laugh, we used data sheets to record everything down we made through out the shifts. But they decided in their daft wisdom to make everything computer based. Pain in the arse to setup before shift, pain in the arse to update while in production, and a nightmare if it acted up. Team leaders were for ever staying back to make sure all is ok. One of those things that should have stayed paper based.
I remember seeing ads for this computer in magazines years ago, and forgot it until I watch this video. Such amazing form factor, with today arms processors it will be amazing to see again this king of computer
now there is a one with a full x86 Intel Atom afaik
You know there's businesses out there with dozens of these, completely unused because they abandoned them for NUCs when the last IT guy quit
Very interesting little device, shame you couldn't get it to run any software, would have been cool to see Doom running on it.
The management software layers over ActiveDirectory and the management console is best compared GPO management. You push (signed) plugins such as Citrix, RDP or X, to the device, configure them using the policies. Those policies can also be used to lock down the device further or configure things such as display, mouse & keyboard, login settings, etc. There was only a limited amount of plugins available, and certainly no games.
Ok, so this is the old version. I actually made one of these back in 2011, I think, but I used an ARM system running Ubuntu Desktop. It worked perfectly for me and I used it as my office desktop for a number of years. But it's funny when you refer to web browsers as "very light-weight", because they are some of the heaviest and least efficient software products on the market for the things that these devices are designed for. But I made a web browser server on which I would run the actual web browser and then stream its screen to the client. But it worked very well and these types of computers should've been everywhere by now.
Oh wow that’s fascinating. Yeah that server approach would be a really nice way to do it, especially as usually the server running these things usually is tied to the DNS and firewalls, so the argument of a server going down would still cause a problem.
I slightly disagree with “should be everywhere now”, because there are a lot of use cases in which a dedicated desktop is preferable, but it would have been cool to see these take off more than what they did.
@@NaokisRC: It still works today; you could have a million dollar workstation and I could have a hundred dollar Raspberry and my screen would load faster than yours on the same internett connection. In Norway we say «don't cross the brook to find water».
It's theft proof because nobody would want to steal it
I JUST SUBSCRIBED FROM UR FIRST VIDEO THAT I WATCHED!!! I love retro stuff and especially retro pcs( it was also on my recommended page), so I found it very interesting AND I WOULD LOVE TO SEE UR CHANNEL GROW!!!
Here since 1.84K subs ❤
Nice to have a new video from you. Wow what a weird little thin client
Glad you enjoyed the video!
O.M.G. Thank you so much for this vidéo. I remmber this product from a picture so many years ago, thinking it was a pretty neat idea, while i have absolutely 0 need of this kind of product. It's definitively a back in time machine. I love that someone gave a novaday review of this product.
Cool video, I had no idea PCs like this existed!
you will be surprised, also you will get a surprise what Old Operating systems are still been in use today.
I've seen thin clients but this is super cool. A new one with modern i/o would make a cool nas server, especially since you can't turn it off! 😁
Nas with bunch of USB SSD hanging of them....
But nice idea to make them as media center and make more socket version of frame.
I'm loving that bag - getting proper flashbacks to portable projectors in the early 00's...
Chip PC and JackPC ( a brand of Chip PC) are still going strong. For someone in IT their systems were way ahead of the competition.
Thanks for reviewing this, chap! I had one of these in my spares box for a time but never got it working because it didn't have the proprietary ethernet connector or the back-box, and I couldn't find what voltage of PSU to connect in the front! It was eventually given away to someone else, and I understand it found an ongoing use with them as a living room endpoint for an HTPC built on an old 6U server sat in their garage! 😇
Just one thing though: If you have a system/VM running WinXP Professional to hand, this will happily run a WinNT 5,0 RDP server that'll accept incoming connections from other PCs (And Jack PCs) on the network and is good for testing stuff like this. Used to be a godsend for me when it came to running a few headless boxes I had at the time! 😀
Finally: Absolutely loving the dragon graphics here! They're _sooo_ darn cute! 🥰🐲😇
Ahh, think I temped in a place that was kitted out with these, or similar, around 2001? Didn't quite realise what I was looking at back then.
With XP you can choose to have a much more basic look without all of the soft colorful borders and all else. I think that may even be in newer versions of Windows. You know that Metro UI that was in Windows 8? It is still there in modern versions of Windows but turned off by default. You can turn it on very easily in taskbar settings somewhere. That is if you actually liked it. They could just as easily give you the same choices with all of the other annoying aspects of their GUI. I could imagine everyone going back to a more Windows XP look. The only difference is that some really old hardware for XP does not work on newer versions of Windows. I had a scanner that would not work on any version of Windows later than XP. I finally bought a more modern one and donated that other thing to Goodwill since it is still functional with a driver.
You have no idea what you are talking about.
You could possibly run these on a separated Poe switch to the rest of your network and build a switch power down cycle to save power over night
IRC they use 3W, more power uses monitor even in standby.
Whyyyyyy mounting one to the monitor stand was perfect lol!
This form factor is the funniest thing I've ever seen, it made me laugh out loud. I love it.
I love how at the end you were like yeah i dont want to set up a rdp service*which doesnt take long. Just totally kind of done with it and it was evident haha
The server was my only "I can screw about with this with no worries" windows machine. I use a Mac usually and setting up a MS RDP is possible but yeah I didn't want the hassle lol.
@NaokisRC And this was 100% what I was thinking when I saw this setup and everything about it. The server included. It looked as if owned by a Mac user haha. That being said, I found your video extremely informative and interesting and I personally love old hardware. As well as have messed around with my fair share of thin clients. Gotta say though. Imagine how impressive this is to someone that's never seen a raspberry pi. I mean a whole pc in an outlet is pretty incredible. If it didn't sound as if it was a raspberry pi zero inside of it
my doctor office had that in the early 2000s
The small form factor PCs from companies like Minis Forum are perfectly suitable almost as a drop in replacement for the hardware of this wall mounted tiny PC. They also stack the PCBs to reduce the size of their computers.
I think the modern-day equivalent of this would be the All-in-one PC.
That is a really cool profile and design. The poe support is the cherry on top. Really the only way you could do better would be an all in one poe powered thin client.
Definitely a conversation I would be having at the vr black cat about this type of old equipment
This would be a great form factor for building a PC into your furniture. Desk, sofa, recliner chair, beds, dressers, book cases, and so forth.
this stuff is brilliant!
In the mid 2000s I worked at a ChipPC importer/distributor. These devices were interesting to use, but ultimately was just another thin client, and therefore a solution looking for a problem.
I'm sure they're designed to be turned on and off via the PoE system instead.
Like, if it boots as soon as theres power, they can force a reboot remotely and what not.
I use to have one of these. its a odd thing, but very neat!
Could you not have a full bridge rectifier tied into the DC legs and run off the AC lines in the wall? That would make everything so much simpler
What? Poe is 48vac.
A whole PC? More like a *hole* PC
Enjoyed this video - first time watching your channel - but I feel like nobody's talking about that subtle nod to Michael MJD with the music choice when you hit your technical difficulties 😅
That was completely unintentional to be fair! I didnt watch MJD until after I had made this 😅
Regarding PoE always being powered - what you'd want to do is plug the device into a managed PoE switch, rather than that injector. The server could then remotely power-down the devices at the end of the day and turn off power delivery, and start them back up in the morning.
Might be interesting to make a Raspberry Pi CM4-powered version.
I know of a college that uses thin clients for all of the library computers (which when I was there were a pain to use as some of the virtual desktop environments were faulty, and would fail to log on, I frequently had to reboot it when trying to sign in so that I could try and connect to a virtual desktop environment that actually worked correctly)
And I am certain I’ve seen thin client laptops before, I seem to remember the school I went to in 2012 had laptops that would initiate a Remote Desktop connection when you signed in (that school even had a thing where you could sign in to a virtual desktop from home)
Thin client laptops definitely exist, you can get some made by Wyse. Parky Towers has a couple: www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/wyse/Xn0L/
as an IT guy, I would've loved if these caught on.
You could just quickly setup RDP on any Win10 and newer PC just in the settings.
I tried that but this RDP client doesnt connect to typical sessions it seemed. I thought it was to do with encryption but even turning it off I couldnt get it to work.
@@NaokisRC Ok, then its maybe a version problem, since RDP was modified on Windows8 and up to support h264 encoding if I remember correctly.
Maybe try setting up a Win7 PC and yeah 😅
Or try running xrdp on a Linux Machine... I guess Linux still supports the old Codec.
You could just pull on the screwed in vga plug
I'll have to see if I can find one of these. It could also RDP into a Linux box. That's great how you've got the full demo/sales kit.
i remember been shown one of these in college, When we did our mcp for windows XP, i think the college were evaluating these, but i don't think the idea ever came to fruition . We were amazed back then when we saw how small it was. i could see them been out of date very quickly sadly.
Power savings could be done centrally through the Switch Infrastructure by disabling PoE outside business hours
great video!
8:54 regarding the power consumption overnight, most businesses who used these or use POE powered devices in general; would have managed POE switches which you could set schedules for to power down devices overnight to conserve power.
10:10 Heh, the music makes me feel like I just joined the Black Cat on VRChat
Imagine if someone crammed an M1 chip, and a decent sized ssd into that plate. It would be the ultimate family desktop.
M1 is already a few years old though
@@memediatek Which makes it perfect. We can either salvage old chips, or repurpose unsold stock. I'm still using an M1 chip and it's working fine for me.
Oh hey! How did I miss this video. It's that lil' guy!
I feel like this would have been great for business oriented hotels, at least in the earlier days of mobile computing
Neat idea, I guess, but the one obvious disadvantage is that it is not at all portable. Far less portable, in fact, than a full-sized tower.
True story from my work place.
A colleague who was a field technician once told us that they got an incident where a server reported a broken RAM stick. Not a big deal, he thought, I order the spare parts, drive to the customer ( a post office) and replace the faulty part.
When he arrived at the Post office, none of the workers knew of any server of ANY sort. But yet, he could be accessed, he could be pinged.... just no one knew where it was.
After a few weeks of research, they found out that the server was INDEED there. Neatly surrounded by dry walls. The post office was resized and the workers didn't think much about "relocating that big metal thing with the loud fans and the blinking lights" and instead put up drywalls around it. When asked what was behind the walls, they just shrugged their shoulders and said something about "ventilation shaft", so no one questioned their answer.
When the drywall was ripped open, the server was right there. Sitting in 130°F hot air, but still functioning.
Wow! That sounds also very plausible for a post office 😅
I can totally see this used in a hospital setting.
yeah when i very 1st saw one, i thought yeah hospital and manufacturing, but in an office environment i could see them been out dated quite quickly with the software side of it,
I installed a bunch of these that were used with a point of sale system in a restaurant. Cabling was a nightmare when it was said and done. Had to use USB to RS232 adapters for the printers and cash drawers. Since everything was on the counter tops there was cabling and adapters everywhere.
Well that look upgradeable!😂
Basically it's a 2010s version of the terminals that were so common in the 1980s. They just renamed "mainframes/minicomputers" to "servers."
interesting but see no difference to just putting it on the back of an monitor or alternatvely using an aio
Just remembered Michael MJD received one as a viewer donation.
That's some pretty impressive equipment considering how long ago it came out and its overall size.
It was a cool idea back in the day but today a mini-PC is the solution.
Agreed
For office appointment scheduling, medical information, and basic office work this was an interesting way to set up an office environment. Minimizes chances of theft, and people playing games during company time lol
had those at mcdoanlds for our kitchen video system
this video spiraled big time 😆
It really did. I’m very grateful, just surprised!
I'd love to see something like that offered as part of a broadband install
Do-it-yourself wall 🧱 mount with Raspberry Pi.
Giving me SheevaPlug nostalgia...
I had completely forgotten about those!
@@Not31337 Seagate Dockstar, CloudPlug, TonidoPlug (I have this), QuadPlug, iConnect, PogoPlug, sipJack, GuruPlug, DreamPlug, CuBox.
would like to see a full installation to the server and the operation on this. I have this wall and 3 other single chip clients
I suppose in an office building, you would probably hook these up to a manageable poe-switch and then turn them off by disabling ports.
What a strange little computer. Very interesting though!
Thank you!
in my old corp we had one of these on the shelve when i started in 2011 and still in 2022
If you have a leak in the walls you ain’t safe there 😃
It's funny how we are just coming back to the mainframe-terminal framework.
At least with a Desktop PC most of your cables are hidden at the back.
If that could be a Powerful Windows 11 NO Bloatware PC then that would be the most POPULAR mini-PC ever
Power management could be handled at the switch level, or it’s possible the software supported scheduling, WoL, etc.
Management software*
if you go for the free evaluation unit is it actually free or no and do you have to return the pc after evaluation
I don’t know the answer to that unfortunately. I received the kit from a friend who didn’t specify
Having deployed over 150 of these things in an industrial environment, I can say that the sliding contacts are a pain in the butt after a few months. Even a slight bump may break the ethernet connection. We had to disable the speed autonegotiation on our PoE switches to avoid constant reevaluations...
If they weren't been replaced anyway because of resolution and speed issues we'd consider soldering pigtails directly to the contacts and cover everything with epoxy...
I Like it
"Use a knife and cut it out of the wall"
Try that one anywhere in the world that *doesn't* use shitty plaster walls.
To be fair a lot of office spaces are plaster board. But unless you chiselled out a box to mount this into a brick wall, youd end up with a box on the wall which you could still break off.
It's an interesting concept i guess now it would be more interesting to use in a company that has an azure domain and active directories and hyper-V Vm's even running windows 365 out of it i guess this may be a good investment for a small or medium enterprise
I'm perplexed, why not just build this into... or stick it on the back of... a monitor.
Certainly interesting for hiding a little computer in plain sight... I guess.
You mean an iMac or an iPhone? ;D
@@illsmackudownNope. Thin clients are supposed to be inexpensive and they're supposed to run useful OSs. not Mac. 🤦
@@forenamesurname5326 The original comment I replied to, is about hiding the computer behind the screen. 'Macintosh' is a computer, 'macOS' is the OS. I meant the Macintosh, the iMac. ;] Not the OS or Intranet part.
Mac OS X is quite useful, by the way. Don't just believe what people say. Try it yourself and only then speak.
Greetings!
Thumbnail and title alone gave me idea of like HDMI and USB (Maybe usb-c to which you connect dock ?) connection in wall socket that connect to one central computer/server.
Wanna sync files ? Connect to the wall !
Watch a movie ? Connect to the wall !
Gaming ? Connect to the wall !
Grete idea as long as you don't think about it !
To the comment about not being able to turn it off, it may be that offices with many of these deployed used PoE switches with control software that could shut PoE power off on a schedule. Power is killed at 6pm and returned at 7am, so as long as you didn't have any overtime, you'd be fine. 😁
It should be fanless and in any case the cavity should be opened up with the noggins above cut for venting or else a fan cut into the wall cavity itself.
Now someone needs to mod this so it connects to a PC somewhere else in the house using fiber optic, Linus Sebastian-style
With modern day miniaturized tech this kind of seems like a good base concept for schools
Robustness through simplicity of system, few reasons to run really more than a browser and maybe a text editor for an education computer
There is no reason for mobility in schools, in fact mobility enables theft concerns so this way even schools in "at risk neighborhoods" could be equipped with enough Computers to provide access and the regular reasons why that would be a problem wouldn't apply, but funding for something like this would be needed
And It allows for regular Buisness/Education Server based Domain OS Services as it can act as the terminal for virtualization
All in all probably a not that profitable but neat concept if it would have been further pursuit
Power state would be controlled by the poe switch to power it off and on for the day
I have seen RPi cases that fit on to 'top hat' rail.
This isn't a daft idea at all.
I remember these. I wanted to get some for the home to be media computers. Sadly just not enough horse power for that. Might be able to build a Rasberry Pi device like it now.... humm
If one of these does get stolen, that’s known as jack-jacking.
Raspberry pi style mini PCs in this form factor would be cool
Having used the thin client system at my university before, it likely sleeps automatically when you're logged off (if correctly configured) and you could down the power over ethernet system outside of office hours