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The Sun Ray 170: A Thin Client with a View While Sun Microsystems is perhaps best known for its powerful SPARC workstations and servers, the company also ventured into the world of thin clients with its Sun Ray series. Among these, the Sun Ray 170, introduced around December 2004, stood out as an integrated thin client built directly into a 17-inch LCD monitor. The Sun Ray concept, which originated in Sun Labs in the late 1990s, was based on the idea of a "stateless" desktop. Unlike traditional computers, Sun Ray thin clients had minimal local processing power and no local storage. Instead, they relied entirely on a central server running Sun Ray Server Software to provide the user's desktop session. This approach offered significant advantages in terms of management, security, and "hot-desking," allowing users to access their session instantly from any Sun Ray client by simply inserting their smart card. The Sun Ray 170 integrated the thin client hardware directly into the monitor chassis, creating a clean and compact desktop footprint. It featured a 17-inch LCD display with a resolution of 1280x1024, along with essential ports like Ethernet, USB for peripherals, and audio jacks. A key feature was the integrated smart card reader, central to the hot-desking functionality. It also included a projector port, making it convenient for presentations. The Sun Ray 170, like other Sun Ray models, was managed centrally by the Sun Ray server software, which could run on Solaris or Linux servers. This centralized architecture simplified deployment, updates, and administration compared to managing individual desktop PCs. The Sun Ray series, including the 170, represented Sun's vision of network computing, where the network was the computer. While thin clients didn't entirely replace traditional desktops, the Sun Ray platform was successful in various enterprise and educational environments that valued centralized management and secure access. The Sun Ray product line was eventually discontinued by Oracle after acquiring Sun.