terminal' had been chosen to distinguish such terminals from text-based terminals, and thus put the emphasis heavily on graphics – which became obsolete as a distinguishing characteristic in the 1990s as text-only physical terminals themselves became obsolete, and text-only computer systems (a few of which existed in the 1980s) were no longer manufactured. The term 'thin client' also conveys better what was then viewed as the fundamental difference: thin clients can be designed with less expensive hardware, because they have reduced computational workloads. By the 2010s, thin clients were not the only desktop devices for general purpose computing that were 'thin' – in the sense of having a small form factor and being relatively inexpensive. The nettop form factor for desktop PCs was introduced, and nettops could run full feature Windows or Linux; tablets, tablet-laptop hybrids had also entered the market. However, while there was now little size difference, thin clients retained some key advantages over these competitors, such as not needing a local drive. However, 'thin client' can be a misnomer for slim form-factor computers using flash memory such as compactflash, SD card, or permanent flash memory as a hard disk substitute. In 2013, a Citrix employee experimented with a Raspberry Pi as a thin client. Since then, several manufacturers have introduced their version of Raspberry Pi thin clients. See also Other client types Dumb terminal: Like thin clients, but have zero local processing power and support no peripherals Rich client: Have ample local processing power, although they are heavily network-dependent Diskless node: It has no local storage (e.g. no hard disk drives) but may have anything else that a full workstation has Related concepts Centralized computing Desktop virtualization Multiseat configuration Time-sharing Others AOL TV Blade PC Sun Ray Network Computer: a diskless desktop computer device made by the Oracle Corporation from about 1996 to 2000 References Computing output devices Microcomputers Networking hardware