Evidently nostalgia is big right now, because we're smack in the middle of a hot and heavy old-school rumor revival. First there was our playful resurrection of the old Disney-Apple buyout story-- a classic for the ages. Not long after, one Wall Street analyst chimed in with an opinion that a Sun-Apple merger might make more sense; those of you who have been around for awhile remember a similar scenario making the rounds back in the Scary Times of the mid-'90s. And what about old product rumors? Just yesterday the alleged mention of an iPad gave new life to the Apple handheld speculation, and the age-old "Apple-branded PCI expansion chassis" is now back in the rumor mill, too. What next in the Parade of Ancient Rumors?

We'll tell you what's next: the Apple Network Computer, that's what's next. Yes, as faithful viewer dabiz tipped us off, the alleged "Mac thin client" that appeared in AtAT's historic first official episode way back in August of 1997 is now back with a vengeance, thanks to some terrific unsubstantiated dirt over at wincent.org. Sure, it's all branded as "forward-looking analysis," but don't let that keep you from whipping yourself into a frothing speculative frenzy.

Here's the skinny: now that Mac OS X is finally a mere eleven days from release, Apple is reportedly turning up the heat on developing inexpensive, diskless thinMacs that can act as remote clients to a server running Rhapso-- uh, Mac OS X. The capability has been in the software since NeXTSTEP, which allowed one computer to NetBoot from another. Imagine being able to sit down at any of fifty thinMacs in a college lab, for example, type in your username and password, and watch your terminal boot via the network with your own personal Desktop, preferences, applications, and files.

It's not sci-fi; people have been doing stuff like this for over a decade-- just not on Macs. Given Apple's push to reclaim the top spot in education sales, thinMacs bundled with Mac OS X servers might well be one part of a nifty strategy to get Macs back into school labs. Toss AirPort into the equation and you're looking at a really compelling possibility. We picture each kid filing into the classroom, grabbing a wireless iBook-style thinMac from the charging station, sitting wherever they like, and logging in. Since the thinMacs have no hard disks, there are no moving parts to break, and the kids are free to mill about the classroom with their computers and collaborate. It could be very neat.

This is all a pretty logical direction for Apple to take, but wincent.org seems to be stating (without any actual evidence, mind you) that Apple is past the concept stage with this project. The part that triggers our skepticism reflex, though, is wincent.org's assertion that Apple's thin client "will use AMD chips" instead of a PowerPC. Not that it's technically impossible, or anything, since all the thinMac needs is a Quartz interpreter and code to handle slinging packets back and forth over a wire (the applications are all run on the PowerPC server, anyway), but given the PowerPC's suitability for use in embedded devices, we can't see why Apple would bother going Athlon in a thin client.

But whatever. We're just happy to have another ride on the Nostalgia Train. All aboard!