I don't think there are that many 286s or 386s left in schools. Using older machines as terminals has a few technical issues.
1. Best to use a decent resolution eg 1024 x 768 in 16 bit colour. This > requires 2 meg of video ram and its often difficult to upgrade pre Pentium machines.
It's usually the monitor that goes with the old machine which won't do that resolution, or is suffiently fuzzy to make 1024 pixels look interesting.
2. If you want to use etherboot you have to have a bios that will boot from a network. Some early ones don't although some can be flashed to update them.
Now you do, but not quite true. I remember very old 286's (discless stations) from RM, which used proms on network cards to remote boot from a Novell server. I don't remember Network boot BIOS settings, however my memory be be faulty; this was 1990.
For these reasons I think its best to use pentiums as the lowest spec for > terminals unless you already have a supply of machines you know will work.
-- ******************************************************************************** All mail sent and received may be examined to prevent transmission of unacceptable material. Wellington College does not accept responsibility for email contents. Problems to postmaster@wellington-college.berks.sch.uk. Website: http://www.wellington-college.berks.sch.uk ********************************************************************************