The concept behind MarioNet was to build a thin-client browser to provide web-based content to very small client platforms with little RAM or ROM and minimal processing power.
The remote controlled client was a small graphics engine which simply uncompressed and displayed images and relayed mouse movements and keystrokes (hence the marionette play on words).
A cyber cafe was created in the school's library comprising a Linux web server appliance and legacy 286 PCs running the client part.
The trial generated some interest in the media[2][3] and received a further boost when Sir George Young MP, attended a demonstration given by Gross at Kimpton School.
[4] Despite early interest, the team struggled to raise the funding required to patent the invention and develop the concept into a commercial product, so iCentrix was dissolved when Gross joined Citrix UK in Cambridge later on in 1999.