On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 7:34 AM, Jon Lewis <jlewis@lewis.org> wrote:
Speaking of that sort of thing, I'd really LOVE if there were a device about the size of a netbook that could be hooked up to otherwise headless machines in colos that would give you keyboard, video & mouse. i.e. a folding netbook shaped VGA monitor with USB keyboard and touchpad. I know there are folding rackmount versions of this (i.e. from Dell), but I want something far more portable. Twice in the past month, I'd had to drive 100+ miles to a remote colo and took a full size flat panel monitor and keyboard with me. Has anyone actually built this yet?
Seeing as how most laptops have a VGA connector and a keyboard/mouse connector on them, albeit wired in the wrong direction (VGA connector feeds video out from the video card, keyboard port takes in input from external keyboard), the wiring and hard parts are already mostly done; I'd *love* to have a vendor release a laptop line that has a toggle switch on it that a) only engages when the laptop is off, and b) flips the logic--keyboard port gets connected to the output of the laptop keyboard, and sends data out rather than receives data, while the VGA port is disconnected from the video card, and is instead connected to the LCD panel of the laptop. If an enterprise vendor added support for a toggle like that, I'm sure there would be dozens of companies that would order them in a heartbeat, to be able to do away with the constant need for crash carts rolling around the datacenter aisles. Heck, even I'd order one--I could finally get rid of the old monitors I keep around the house for debugging random server problems in the rack upstairs. :/ Matt