WW: Colo Vending Machine

Mon Feb 20 21:14:48 UTC 2012

Ive wished this for years. Seems like it could be easy to achieve in theory. 

-Mario Eirea

On Feb 20, 2012, at 11:55 AM, "Matthew Petach" <mpetach at netflight.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 7:34 AM, Jon Lewis <jlewis at 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
> 