[150275] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: WW: Colo Vending Machine
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mario Eirea)
Mon Feb 20 16:15:47 2012
From: Mario Eirea <meirea@charterschoolit.com>
To: Matthew Petach <mpetach@netflight.com>
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2012 21:14:48 +0000
In-Reply-To: <CAEmG1=p43Zr9ZADS-KB7zkEC6gY-xZ+SWnOh8WwioEJr40RUgg@mail.gmail.com>
Cc: "nanog@nanog.org" <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
Ive wished this for years. Seems like it could be easy to achieve in theory=
.=20
-Mario Eirea
On Feb 20, 2012, at 11:55 AM, "Matthew Petach" <mpetach@netflight.com> wrot=
e:
> 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 a=
bout
>> the size of a netbook that could be hooked up to otherwise headless mach=
ines
>> 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 somethin=
g
>> 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?
>=20
> 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. :/
>=20
> Matt
>=20
