OT (?) Laptop as terminal

D Yuniskis · 2011-04-13T03:39:23+00:00

Hi,I run a lot of headless machines. From time to time,a machine fails to boot to multiuser run level. So,I can't "talk" to it with my normal mechanisms.Presently, I have a tiny (7" dia) LCD monitor and asimilarly sized keyboard (perhaps 10" wide) that Idrag out to coax the machine back to life.[I have no desire to leave a keyboard/monitor attachedto *every* machine -- hence "headless" -- nor can Iuse a KVM to "share the cost" of a monitor/keyboard]Despite their small sizes, this is a royal PITA.But, I frequently run across discarded laptops ("lastyear's model", "too slow for WIndows-du-jour", etc.)!So, I'm wondering how painful it would be to gut oneof these and convert it to a "LCD monitor + keyboard"(+ pointing device)? I figure the pointing deviceoften is a USB/PS2 interface even though it lies entirelywithin the laptop case. I suspect the keyboard isn't*quite* that easily partitioned -- but, scanning akeyboard and implementing a PS2/USB interface wouldn'tbe a difficult challenge.The real issue is the display itself. It seems like eachmodel has it's own particular interface (to the panel itself).Or, are these subsets/supersets of some common implementation?I.e., could I hack an LCD monitor controller to talk to onewithout lots of careful "matching"?It seems like this would be a nice, low complexity "open sourcehardware" project. Laying out a board for "quantity one" isjust ridiculous -- I can keep using the 7" monitor and keyboard.OTOH, laying out a board, keeping one (or three?) for myself andthen letting others "assemble their own" seems like somethingworthwhile...Comments?--don