[Build] Sprucing up the classrooms

[Torrie Fischer]

On Sunday, August 17, 2014 07:24:31 PM Rubin Abdi wrote:
> I have been sucking at the reply all game recently...
> 
> Mitch Altman wrote on 2014-08-17 13:41:
> > I think Shannon took the Hackitorium projector to a place for safe
> > keeping during the Reboot.
> 
> Good to know. I'd like to do the same treatment for cables with this as
> I'm doing in the classrooms, and run it all to a conduit box with a
> proper panel.
> 
> > Does anyone know what happen to the many flat screen panels that Dr.
> > Jesus bought back in 2009?  There was a big trunk full of them.  We
> > paid, like, $1,200 for them, as I remember.  It'd be cool if those
> > were available (assuming they are useable).
> 
> The panels were kind of a huge pain in the ass. Nils worked on Linux
> drivers for the touch digitizer that was a little finicky. We had to
> netboot special machines for the whole deal, in some particular order.
> They got pissy when the power got shut off, and they're VGA only. Many
> of these reasons and others are why the panels never really did anything
> interesting as no one wanted to deal with the headache. I think they
> could be better utilized in other projects than getting reinstalled.
> 

Touch drivers have improved significantly in the last few years. I like to 
believe that I know a lot of the internals of XOrg and how that sort of stuff 
works.

If I find one I'd love to play with it and get it hooked up to an RPI or 
somesuch.

> > If we need to buy Android tablets to do the cool panels-all-over
> 
> > Noisebridge thing:
> ...
> 
> Yeah, I'm pretty sure the ones on amazon for $50 are getting shipped
> from China. getting them for $15 cheaper would be nice but at that price
> point it's honestly not that big of a deal.
> 
> Jeffrey Carl Faden wrote on 2014-08-17 13:53:
> > I mentioned this over IRC, but I believe the Church projector's
> > flickering problem could possibly be solved with a good dusting.
> > That, of course, won't help its native XGA resolution.
> 
> I would say it's worth while to attempt to fix this projector, but not
> to throw anymore money into it other than for a bulb. We could
> re-purpose it for something other than the classroom, like ambient text
> stuff above the front door (next bart/bus?).
> 
> > One thing worth noting about the outlets throughout the classrooms
> > is, the way the Church projector is powered on is sort of
> > rudimentary, but it works: unplug and re-plug the projector. That,
> > of course, requires access to the plugs. If we wanted to do it some
> > other way, we'd need some sort of assurance that whatever remote or
> > not-so-remote controller turns the projector(s) on is securely
> > mounted.
> 
> Yeah I think if someone could 3d print a wall holster for the remotes,
> I'll attach those to them and the wall with some square head screws.

If you find something on thingiverse you like I'm sure that'd get someone's 
interest piqued. Maybe even a drawing of what you'd like.

> 
> > About HDMI to Mini-DisplayPort, there are a lot of computers without
> > either of those. Do you plan on providing access to VGA as well?
> 
> Most likely, unless I can't fit them both into the plastic conduit stuff
> I'm going to use.
> 
> > Regardless of specifics, thanks for this contribution!
> 
> Jah.