I have a potentially interesting suggestion regaurding the serial LCD's and mounting brackets.
First of all, I'd like to say I love CrystalFontz products. They are extremely high quality and flexible. I love the simplicity of the serial units and brackets. Only a couple things have bugged me:
1) Having to snake the serial cable outside the back of the computer... this always seemed hackish to me.
2) The large amount of blank space on the mounting brackets.
I've come up with a great way to solveboth problems: make a new version of the brackets with a USB hub in them, and a built-in USB/serial converter. Most motherboards today have a 9 or 10 pin riser for additional USB ports internally, meaning only having to feed a thin ribbon cable to the motherboard, rather than out the back of the chassis. In addition, this gives you front-mounted USB ports -- great for people like me who use USB game pads and digital cameras. The 632 PC Mounting Bracket could easilly be modified to put the LCD off-center (to either the left or right), and have 4 USB ports. Assuming they were offered in both colors, I'd buy one for every desktop PC I have (currently 4).
First of all, I'd like to say I love CrystalFontz products. They are extremely high quality and flexible. I love the simplicity of the serial units and brackets. Only a couple things have bugged me:
1) Having to snake the serial cable outside the back of the computer... this always seemed hackish to me.
2) The large amount of blank space on the mounting brackets.
I've come up with a great way to solveboth problems: make a new version of the brackets with a USB hub in them, and a built-in USB/serial converter. Most motherboards today have a 9 or 10 pin riser for additional USB ports internally, meaning only having to feed a thin ribbon cable to the motherboard, rather than out the back of the chassis. In addition, this gives you front-mounted USB ports -- great for people like me who use USB game pads and digital cameras. The 632 PC Mounting Bracket could easilly be modified to put the LCD off-center (to either the left or right), and have 4 USB ports. Assuming they were offered in both colors, I'd buy one for every desktop PC I have (currently 4).
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