Comment by frankus
5 days ago
This would have been super helpful like 20 years ago when I was on the data center floor trying to debug rack-mount (headless) Linux servers. The center had like one KVM "crash cart" that needed to be plugged into a spare outlet in the rack that wasn't always easy to come by.
I'm sure we could have improved on that setup but we were an inexperienced skeleton crew on a shoestring budget and not the best management.
I always thought it would be great to have a "laptop without a motherboard" to manage these, and this is close enough given the price of the redundant hardware now.
> I always thought it would be great to have a "laptop without a motherboard"
That's basically what a rack console is. At 1U it was skinnier than laptops from prior decades. They're not exactly a laptop form factor, but to get them smaller you would have had to accept a much lower screen resolution, which would risk some systems not being able to display (e.g. your server may have booted-up to 1280x1024 while your laptop could only do 800x600), or would have needed to be quite expensive to add an ultra-high DPI screen.
Still, at various times there were briefly devices like that available for purchase at closeout prices... like the failed "Motorola ATRIX lapdock":
https://www.cnet.com/reviews/motorola-laptop-dock-review/
https://www.amazon.com/AT-Laptop-Dock-Motorola-ATRIX/dp/B004...
I'd say the USB-HDMI capture card is a better solution all-around. I even prefer it to USB "crash carts" because you aren't dependent on the manufacturer keeping their proprietary software software updated for each subsequent Windows/Linux/Mac release.
We actually HAD literally that - I don't recall which model it was, but someone found a laptop that internally had PS/2 and VGA I believe, and had rewired it to have cables hanging out of it.
Advantage - battery still somewhat worked so you could get a few minutes (often all you needed) with just that.