Hi Bastiaan (or any other experimenters), As you are playing around with electronic stuff, would you please consider an additional project?
I need a cheap design (made from salvaged, common electronic parts would be ideal) for a *pass through* box, to be used to check the operation of basic computer hardware (like mouse, keyboard, drives, printers, etc). The box should have connectors for all the possible *normal* computer accessories AND have switches mounted to turn off the source of power from reaching the connectors (each connector should have its own switch). I'll also need to run jumpers from the power cords and connectors inside the computer (to check the drives), but for that I'll just add some home-made plugs and install them in place of a card. So, the box should have ALL the connectors included. It sounds a lot like overkill, but I want to use it with handicapped kids and need some extra protection built in (partly as protection and partly as an extra step to reinforce the need for safety). I want it to be as foolproof as possible, but yet be built with common hardware (so that anybody could copy the idea and use locally available parts). I don't know if the kids could hurt themselves with the 5 or 12 volt coming from the power supply, but I'd like to create protection from that. What I want to do is to give handicapped kids some basic tasks (like checking and cleaning components), but completely isolate the actual computer from the kid. This is because some kids can't maneuver (for example, with wheelchairs) around a desktop computer. With extension cables and a *pass through* box, they would only need access to the box - much easier for them to do without assistance. The box should run on a 386 or a 486. It's only purpose is to provide an easy way to connect peripherals and check them for operation. I expect to normally use the 386 as the test machine and an additional 486 as a regular computer which would contain the operational instructions (as well as other programs). The instructions should use only text and low-level graphics (for example, 16 color BMP). Hypertext links would be used between pages. All of it will run as an Arachne application. Thanks for whatever help you can offer. Bob - ________________________________________________________________ Sign Up for Juno Platinum Internet Access Today Only $9.95 per month! Visit www.juno.com
