It would be nice to have a simple way to trip an external flashing alarm
beacon when attention is needed, .. no operator is normally at this system.
Has anyone run across a simple way to trip an external beacon? USB? Adding a
I/O card seems pretty overkill, especially as external relays require a four
slot minimum, .. the parallel port is already tied up with a printer.
If the machine already has speakers and a sound card, you could add
one of those usb-powered, sound-activated lights, like this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16800700006
and play an alert song when necessary.
Otherwise splicing an LED into the system speaker would probably be
easiest, unless you also need the system beep for something else.
How about putting a cd in that has "CALL THE TECH ASAP" written on it, and
eject the cd when there's a problem?
If you don't use the floppy, make a cover for it that reads "<--- Error
Light" and run `disklabel /dev/fd0c` when there's a problem.
This could also be a good use for cheap, poor-performance NIC's - move one
of its LED's to the front of the case and only use that NIC when there's
trouble.
More simply, if the system has a permanent monitor, display a message on
that.
Good luck,
-f
http://www.blackant.net/
Thanks!
Lee
