Magical Video Toaster Adventure extreeme!

[TimeSquid]

Hello all!

So Im going to attempt to put my brand new amiga video toaster 4000 system into a roadcase, and use it live on tour!... crazy I know... but Im set on it.

So Ive not really had too much experience with this thing, some questions:

How hot does the amiga unit get, am I going to need to be worried about heat, and add extra ventaliation, maybe an extra fan and more holes in the box itself.

Ive just orgered what I need to use a PC monitor, and so will get a light and tiny 9" monitor. :
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=350248736612&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

Ive also just ordered a Lyra PC II amiga Keyboard adaptor, so I can find a much smaller keyboard alternative.

Im installing a mouse flip out shelf for it... but am also looking into a PC monitor with touchscreen capabilities, how amazing would a touch screen Amiga be?!!?! has anyone ever attempted it?

Shrinking... anything I can do to reduce weight and or size that you know of?

I guess Im looking for advice, and warnings on this journey, I think Ive done substantial research and have the keyboard and monitor issues figured out. Now its all about covering all my bases.

[Heiroglyph]

I've had heat issues on 4000 desktops with Flyers to the point that I've left the case off of them.

If you have a tower or no Flyer, it may not be an issue.

Depending on the cost you can afford, if you are using a Flyer, the Flyer SSD drives from DiscreetFX would be much smaller and cooler than a stack of old SCSI drives.

Using a CF drive instead of IDE would reduce the heat and improve the performance as well.  The drives and the Toaster/Flyer are a lot of the heat.

Also, SSDs and CF drives are shock resistant.

[Heiroglyph]

One more thing, make sure that the CPU card is secure.  If the plastic standoffs are missing or broken (not uncommon), the CPU card may come lose and do damage.

[orb85750]

Do you have a flyer board too?  Are you recording onto hard disk?

[hardlink]

Hello all!

So Im going to attempt to put my brand new amiga video toaster 4000 system into a roadcase, and use it live on tour!... crazy I know... but Im set on it.

... but am also looking into a PC monitor with touchscreen capabilities, how amazing would a touch screen Amiga be?!!?! has anyone ever attempted it?

Hey, you just swiped my idea from last week! Give it back I am still trying to decide which model to stuff in the roadcase.

Not only have people attempted touchscreens, they have succeeded. Someone from our user group wrote and marketed a children's learning game called KidSTOP that used a touchscreen, and I helped him demo it in St Louis one year. The kids ( and the adults ) had a good time poking at the screen to play the game.
GP Software used to sell a commercial TS driver, perhaps it even worked with DOpus. However, I have been looking for the drivers for over 5 years now. The guy in our UG moved long ago, and GP has not sold Amiga software for what, a decade?

Once again, if anybody has Amiga touchscreen drivers, please stand up.

[Ral-Clan]

Once again, if anybody has Amiga touchscreen drivers, please stand up.

Back in the 1990s, didn't a few companies market Amiga based kiosks (for shopping malls, museums, etc.) that used touch-screen technology?

[AmigaEd]

In just quickly thinking about this... if finding a touchscreen driver is a problem, then why not skip it.

What I'm thinking is something along the following lines...
1. Get a touch screen with a serial interface.
2. Install this on to a Winblows PC
3. Watch how the touch screen communicates with the PC by taping into the serial comms either by hardware or software.
4. Create a microcontroller hardware interface that translates touchscreen serial data to Amiga mouse port data. (sort of tricking the Amiga into thinking the mouse is talking to it when it fact the touchscreen is.)

I realize this is quite simplified and there are many considerations such as brand, model, etc of touchscreen (Hey! this is my idea and I reserve the right to brand it with my own silly C= based logo, fight over my copyrights and use another persons artwork to depict the product even if it doesn't look anything like the end product.) (Sorry, just had to get that out of my system.)

On a serious note, I've got some mircocontrollers laying around and a couple of old touchscreens in my storage. I might dig them out and give this a go.

Regards,
AmigaEd

[TCMSLP]

A look at the Linux source for touch screen support may be useful?  I worked with touch screens under Linux many years ago ... I can't remember if the touch coordinates were sent over USB or serial but I don't think there was much decoding involved (beyond basic driver to interface with X).  I'm not a programmer though ... so maybe I've underestimated the work involved

[TimeSquid]

Heiroglyph - thank you for the warning, and advice... Ill open it up this week and find out alot more.

orb85750 - I am going to have to run some tests, Im pretty sure Ive got the flyer... Not sure If I plan on recordingto HD.  hardlink  - Its a great idea... portable plug and play amiga video toaster could  be the ultimate... I also plan on modifying whatever keyboard I get to  take midi in triggers for switching inputs and transitions.

So this is a picture of the rig, the top for it is very deep/expandable,  so I would be building everything upwards. to fit an amiga... All the  powerbricks and heat from them is definately going to be an issue...  ontop of the amiga heat.

 http://c4.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/13/l_c880cd5297914e44939da54ba25b7c2f.jpg

part of me is saying to just build a seperate roadcase for the amiga  with a breakout box for all the patching, so I dont have to repetadly be  attaching and reattaching BNC cables 3 times a week.

Thank you all

[TimeSquid]

As far as a touchscreen, I wont get my hopes up.