+1 on the suggestion for a SpiderDuo as portable KVM+your own laptop.
Solves the problem and leverages the hardware you already have. Works
great!
Anyway: Bluetooth-to-Serial has been around for years; I did a review of
several of them a while ago, even connecting with a Nokia phone (this
was before iPhone/iPad existed) in a little Interop video piece in
Network World.
The IOGear BT-to-Serial is the most common nowadays; it is inexpensive
and works pretty well and it is specifically designed for this kind of
console environment. It draws 9V, so you can make a 9V
battery-to-device adapter for about $2 with parts you get at Digikey if
you want total portability.
There are also more 'industrial' versions which are designed for
longer-term use. My favorite is the BluePortXP, which has an integrated
rechargeable battery, a nice little antenna, and can be externally
powered if needed. That's pricey, closer to $200 as I remember, but it
is designed for longer-term use in a single location. There are others
along this line, a quick Google search will find them, mostly in the
industrial PC-type businesses.
The one I actually use almost every day is called a BlueConsole. These,
unfortunately, are not available anymore. A Cisco engineer in Florida
(I think) made them as a "Garagatronics" project years ago. It is a
lovely piece of work, available with either a DB9 OR a RJ45 male on it,
a 9V battery connector on the other end, and also powered from the
serial port if available. You can dangle the RJ45 one from a Cisco
router literally forever without a battery and it will BT-to-serial for
20 or 30 feet. If you can find one, buy it as it's the perfect
compromise between the BluePort and the IOGear.
jms
--
Joel M Snyder, 1404 East Lind Road, Tucson, AZ, 85719
Senior Partner, Opus One Phone: +1 520 324 0494
j...@opus1.com http://www.opus1.com/jms
