Having previously established that professionally made kiosks were beyond my means ($500 budget, remember?) and regarding kids apps on a tab too feeble a solution, I chose the natural path of a computer and a touchscreen monitor. In this post I'll go through my choices as well as other available options to anyone thinking of attempting a similar job.
Our hardware considerations are primarily driven by the apps to be ran on the kiosk. As most of them are very spartan in their requirements, let's look at the operating systems requirements. Our two options are Windows and Linux (Mac's O/S's are not meant to run outside Apple hardware so I left it out altogether). Surprisingly, even Windows 7 (the most touch-friendly version at this point in time) has remarkably low spec requirements. Briefly:
- Windows 7 (Home Premium):
- 1GHz 32-bit CPU (OK, here Microsoft is getting ridiculous as 2+ GHz is more like it but it's indicative of the point)
- 1 GB RAM
- 16 GB HDD space
- Linux (Edubuntu)
- 1GHz 32-bit CPU
- 512 MB RAM (1 GB recommended)
- 20 GB HDD space
- OpenGL hardware acceleration GPU for 3D effects (optional)
Looking at the above, it's pretty clear that any PC of the last decade (i.e. going all the way back to 2002) would/could suffice. On a related note, any laptop from the last 5-6 years would also cut it (3D and hardware acceleration could be patchy due to Intel's old(er) GMA's that weren't too focused on graphics power at all).
In my case, as with many other projects, I went to the "scrapyard" of our company's IT department and started a rummage through. It's incredible what dated hardware one can find in a company's "unwanted" piles. In my case, I was given slim desktop recently decommissioned after 6 years of hard slog. So here's what I got for free:
Here's what this little gem came with (apart from a lorryload of cemented dust):
- 3.0 GHz P4 (Yes, there used to be a Pentium line and they tended to be pretty good at the time)
- 2 GB of RAM (I know, it's the slow-go DDR2 variety but multitasking isn't a factor here)
- 80 GB HDD (Yippie, enough space for a couple of partitions)
- An X600 ATi GPU (Although produced in 2004, t still works with Windows Aero and Unity's Shell)
Probably not a very modern box but it will do nicely. As I wrote above most 5-year old laptops would be able to do the same while providing a more compact form factor. I'd personally gravitate towards an old laptop, however, given that the box came for free, I couldn't resist it.
Screen
The screen is meant to be the only interacting device so it needs to be touch-capable (multi touch is a bonus although depending on age, single touch may be more appropriate at the start). It also needs to be supported by the underlying O/S's be it Win or Linux. Ideal size for such a screen would be anywhere between 14" and 19".
I looked through several examples and must conceed that 3M's screens are the most widely supported and adopted by the industry. However, the normative word here being "industry" it also means exorbitant pricing. A 3M 15" touch monitor could set you back as much as $500 alone! It certainly delivers on important points like chemical and weather resistance as well as having a solid warranty for 3 years. However, this is no POS terminal and costs have to be kept in check.
I then turned to consumer touchscreens which have begun to trickle into the market. With some astonishment I realised that consumer touch displays don't come in small sizes. There's virtually no consumer (i.e. affordable) touchscreen monitor below the 21" size! Again, with the primary focus on costs, I turned to
HP's 2310ti which is a massive 23" screen with fullHD which is certainly overkill spec-wise, until one sees that these babies go for just under $300.
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| HP 2310ti |
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Other interesting tidbits of this screen:
- Certified to work on Win7 with multi-touch
- Has been reported as working with Ubuntu's Natty (11.04)
- USB connector for the touch interface
- Integrated speakers (quite important if you don't want to shell out for extra speakers)
I intended to use both Win7 and Edubuntu (Ubuntu's Education-focused distro) for different reasons for each. For example:
- Win 7
- Any and all BIOS upgrades on the Dell box can only happen via Windows (or fiddling with USB sticks)
- Certified multi-touch out of the box
- Group Policies enabling flexibility on set-up user accounts and layouts
- Many games are Windows only (although I fail to see why!)
- Edubuntu
- A Linux distro specifically targetted at educational environments (and that's what the aim of this project is, to be educational instead of nonsensical)
- Variety of ready made tools for administration and management
- A multitude of packages aimed at toddlers to play with
- Natively running all of Android apps (there seems to be an explosion of kid-friendly apps and Linux is the best place to exprience them)
- Significantly leaner O/S requirements
Right now, I'm in the process of installing the two O/S's, backing them up and getting them ready for tweaking. Once I'm done, I'll start the next post on customisation for purpose. While the posts have been relatively spartan picture-wise, expect many many shots of the ongoing tinkering....
