Building an Unattended Computer Presentation?

hastenslowly asks: "I'm a member of a non-profit Association restoring a 1920's gas station, here in the midwest, for National Historic Register status. I'd like to provide an 24/7 'unattended' audio (visual) presentation for visitors using an 'el cheapo' computer, monitor, and mouse. I'd like to connect the entire thing to the doorbell which, when triggered, will start the presentation. Can anyone steer me to some hardware, software (for whatever OS), programming, newsgroup or any other source of info, so I don't re-invent the wheel when I do this?"

Comments

Make sure the mouse has a long cord

[Anonymous Coward]

Make sure that the mouse has a long cord (so it can be dragged to the left side of the keyboard), or you have some sort of mouselike device (trackball/etc) mounted in the center in front of the keyboard. Otherwise, it is useless to anyone who is left-handed.

Also, something that reboots when it fails would be good. Otherwise, you'll have Blue Screen of Death, Guru (Amiga equivalent) or similar screens eventually.

Macromedia Director

[vasqzr]

Macro media's website

Author once and deploy anywhere with Director MX 2004, the proven multimedia tool for building rich content and applications for CDs, DVDs, kiosks, and the Internet.

Pretty much the standard for doing Kiosks since the early 90's.

Do you need a computer?

[AtariAmarok]

Do you even need a computer? If this presentation is not interactive, it could be recorded to tape and put in one of those video-display systems like they have had in hardware stores and Sears for years and years.

Here's an illustration

[AtariAmarok]

Here's a helpful illustration to get you started with your doorbell-mouse-computer device. Also see this one

First Idea

[Tux2000]

Connect the doorbell via opto coupler / relais or similar to a key on an old keyboard. Use an application that can restart a presentation when a single key is pressed. For example, Mozilla reloads the current page when F5 is pressed, so do Opera and the IE. Set a local html page as homepage, containing a Flash or similar presentation. Connect the doorbell interface to F5. Make the browser start when the OS starts. For Win9x, place a shortcut to the browser into %windir%\start menu\startup.

Tux2000

A related question...

[Singletoned]

What options are there for multi-platform multi-media presentations other than Macromedia?

Is there any open source solution?

Go solid state

[AvidGeek]

I would look at the products from http://akman.com/, they make solid state video and audio players for just this type of thing.

Cheap...

[djdanlib]

Well, you could go down to some used computer shop and pick up a $50 Pentium or 486 PC with Windows 95 on it, and a cheap 14" sub-$50 SVGA monitor, and put one of these combos on there. As long as you've got those minimum specs, you should be able to do any of these. Except for #3, which requires much beefier hardware.

1) Powerpoint ($$)
2) OpenOffice (Free) with either its Impress component, or Impress plus its built-in Flash movie (SWF) exporter (for which you will need the plugin, which is free) plus Mozilla (Free)
3) Flash development software ($$$) + Flash Plugin (Free) + Mozilla (Free) - note that this would require a much beefier system probably costing $300 or more.

So, you can do this for less than $100. That's about as cheap as you're going to get unless you do the VCR+TV idea someone else had.

Sorry about mentioning Powerpoint, but it's cheaper than Flash Studio for your purpose. Although, why would you use either of those when you can use OpenOffice for free?

The choice is up to you - hopefully my info will be useful in making that decision.

Re:Cheap...

[Andy_R]

The powerpoint viewer software is free, as is the playback component of flash, so if you go down either of those routes, you only need to *build* the presentation with the full version of the software, you don't need it to be on the playback machine.

It would help if you told us more about the presentation, does it need sound? interactivity (beyond the doorbell to start) etc.

Opera

[JohnQPublic]

Opera's "kiosk mode" is intended for just such uses. You get all the benefits of a web browser (links you can select, etc.) and it's neatly and easily secured against general use.

And they have a donation program for worthy causes, so the price might wind up being US$0.00

Re:Opera

[Rick the Red]

Mozilla's "kiosk mode" is also intended for just such uses, and worthy cause or not the price is exactly US$0.00.

Re:Opera

[iantri]

For those saying "But wait! Other browsers have a kiosk mode!!", Opera's is a little different.

Using XHTML and CSS it allows you to create a webpage that, when viewed in regular mode looks like a normal webpage, but when viewed in Kiosk mode magically turns into a Powerpoint-style presentation.

This page explains it -- in fact, it is a demonstration itself -- if you put Opera into full-screen mode on that page you will get exactly what I am talking about, a set of slides for a presentation.

Neat stuff.

Director / Flash

[dr00g911]

Have you considered the use of Macromedia Director?

Director has a pile of extensions to allow it to receive input from external apps -- serial port, X-10, etc. It's also much more suited to presentation work than, say, HTML or Powerpoint.

Just use an X-10 contact receiver to your existing doorbell, wire up your Mac/PC/Linux box with a reveiver and software and set your system's macros to emulate keypresses or launch the presentation from a black screen.

The guys above who said just rig an old keyboard's key to start / restart a presentation on a keypress have a great idea as well -- not as elegant, but way cheaper and easier.

Thanks, guys . . .

[hastenslowly]

I'll be donating a 50 or 90 MHz, 210 MB, floppy-based laptop and 15" monitor, but as far as commercial presentation 'authoring' software, DVD burners, . . I don't think I can justify the extra cost for this one project. Basically my initial thought was something like using simple, freeware WAV/MP3 players and/or a (*.jpg) 'slide slow' programs under DOS, Win95, . . . (gasp, I apologize) with 'batch' files/macros, C/Basic language programs, . . . (I'm really showing my age :-) looping on a 'screen-saver program' until a mouseclick/keypress starts the audio (visual) presentation. I DO appreciate everyone's replies, will delve into every one of them, and will keep everyone posted. And as they say in 'Ol Time Radio, "Please keep those cards and letters coming !" Regards. P.S. And AtariAmarok, thank you for alerting me to the ANL work. I worked for them some decades ago and I'll have to write the DOE a nasty letter for wasting our taxpayer dollars by not commercializing/'productizing' it yet. :-)

Revolution

[paugq]

Try Revolution. It's like Macromedia Director, but it's available for Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, Mac OS, Mac OS X, AIX, Solaris, SunOS, HP UX and SGI Irix

Doorbell pushbutton to Mouse switch candidate

[hastenslowly]

Just found this http://www.dmb-ergonomics.com/footmouse.htm for connecting the doorbell pushbutton.