Touch screen monitor OR Tablet PC?

hdmi doen't work 2 ways (though it could). it's an output. tablets just aren't for general computing. they have all the power and some connectivity but the only real 2 way interfaces are wifi, bluetootth, usb with some restrictions and sometimes cellular and near field communication. bluetooth and wifi are the best bets for networking though usb may work. the only ways i know of to get external video on a tablet are vnc and dlna(must be media files, not real time monitor output) and i think there is a way to get xorg over ssh with a special application. that and web based services but don't know much about that.

you already expressed issues with vnc. though i did just see a friend get a box that runs hdmi over ethernet. i'm not really sure how that works with drm and it might only be decoded by the special receiver. i'm not really sure. but it looks like a mess of external hardware will be needed between wifi connections and video converters. had your computer preformed better o the latency tests with vnc it would be easy. there are many vnc android apps. no need for hacking.

play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=au...rkside.XServer&hl=en

you can try this but i have no idea if it can render modern x applications.

and since you are shopping on e-bay anyway some good new used stuff shows up though they wont have nice response like a high end tablet. if you are up to increasing the screen size to 15"+ i forgot that many resturant point of sales computers have exactly what you'll need. usb touch and vga.

www.ebay.com/itm/ELO-touchscreen-compute...6sd%3D160960686460%6

www.ebay.com/itm/Proximus-7-inch-Mini-US...&hash=item19d8657a2f

www.ebay.com/itm/SOundGraph-FingerVU-706...&hash=item3cce7660dc

I've been fooling around with a tablet (Acer A1-830 x86 dual proc 1024 x 768 8" diagonal capacitative screen) on android using the AndroidVNC app as a client and using the Ubuntu 8.04 LinuxCNC version.

The Ubuntu install already includes a VNC server onboard -- all you have to do is enable it in Preferences Remote Desktop. It took awhile for me to get handshake between the two because I was fooled by the "Remote Desktop" designation into thinking it needed an RDP client, rather than VNC. I also found that the Ubuntu server treats an IP address like 192.168.1.201:1 as meaning Screen 1 while the VNC client treats 192.168.1.201:1 as Port 1, but after I fgured out what client to use and what the port and screen designatons were, I was able to connect.

I did try running a simulation in LinuxCNC with tablet control of the desktop and it did work, though the Axis GUI buttons are too small to be comfortable on this screen size. Ideally something like Touchy size buttons would be perfect, but Touchy requires a jog wheel, as I understand it and my mill also is stepper driven, not scale/servo, etc.

I haven't tried to check latency yet, was mainly involved in trying to get server and client to work together. But will soon. I'd greatly appreciate it if someone has suggestions about a GUI with larger buttons -- ideally square buttons with good separaton between for something like this to avoid press ambiguity.

Anyway, I thought current progress would be of interest here. My tablet cost $89 on EBay, mfr refurbed -- I think new they are $150 or so. I did try running Debian on the tablet, but find that AndroidVNC app in Android to have better touch response than a true full desktop linux for this particular purpose.

Here in The Netherlands the ELO 15" 1024x768 monitors pop up from time to time on the online marketplace for prices in the $50-$150 range. Those things are a fairly safe bet.

Accessing the LinuxCNC box using a tablet works fine here BTW. Good response, no measureable impact on latency. But that is with a Pentium G3258 in the LinuxCNC box running x11vnc and a Google Nexus 7 tablet.