Does such a computer device exist?

I’ve inherited three different computers of varying vintages. Is there any doohickey that I can plug the monitor cable into that would then have outlets on the other side going to the various computers.

I have only one monitor, and it’s a pain to switch. This way, whichever one I fired up would display without a single hitch.

Any ideas???

blackbox.com probably has something. Call their ordering line and describe your situation to them.

I’ve seen these. check out tigerdirect.com

They’re called KVM switches, which stands for Keyboard, Video, Mouse.

Belkin (http://www.belkin.com) makes nice ones that I like, but there are also a lot of others out there.

Sure… they are used all the time.

Though they get more expensive with the number of boxes you’re hooking up to them.

CompUSA.COM poped one up right away when I keyed in the search term “Monitor Switchbox”

There are good ones and there are bad monitor switches. The cheap ones that are just a mechanical switch don’t work very well. The one I tried corrupted the signal so that I had ghost images of everything just a little to the side of the real image it was useless try to get a good powered one. Unfortunately they are about $100.

I second what was written above on KVM switches. We just installed one at work for 3 different servers, and it works great. Before buying your switch, make sure it has the right connections for your computers (e.g. the one we’re using at work only has PS/2 connectors for mice and keyboards, so if one of the machines is expecting a serial mouse, it won’t work. This would only be a problem for ancient computers).

Also - if your computers are of different types (e.g. a Sun machine, Mac(?)) you will need a more sophisticated KVM switch.

Another solution would be to network the machines then just use one as the “master”, and remote control the others using some software solution like VNC. I find 99% of what needs to be done can be done with remote control - only things like installing hardware and operating system require you to have physical access to the computer.

I’m using a 4-port Starview KVM switch, and it’s great.