Hey dopers,
I have two computers in my home office but limited desk space. I would like to find a keyboard/mouse that would control both computers. Ideally it would have a simple switch on the keyboard itself that made it easy to switch between computers by just touching a button.
I’ve tried asking the salespeople at Circuit City and CompUSA, but it’s safe to say they haven’t a clue.
Any suggestions for products or solutions? Thanks!
You can use a port switch. That’s a box to which you connect the CPUs, moniter, keyboard, and mouse. Each CPU has a channel. When you want one computer, you press that channel button. For the other, you press the other. Some (maybe all) let you hit Scroll Lock twice and then the channel number and pop back and forth.
There might be an easier way that someone will suggest.
What you need is a KVM Switch. You can plug in up to 4 (or 8) computers with a single keyboard/video/mouse and switch between them.
What you are looking for is called a KVM switch. They can be used to control several computers (the maximum number depends on the model you get) using one Keyboard, Vdu and Mouse using either a button on the switch box or keyboard combination.
There are zillions of hardware switches known as KVM switches. (You can switch not only your mouse and keyboard from one computer to another but also your monitor, therefore “keyboard video mouse” switches, or KVM). They make them for old Macs (ADB + Mac or VGA video), old PCs (traditional PC keyboard port, traditional PC mouse port (PS/2?), and VGA video), and modern computers (USB & VGA or USB & digital video). Most of them are A/B switches (i.e., switch between two computers), some handle more than two. A big (and somewhat expensive) company making upper-end versions of these is Black Box. Lower-end variants can probably be obtained from MicroWarehouse or MacWarehouse.
Another alternative (especially if you already have it but just didn’t think of using it for this purpose) is Timbuktu or variants PCAnywhere or VNC. These will all let you “log into” one or more other computers and control them with your mouse and keyboard and display their video on your own screen. In full-screen mode over a high-speed LAN it’s pretty indistinguishable from using a mouse monitor and keyboard hooked up directly to the host computer. Also has the advantage (except for PCAnywhere) of being cross-platform (Win95 through XP and MacOS 7 thru X). VNC is freeware, I believe. Timbuktu, a commercial app (as is PCAnywhere), is probably the most robust of the three with lots of powerful extra features.
Yet another alternative if the computers you are using are primarily Unix-based is to use ssh and export the video back to the computer you’re connecting from. This will work with all standard Unix boxes as controller or controllee; it will work with OS X as controller but you can only use X11 apps and command-line apps (not Aqua apps) if you are the remote controllee; and will let Windows and MacOS 8/9 boxes only as controller (you can’t log into them remotely and do anything). The ssh solution has the advantage of letting you log into boxes that someone else is using, without disturbing what they are doing (because you are logged in as a different session/user).
Thanks for fast replies. I’ll look into the KVM switches.
I’m using 2 Windows based PCs, and one of the purposes is gaming. I’m hoping to find a switch that has a small lag time when switching between the computers.
When you’re shopping for KVM switches, you definitely get what you pay for in some respects. The less-expensive models typically have a mechanical switch (rotating dial). More expensive models have an electronic switch (push button to toggle between connections). The mechanical switches tend to wear out rather quickly. I have a couple of 4-port mechanical switches that have worn to the point that you have to rotate the dial slightly out of position in order to get the keyboard connection to work or the color on the monitor to adjust properly. This is no big deal for low frequency use, but if you’re switching back and forth a lot, you’ll be well-served by the better designs.
Regarding time lag in switching, every switch I’ve used has sub-second response. You’re not really doing anything on the computer itself (like a reboot), just making and breaking cable connections. On the other hand, even sub-second is pretty slow if you’re talking about video and if you toggle back and forth quickly, you’ll spend more time looking at the black screen while the monitor processes the new signal than you will looking at either individual display. That probably has more to do with the monitor than the switch.
I would agree with micco that you get what you pay for.
I bought one with an electronic switch at a great price (< US$20), and it performs well although it’s not very reliable. It works fine about 75% of the time, but sometimes the mouse or keyboard freezes on one of the computers and the only way to resolve it is to power down both computers, and disconnect the power from the switch, then power everything back up. If you disconnect the power from the switch, it still stays on until I power the computers down, not sure how it manages to stay on without its power.
A word of warning about KVM switches; they very often do not include the necessary cables to make them work and the cost of the cables can equal that of the switch.
I found an absolute bargain device; the Linksys ProConnect - which has integrated cables and is priced below most of the others.
To switch between computers, you hit <scroll lock> twice - it then begins switching back and forth between the two machines at a timed interval, you hit <esc> to stop it, or you hit <scroll lock> twice, then immediately hit <esc> and it simply switches straight to the other machine - The lag time is typically about half a second, but it does seem to vary considerably for some reason that I haven’t yet understood.
For God’s sake, don’t buy a “port switch”. That’s a mechanical device (usually with “A” and “B” on a dial"). They’re terrible and they’re outdated.
If you’re using Windows XP, 2000 and/or 2003 between the two boxes, might I suggest Terminal Services\Remote Desktop. Terminal Srevices is included with 2000 and 2003 Server and the client is included in XP (and downloadable for free for 2000 Professional). Using RD between 2 XP boxes on a LAN is almost indistinguishable from using the console. You can even have the system sounds from the remote PC brought to your main box, as well as have all the drives and printers from the main PC mapped to remote PC.
The switches get power from the computers. Both the keyboard and mouse cables have 5V on them.