Roy J. Tellason wrote: Yeah, but that doesn't work too well when said server has a broken disk and is physically several thousand miles away. You do need to be able to get on the consoles of these. Where possible, terminal servers works beautifully and are network accessible. Personally, I keep bootable CDROM's in all the servers that have CDROM drives. Else, they can be booted off the network. However, without access to console to poke around with, you're hosed.

Teo Zenios wrote: Of course not! That was the point -- $125/node (assuming an 8 port switch) is ridiculous "just to get rid of a keyboard". I just repaired an Omniview Pro 8 to use in my office. (it was a freebie) But, it really only serves as a video switch -- and even then, it's a bit of a kludge. Can't run the ADB keyboard/mouse for the two Macs through it. Have to use HD15 adapters for the Mac video outs. The SGI VW320's USB keyboard mouse won't go through it (without USB->PS2 dongles). I'm *hoping* the IRIX's video *will* (via a suitable connector mangling). The Sun keyboard/mouse won't. But, thankfully, the U10's video (13W3) can go directly to the GDM500 and I can use the video switch on the monitor to select sources. I.e. I still have to keep a bunch of keyboards/mice piled on top of machines instead of just hitting a button on a KVM to share *one* of each (but, at least I don't have to keep 8 monitors on my desk! :>) It *should* be simple to get a box to do all of the above. It's disappointing and annoying that it *isn't*! :-(

Teo Zenios wrote: The Omniview does this. When you power it up, it will automatically select the first source it finds. What I miss is the footpedal that my other KVM has (since I put the KVM "out of the way") It doesn't make sense financially to *build* one when you can cobble something together from free/cheap KVMs. :-( It's not a particularly difficult task but there are lots of "little things" that take up design time (e.g., you want a PIC/AVR/some other low power MCU sitting on each keyboard/mouse port all the time POWERED BY THE EXTERNAL DEVICE -- not the KVM -- so they can track keyboard/mouse state all the time; you need to develop a "universal" key numbering/naming scheme so the *user's* choice of keyboard cn be mapped to each of the various machines attached to the switch; you have to worry about 100MHz video rates; etc.)

Tom Peters wrote: I believe each of my KVM's have a "feature" like that. I only tried it on the one I *know* claims to have that feature. And it locked up! Also, does your "tap CTRL" feature get confused if you use CTRL as a modifier for a mouse action and "coincidentally" happen to type a numeric key thereafter? (or, does your switch monitor the mouse simultaneously and INSIST that the mouse "does nothing" while you tap CTRL?). I suspect it might also be a problem or gamers (??) The long version of the short answer is: I prefer out-of-band signaling :>