On 2007-07-19 17:00, Jim Thompson wrote:
On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 23:36:45 GMT, Tim Hubberstey
wrote:
On 2007-07-18 17:48, Jim Thompson wrote:
On Wed, 18 Jul 2007 19:17:58 -0500, Ben Jackson wrote:
On 2007-07-18, Jim Thompson wrote:
I want to switch a _USB_ mouse between multiple PC's.
Anyone know any tricks to fake out the unconnected PC's so they think
the mouse is there, but not sending data.
USB is all mastered by the host. The host (or both, in this case)
constantly interrogate the mouse to give it a chance to send back
movement info. You could try just switching in the right sense resistors
to claim the device is present, but when it stops responding things will
probably go badly.
Have you considered something like this:
http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/
Interesting, might be worth hacking a KVM to switch based on running
off the screen edge with the mouse.
The next step is to dispense with the KVM switch altogether and run one
of the variants of VNC. I use TightVNC but don't remember why I chose it
(Now where DID I put those old brain cells?).
http://www.tightvnc.com/intro.html
You use one machine as the "master" and connect your mouse, keyboard and
display to it and on the "slave" machines you run a VNC server. On the
master you run a "viewer" session for each slave you want to control and
then switch between them like any other Windows app. Be sure to use the
DFMirage mirror driver on the slaves.
This is a very viable solution as long as your network is fast and there
aren't too many screen updates happening on the slaves. Since you
already have a KVM, you can leave it in place and only switch it when
the bandwidth hit would be too high.
Since I have a new laptop on the way, and with wireless available just
about everywhere, I've been contemplating VNC to allow me to load a
PSpice sim on my office machine while I'm off-site at a client's
location.
Having never done it, I have lots of questions... number one being,
Can I get through my router and access the four machines tied to it?
I was using it to debug my brother's machine going through only 1 router
(mine). While it was much better than trying to tell him what to do over
the phone, it was nasty slow. 10 Mbps plus 300 miles worth of network
delays is not fast enough to move a lot of pixel data around. Then I
told him to get a router to cut down on viruses and I couldn't get it
working again. I didn't spend that much time trying to get it to work
(try telling a technophobe how to alter IP settings over the phone), and
I haven't gotten around to trying it since.
If your router supports VPN I think it should be easy, but I'm not a
network guru. VNC is common enough that I'm sure someone must have put a
"recipe" on the net somewhere for how to do this. If you do figure it
out, please pass on the info!
Tim
--
Tim Hubberstey, P.Eng. . . . . . Hardware/Software Consulting Engineer
Marmot Engineering . . . . . . . VHDL, ASICs, FPGAs, embedded systems
Vancouver, BC, Canada . . . . . . . . . . .
http://www.marmot-eng.com