On Thu, 26 Dec 2013 04:08:49 +0100, nestork
wrote:


'Dan Espen[_2_ Wrote:
;3172395']
Not quite that simple.

I just bought a 2 way KVM.
It does USB and DVI. It also handles audio
but I'm not using that.

I think USB will be around for a long time, but they keep
speeding it up, USB, USB-2, USB-3, USB 3.1.
Fortunately for a mouse and keyboard, the higher speed USB standards
don't seem to come into play.

Video on the other hand...

--
Dan Espen

Yes, but my understanding is that any "SERIAL" port, by definition only
sends one bit of data at a time; not even a whole byte; only one lousy
bit. For something like a mouse or keyboard, that's all you need
because MOST of the computer's time is spent waiting for you to press
the next key on the keyboard or following the mouse's motion and waiting
for you to click one button or the other. You can get away with sending
one bit at a time when computer clock speeds are measured in Megahertz
and typing speed is measured in five alphanumeric character strings, or
"words" per MINUTE.

But, wouldn't USB, being a serial port, be inherently too slow for
video?

Note that video ports are also serial. Serial ports can easily be
faster than parallel ports. In fact, the faster interfaces are
serial.

To my knowledge, video ports haven't changed since I bought my
first computer back in 1991.

They've changed a lot. They use much higher bit rates to support
larger monitors at deeper colors.

So, why not just keep using the VGA ports
they use now? They seem to perform adequately. Why try to turn a
tortoise into a hare by trying to push a video signal through a serial
port?

Video *is* a serial port.