[ale] OT: stupid hardware question

[Joseph A. Knapka]

Thanks for the advices, everyone. I got this KVM on eBay
for $30, including a complete set of cables, and I'm not
all that interested in upgrading to something less cheesy.
I'll probably just keep a keyboard per machine; it
was moving the monitor around that was really driving
me up the wall, anyhow.

Thanks again,

-- Joe


"Joseph A. Knapka" wrote:
> 
> Displaying my ignorance... again...
> 
> Today I got a 4-port KVM switch. It doesn't have a keyboard
> emulation circuit; the instructions said, "unplug the keyboard
> from your computer and plug it back in; if the machine still
> responds to the keyboard then it will work with this switch."
> So I did that (thinking even at the time that I'd heard
> somewhere it wasn't a good idea, but what the hell, I'm
> following instructions, right?) And the instant I pulled
> the keyboard connector out the machine died - powered off. And
> wouldn't power on again. Power supply is dead. (Amazingly enough,
> the motherboard is uninjured - moved it to another case and
> it booted fine.)
> 
> So is this behavior I should have expected? I'm very hesitant
> to try using the KVM switch with any of my machines now,
> since switching machines is the moral (and electrical)
> equivalent of unplugging the keybord. Incidentally, it
> was an AT keyboard connector, on an AT motherboard, if that
> matters.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> -- Joe Knapka
> "You know how many remote castles there are along the gorges? You
>  can't MOVE for remote castles!" -- Lu Tze re. Uberwald
> // Linux MM Documentation in progress:
> // http://home.earthlink.net/~jknapka/linux-mm/vmoutline.html
> 2nd Lbl A + 1 = 2nd Pause 2nd Prt GTO 2 R/S
> --
> To unsubscribe: mail majordomo at ale.org with "unsubscribe ale" in message body.

-- 
"You know how many remote castles there are along the gorges? You
 can't MOVE for remote castles!" -- Lu Tze re. Uberwald
// Linux MM Documentation in progress:
// http://home.earthlink.net/~jknapka/linux-mm/vmoutline.html
2nd Lbl A + 1 = 2nd Pause 2nd Prt GTO 2 R/S
--
To unsubscribe: mail majordomo at ale.org with "unsubscribe ale" in message body.