Siwtching over to Hardware, actually doing it this time

[Basilikos]

Okay, so last year I waaaaaaaay overpaid the federal government and got a nice fat check today. It will easily cover the cost of my building two other machines and all the other stuff that goes into hardware multiboxing. My questions have to do with some of the hardware involved, particularly PS/2 keyboards and mice as well as how to handle setting a few things up. Specifically, PS/2 splitters (I believe we refer to it as Y-Mouse around here) and incorporating a Vetra multiplexer in the mix.

Basically, the idea is going to be as follows:
- I only need a 4-way Vetra splitter since, although I five-box, my 'main' is always a different class or spec than the other. Commands given to the secondary characters are always going to be different.
- I also would like to incorporate a hardware KM switch into the mix so that I can quickly select a different box to have full control over. This would include a mouse.

Stopping right here, I'll point out that I could care less about a mouse being multiplexed, unless someone can give me a good reason to. This is going to involve, at this point, a multiplexed keyboard as well as a keyboard and mouse that I can switch to a specific system of the group of four secondaries.

Continuing:
- I still plan on using synergy and HotKetNet for the time being. No reason other than to transition my way into the new control sets.

Problem:

I'm going to have to connect multiple keyboard inputs into a single computer. Will a Y-Mouse do that for me? Recall I'm going to have a PS/2 cable coming in from the Vetra and another PS/2 cable coming from the KM siwtch. I think the mouse will be fine on it's own.

I think that about covers it. I was also wondering if anyone had any suggestions to make in light of what I'm trying to do.

Thanks.

[Jaws5]

I would recommend 5 port or more for your boxing , they sell a 8 port . that way you could handle logins and issue movement commands all from one keyboard.

at times its nice. main still has his own key board for movement but other tided to movement of master . Also flying is nice with all on same

[Basilikos]

So I read a few posts in another thread where someone was talking about how Y_mouse works. What I was going to do with it was to combine two keyboard inputs into a single input and place the mouse on the mouse PS/2 input (this is on each computer). Someone said that this was not going to work and that Y-Mouse was intended for combining keyboard and mouse inputs into a PS/2 port. I had not caught that in my research on Y-Mouse. I have yet to purchase any of the actual computers right now and am still looking into details.

Is it the case that Y-Mouse cannot combine two keyboard inputs? And if so, am I able to use it to combine keyboard and mouse inputs and place this single input into the mouse PS/2 port on the motherboards?

[Nisch]

I recommend Octopus over Synergy. The mouse sharing is much smoother, and it's overall easier to use. It also has a lot of built in features which are handy should you decide to use them. I also use it for powerup/powerdown of my systems

[Basilikos]

I've never gotten Octopus to function ONCE. I've actually gotten it to keep running and confirm that there are clients on the other machines, but nothing past that. I don't care to waste anymore time on it.