Scythifuge wrote on 2021-05-20, 21:36:

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-05-20, 18:01:

I've moved away from crts for my old rigs. The only one I have set up now is an EGA monitor on my XT Tupo set up. Manage to get a nice beigreNEC/Packard Bell beige 17" LCD monitor to use with my old stuff via kvm. Saves desk space. Also have a Sanyo LCD TV with multiple video inputs and it syncs down to the correct refresh rate for my Amiga A600 without any flicker at all. And of course crts use less electricity.

I do have and all-in-one Compaq Pentium 75 Compaq system out in the garage with 14" crt in it and a 19" Dell crt. I'll fire the Compaq up at some time. Quite happy with my current arrangement at the moment. All my old stuff can access the interweb via the 10/100 switch to the ISP router. I was having issues with some, not all, the older stuff, including my XT Turbo-486 systems, Acorn RiscPCs etc, until I put the 10/100 switch in between them and the ISP router. Every thing works great now with out any issues at all. Also have a 10mps hub under the10/100 switch I can put on to the network via the 10/100 switch for those nics only with network BNC connectors.

Above the 10/100 switch is 2 selection vga switch so I can switch from my dedicated irc system and what ever system I am working on At the moment it is an AcerAcrosss 486DX2/50 system. My Zenith 286LP Plus(286/12 running almost as fast as a clone 286/16) , with 8megs of ram running MS Dos 5, nic packte driver, winpkt, MS Windows 3.1, Trumpet Winsock 1.0a and PIRCH16 irc client is my dedicated irc set up.. This system is on 24/7 most of the time and still has spinning rust(hdd) as storage. It has a BackPack CDRom reader for getting extra files and LS120 drive daisy chained to the for extra storage and run extra programs if needed.

Very nice! Thank you for sharing and describing your set up. It reminds me that I need to get a KVM with audio. I also have an LS-120 parallel port version. I bought two internal LS-120 drives, but one doesn't work at all, and the other one will read only 1.44mb floppies. I think it would be cool to run irc. I haven't used that since the 90's, and I am trying to recreate as much of the 90's as I can. I want to create a BBS and have people be able to dial into it.

Nice it is great to have goals and keep active.

About 7 years ago I had a mental break down. We don't know what caused it but I have shad some head impacts in the past. A Macchi 339 canapy hit me on the had while i was getting of the A/C after completing an independent inspection on one of the Martin Baker ejection seat between the canopy frame and fuselage were it sits missing a 1 1/2" locating spigot by about 4". I was in the New Zealand Airforce at the time.The other when I was hit in the face, wearing my glasses, break my rh eye socket and check bone for absolutely no resean at all. I was in Ward 21, mental ward, for around 14 months then sent home and totally house bound in the time.

It wasn't until I started getting my 1976 Honda 550F Super Sport back on the road and concentrated on that I was getting out under the car port in fresh air I started improving a bit. Then back to my old computer systems. I still have to take medication to help the brain stay relatively stable though which is far far better than how I was.

I'm greatful that spigot didn't penetrate my skull.

Scythifuge wrote on 2021-05-18, 02:17:

I am building a 486 in tandem with working on my Ultimate P3 Retro build.

You will be disappointed.

I've made some tests with my 486/160.
With a 10/100 NIC I hardly will be over 48 MBit/s.
With a 1000 NIC I hardly will get over 49 MBit/s.
Edited. I have remembered the results wrong.

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-05-20, 21:56:

Nice it is great to have goals and keep active. […]
Show full quote

Scythifuge wrote on 2021-05-20, 21:36:

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-05-20, 18:01:

I've moved away from crts for my old rigs. The only one I have set up now is an EGA monitor on my XT Tupo set up. Manage to get a nice beigreNEC/Packard Bell beige 17" LCD monitor to use with my old stuff via kvm. Saves desk space. Also have a Sanyo LCD TV with multiple video inputs and it syncs down to the correct refresh rate for my Amiga A600 without any flicker at all. And of course crts use less electricity.

I do have and all-in-one Compaq Pentium 75 Compaq system out in the garage with 14" crt in it and a 19" Dell crt. I'll fire the Compaq up at some time. Quite happy with my current arrangement at the moment. All my old stuff can access the interweb via the 10/100 switch to the ISP router. I was having issues with some, not all, the older stuff, including my XT Turbo-486 systems, Acorn RiscPCs etc, until I put the 10/100 switch in between them and the ISP router. Every thing works great now with out any issues at all. Also have a 10mps hub under the10/100 switch I can put on to the network via the 10/100 switch for those nics only with network BNC connectors.

Above the 10/100 switch is 2 selection vga switch so I can switch from my dedicated irc system and what ever system I am working on At the moment it is an AcerAcrosss 486DX2/50 system. My Zenith 286LP Plus(286/12 running almost as fast as a clone 286/16) , with 8megs of ram running MS Dos 5, nic packte driver, winpkt, MS Windows 3.1, Trumpet Winsock 1.0a and PIRCH16 irc client is my dedicated irc set up.. This system is on 24/7 most of the time and still has spinning rust(hdd) as storage. It has a BackPack CDRom reader for getting extra files and LS120 drive daisy chained to the for extra storage and run extra programs if needed.

Very nice! Thank you for sharing and describing your set up. It reminds me that I need to get a KVM with audio. I also have an LS-120 parallel port version. I bought two internal LS-120 drives, but one doesn't work at all, and the other one will read only 1.44mb floppies. I think it would be cool to run irc. I haven't used that since the 90's, and I am trying to recreate as much of the 90's as I can. I want to create a BBS and have people be able to dial into it.

Nice it is great to have goals and keep active.

About 7 years ago I had a mental break down. We don't know what caused it but I have shad some head impacts in the past. A Macchi 339 canapy hit me on the had while i was getting of the A/C after completing an independent inspection on one of the Martin Baker ejection seat between the canopy frame and fuselage were it sits missing a 1 1/2" locating spigot by about 4". I was in the New Zealand Airforce at the time.The other when I was hit in the face, wearing my glasses, break my rh eye socket and check bone for absolutely no resean at all. I was in Ward 21, mental ward, for around 14 months then sent home and totally house bound in the time.

It wasn't until I started getting my 1976 Honda 550F Super Sport back on the road and concentrated on that I was getting out under the car port in fresh air I started improving a bit. Then back to my old computer systems. I still have to take medication to help the brain stay relatively stable though which is far far better than how I was.

I'm greatful that spigot didn't penetrate my skull.

I'm sorry to read that you went through that. Based on my experience, I am willing to bet that the event contributed to your situation. I was riding my Harley, and someone pull in front of me while I was going 50-55mph. It felt like a long time had passed as I flipped, cart wheeled, bounced through the air and on and off the road a bunch of times. At one point, I remember being way up in the air, and watching the road rush up to my face - thank goodness I chose my helmet with visor, that day. I remember asking the EMTs how I looked and one of them said, "Uh, we are doing what we can." I asked if I was bleeding out, and he said "Uh, there is definitely some blood." I then asked if I had any compound fractures, and he said that I did. It was an intense experience.

I then had a car accident the following year wear my side smashed into a tree at about 50mph, and then a year after that, I was a passenger and we went off of the road and careened into the woods, right into a tree and the driver said he watched me slam into the dashboard. I have no idea how I survived all of that, though it all definitely affected me. That sort of trauma and damage adds up, including all of the broken bones, stitches, and other things my body has gone through over the years. I almost gave up building computers after the first accident. Even now, it can take me a couple of days to do what I used to do in a couple of hours. It is difficult to tell just by looking at me that I struggle with it, though breaking my back and everything from the right hip down, and my left wrist , with a bunch of metal installed inside, makes the pain come and go in varying degrees, and I am often tired due to having difficulty getting restful sleep.

Disruptor wrote on 2021-05-20, 22:12:

You will be disappointed. […]
Show full quote

Scythifuge wrote on 2021-05-18, 02:17:

I am building a 486 in tandem with working on my Ultimate P3 Retro build.

You will be disappointed.

I've made some tests with my 486/160.
With a 10/100 NIC I hardly will be over 40 MBit/s.
With a 1000 NIC I hardly will get over 42 MBit/s.

It's okay. I just want to do it for fun. Plus, I can squeeze out 2 extra MBits! I like to see how many new parts I can get working in an old machine, as if I still had my original 486 and just upgraded it over the years. This one doesn't even have internal hard drives. The 3,5 bay CF/IDE adapter is a dual slot, and I can switch out both master and slave cards. I may make a Linux card, and OS/2 card, etc. The slave card can just be a file storage card that any master card can use. Plus, I have a DVD drive slaved to a quad speed drive, and I'll get a Dreamblaster X2 to replace my Waveblaster daughterboard. The only thing that I may swap out is the 3d Rage Pro, since it would be better off in a Pentium 1 machine. I have a Rage II from 1996, and both have drivers for Windows 3.x. I'm also going to experiment with a USB 2.0 PCI card and Bret Johnson's DOS USB drivers, just to see what I can connect and get running.

Scythifuge wrote on 2021-05-20, 22:39:

Disruptor wrote on 2021-05-20, 22:12:

You will be disappointed. […]
Show full quote

Scythifuge wrote on 2021-05-18, 02:17:

I am building a 486 in tandem with working on my Ultimate P3 Retro build.

You will be disappointed.

I've made some tests with my 486/160.
With a 10/100 NIC I hardly will be over 40 MBit/s.
With a 1000 NIC I hardly will get over 42 MBit/s.

It's okay. I just want to do it for fun. Plus, I can squeeze out 2 extra MBits! I like to see how many new parts I can get working in an old machine, as if I still had my original 486 and just upgraded it over the years. This one doesn't even have internal hard drives. The 3,5 bay CF/IDE adapter is a dual slot, and I can switch out both master and slave cards. I may make a Linux card, and OS/2 card, etc. The slave card can just be a file storage card that any master card can use. Plus, I have a DVD drive slaved to a quad speed drive, and I'll get a Dreamblaster X2 to replace my Waveblaster daughterboard. The only thing that I may swap out is the 3d Rage Pro, since it would be better off in a Pentium 1 machine. I have a Rage II from 1996, and both have drivers for Windows 3.x. I'm also going to experiment with a USB 2.0 PCI card and Bret Johnson's DOS USB drivers, just to see what I can connect and get running.

There are always Debbie Downers on sites like these. As well as so called self professed ex sperts. Usually they don't have a clue of what they on about and never experienced the early to mid 1990s to late 1990s 😉 1990-1995 was te most interesting for me.

I'm certainly be interested in how you get on 😉

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-05-20, 22:57:

Scythifuge wrote on 2021-05-20, 22:39:

Disruptor wrote on 2021-05-20, 22:12:

You will be disappointed. […]
Show full quote

You will be disappointed.

I've made some tests with my 486/160.
With a 10/100 NIC I hardly will be over 40 MBit/s.
With a 1000 NIC I hardly will get over 42 MBit/s.

It's okay. I just want to do it for fun. Plus, I can squeeze out 2 extra MBits! I like to see how many new parts I can get working in an old machine, as if I still had my original 486 and just upgraded it over the years. This one doesn't even have internal hard drives. The 3,5 bay CF/IDE adapter is a dual slot, and I can switch out both master and slave cards. I may make a Linux card, and OS/2 card, etc. The slave card can just be a file storage card that any master card can use. Plus, I have a DVD drive slaved to a quad speed drive, and I'll get a Dreamblaster X2 to replace my Waveblaster daughterboard. The only thing that I may swap out is the 3d Rage Pro, since it would be better off in a Pentium 1 machine. I have a Rage II from 1996, and both have drivers for Windows 3.x. I'm also going to experiment with a USB 2.0 PCI card and Bret Johnson's DOS USB drivers, just to see what I can connect and get running.

There are always Debbie Downers on sites like these. As well as so called self professed ex sperts. Usually they don't have a clue of what they on about and never experienced the early to mid 1990s to late 1990s 😉 1990-1995 was te most interesting for me.

I'm certainly be interested in how you get on 😉

I had a Commodore 64 around 1990, and then we got a 486SX in 1993, and had it upgraded to a DX2 in 1994, and then a Pentium 90 in 1995, which I had to overclock to 100Mhz to get digital sound in Veil of Darkness to play properly, as the digitized voice in the beginning was all screechy. I had that until 1998 or 1999 when I got my Gateway P3 450, and that was the last PC that I ever purchased preassembled. Around 2003, I started missing the early to mid 90's a lot, and built my first retro 486 around 2004 with an ALR board with only 1 IDE port, so I had to use a CDROM interface on my AE32 CT2760 (which I just got working again!) Now I am going all out with making 90's PCs, and maintaining my Athlon XP 3200+ as a bridge between the old and the new.

Disruptor wrote on 2021-05-20, 22:12:

You will be disappointed. […]
Show full quote

Scythifuge wrote on 2021-05-18, 02:17:

I am building a 486 in tandem with working on my Ultimate P3 Retro build.

You will be disappointed.

I've made some tests with my 486/160.
With a 10/100 NIC I hardly will be over 40 MBit/s.
With a 1000 NIC I hardly will get over 42 MBit/s.

what OS was that on, NT? 5 mbyte/s seems quite good for a 486, i recall 500kbyte/s or thereabouts on a p90 in win95.

Scythifuge wrote on 2021-05-20, 23:30:

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-05-20, 22:57:

Scythifuge wrote on 2021-05-20, 22:39:

It's okay. I just want to do it for fun. Plus, I can squeeze out 2 extra MBits! I like to see how many new parts I can get working in an old machine, as if I still had my original 486 and just upgraded it over the years. This one doesn't even have internal hard drives. The 3,5 bay CF/IDE adapter is a dual slot, and I can switch out both master and slave cards. I may make a Linux card, and OS/2 card, etc. The slave card can just be a file storage card that any master card can use. Plus, I have a DVD drive slaved to a quad speed drive, and I'll get a Dreamblaster X2 to replace my Waveblaster daughterboard. The only thing that I may swap out is the 3d Rage Pro, since it would be better off in a Pentium 1 machine. I have a Rage II from 1996, and both have drivers for Windows 3.x. I'm also going to experiment with a USB 2.0 PCI card and Bret Johnson's DOS USB drivers, just to see what I can connect and get running.

There are always Debbie Downers on sites like these. As well as so called self professed ex sperts. Usually they don't have a clue of what they on about and never experienced the early to mid 1990s to late 1990s 😉 1990-1995 was te most interesting for me.

I'm certainly be interested in how you get on 😉

I had a Commodore 64 around 1990, and then we got a 486SX in 1993, and had it upgraded to a DX2 in 1994, and then a Pentium 90 in 1995, which I had to overclock to 100Mhz to get digital sound in Veil of Darkness to play properly, as the digitized voice in the beginning was all screechy. I had that until 1998 or 1999 when I got my Gateway P3 450, and that was the last PC that I ever purchased preassembled. Around 2003, I started missing the early to mid 90's a lot, and built my first retro 486 around 2004 with an ALR board with only 1 IDE port, so I had to use a CDROM interface on my AE32 CT2760 (which I just got working again!) Now I am going all out with making 90's PCs, and maintaining my Athlon XP 3200+ as a bridge between the old and the new.

A lot members here think when Pentiums and Windows 95 was released everybody had them. This certainly wasn't the case in the real world 😀

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-05-20, 23:57:

Scythifuge wrote on 2021-05-20, 23:30:

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-05-20, 22:57:

There are always Debbie Downers on sites like these. As well as so called self professed ex sperts. Usually they don't have a clue of what they on about and never experienced the early to mid 1990s to late 1990s 😉 1990-1995 was te most interesting for me.

I'm certainly be interested in how you get on 😉

I had a Commodore 64 around 1990, and then we got a 486SX in 1993, and had it upgraded to a DX2 in 1994, and then a Pentium 90 in 1995, which I had to overclock to 100Mhz to get digital sound in Veil of Darkness to play properly, as the digitized voice in the beginning was all screechy. I had that until 1998 or 1999 when I got my Gateway P3 450, and that was the last PC that I ever purchased preassembled. Around 2003, I started missing the early to mid 90's a lot, and built my first retro 486 around 2004 with an ALR board with only 1 IDE port, so I had to use a CDROM interface on my AE32 CT2760 (which I just got working again!) Now I am going all out with making 90's PCs, and maintaining my Athlon XP 3200+ as a bridge between the old and the new.

A lot members here think when Pentiums and Windows 95 was released everybody had them. This certainly wasn't the case in the real world 😀

I got lucky. We had to ship our 486 to the manufacturer (CTC Computer) for warranty service, because I didn't know how to service my own PC yet. I called them and asked of we could upgrade it for a fee, and whoever I talked to said yes. I told them that I would talk to my mom and call back. His supervisor called and told me that they in fact did not offer that service, that I had been misinformed, but that because I was told it could happen, they had to honor it. That is how I got my P90 and Windows 95 installed and on disc, as it had just been released. I remember getting it and hooking it up, and the games that ran slow on my 486 were blazing. To my dismay, the Origin FX Screensaver wouldn't run, but everything else worked great. A few months later I bought Diablo and felt that it was an Ultima VIII clone, but that it was a good representative of the direction that game graphics were going in.

auron wrote on 2021-05-20, 23:41:

what OS was that on, NT? 5 mbyte/s seems quite good for a 486, i recall 500kbyte/s or thereabouts on a p90 in win95.

I have edited the values because I have remembered them wrong. It are 48 MBit/s for the 10/100 and 49 for the 1000 NIC.
The used OS was Windows 2000: Re: My 486 UMC8886/8881 Project

Scythifuge wrote on 2021-05-21, 03:10:

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-05-20, 23:57:

Scythifuge wrote on 2021-05-20, 23:30:

I had a Commodore 64 around 1990, and then we got a 486SX in 1993, and had it upgraded to a DX2 in 1994, and then a Pentium 90 in 1995, which I had to overclock to 100Mhz to get digital sound in Veil of Darkness to play properly, as the digitized voice in the beginning was all screechy. I had that until 1998 or 1999 when I got my Gateway P3 450, and that was the last PC that I ever purchased preassembled. Around 2003, I started missing the early to mid 90's a lot, and built my first retro 486 around 2004 with an ALR board with only 1 IDE port, so I had to use a CDROM interface on my AE32 CT2760 (which I just got working again!) Now I am going all out with making 90's PCs, and maintaining my Athlon XP 3200+ as a bridge between the old and the new.

A lot members here think when Pentiums and Windows 95 was released everybody had them. This certainly wasn't the case in the real world 😀

I got lucky. We had to ship our 486 to the manufacturer (CTC Computer) for warranty service, because I didn't know how to service my own PC yet. I called them and asked of we could upgrade it for a fee, and whoever I talked to said yes. I told them that I would talk to my mom and call back. His supervisor called and told me that they in fact did not offer that service, that I had been misinformed, but that because I was told it could happen, they had to honor it. That is how I got my P90 and Windows 95 installed and on disc, as it had just been released. I remember getting it and hooking it up, and the games that ran slow on my 486 were blazing. To my dismay, the Origin FX Screensaver wouldn't run, but everything else worked great. A few months later I bought Diablo and felt that it was an Ultima VIII clone, but that it was a good representative of the direction that game graphics were going in.

That was good luck. I'd updated the 286/16 clone I'd bought then to a 486DX33 by then with parts from the leftovers from a mate who upgraded his to a Pentium back then. Desoldered the pins of of the 30pin sipps and fitted them to the 486 mobo giving a total of 8megs in 30 pin simms. Later fitted a 486DX2/66 cpu in it. A few years later upgraded to a Pentium 133 with second hand components. Never owned a new computer again. Just pick up older systems and max them out. Works out far cheaper and you learn some when replacing fitting new mobos/component.

Things just got left under our carport after a while when I was at work. Like My 1989 386DX25 system.

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-05-21, 05:54:

Scythifuge wrote on 2021-05-21, 03:10:

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-05-20, 23:57:

A lot members here think when Pentiums and Windows 95 was released everybody had them. This certainly wasn't the case in the real world 😀

I got lucky. We had to ship our 486 to the manufacturer (CTC Computer) for warranty service, because I didn't know how to service my own PC yet. I called them and asked of we could upgrade it for a fee, and whoever I talked to said yes. I told them that I would talk to my mom and call back. His supervisor called and told me that they in fact did not offer that service, that I had been misinformed, but that because I was told it could happen, they had to honor it. That is how I got my P90 and Windows 95 installed and on disc, as it had just been released. I remember getting it and hooking it up, and the games that ran slow on my 486 were blazing. To my dismay, the Origin FX Screensaver wouldn't run, but everything else worked great. A few months later I bought Diablo and felt that it was an Ultima VIII clone, but that it was a good representative of the direction that game graphics were going in.

That was good luck. I'd updated the 286/16 clone I'd bought then to a 486DX33 by then with parts from the leftovers from a mate who upgraded his to a Pentium back then. Desoldered the pins of of the 30pin sipps and fitted them to the 486 mobo giving a total of 8megs in 30 pin simms. Later fitted a 486DX2/66 cpu in it. A few years later upgraded to a Pentium 133 with second hand components. Never owned a new computer again. Just pick up older systems and max them out. Works out far cheaper and you learn some when replacing fitting new mobos/component.

Things just got left under our carport after a while when I was at work. Like My 1989 386DX25 system.

I need to learn soldering/desoldering techniques. I keep reading more and more about people doing that to fix or modify their systems, and there are all of these new-retro cards being made these days, and it is uncanny how much I am reading about now than in prior days. I have a dead 4DPS that I could probably fix if I had those skills.

My town used to let people put out electronics for spring clean up day, but now they have to take things like that to the waste station and pay a fee for any electronics. I used to drive around with a set of screwdrivers and harvest all kinds of neat components.

The accident began a chain of events that lead up to me filing for divorce and I ended up moving out of the marriage home, and I lost a good junk of parts because of that; parts that could come in handy for these projects, such as PC100 RAM and some graphics cards and a bunch of drives of various types. My collection is slowly rebuilding as I take anything that people want to get rid of, because they don't want to pay the electronics disposal fee.

Scythifuge wrote on 2021-05-20, 21:36:

Very nice! Thank you for sharing and describing your set up. It reminds me that I need to get a KVM with audio.

If you don't turn one up, a frequent sight in the thrift stores round here are those audio/video switchboxes, for multiplying TV AV inputs, probably fairly straightforward to rig one of those for speakers, have to manually flip the switch. I guess you can probably put a mono mic on the video channel too.

KVM with audio while not rare are less common then ones without Audio.
With about 10 PC's setup on 3 KVM's for audio I just ran audio extension cables from the back of each PC to a central spot labelling which PC its plugged into.
I then plug the speaker into the audio cable for that PC old school Telephone exchange style.

It's not as elegant as a KVM or mixer but it's a lot cheaper!

chinny22 wrote on 2021-05-24, 12:17:

KVM with audio while not rare are less common then ones without Audio. With about 10 PC's setup on 3 KVM's for audio I just ran […]
Show full quote

KVM with audio while not rare are less common then ones without Audio.
With about 10 PC's setup on 3 KVM's for audio I just ran audio extension cables from the back of each PC to a central spot labelling which PC its plugged into.
I then plug the speaker into the audio cable for that PC old school Telephone exchange style.

It's not as elegant as a KVM or mixer but it's a lot cheaper!

I have considered this with all of the cables, using VGA, 3.5mm, and PS/2 extension cables. Doing so may end up with having less cabling than with a KVM+A, though it is definitely less than ideal. I'm seeing a few units that aren't too expensive. I'm avoiding the ones without selector buttons. Back in the day, I had a neon yellow or yellow-green octopus by I believe IO Gear, and it required a keyboard combo switch. I do remember using it to provide a wireless keyboard and mouse on a 486, so that was neat. However, something happened to it and it stopped working.

One of the advantages of using a mixer is that you then have the opportunity to do audio captures much more easily - just capture the output of the mixer, rather than having to plug the output of whatever device you want to record to your capture device/recording PC.

Whatever solution you go for, you won't get away from cables... they'll haunt you forever! 😁

VGA, PS/2 keyboard + mouse switch:

HDMI (or DVI to HDMI) + USB keyboard + mouse switch:

Line in switch for additional base units:

Main 8-channel mixer:

The way I have it set up is that all of the VGA inputs go through an OSSC, then into the HDMI switch. The HDMI switch output is then split into two - one to the monitor and one to an HDMI capture card - so anything can be captured, regardless of source. Same with the audio - it's either HDMI audio (and thus gets captured directly from the HDMI switch), or it's analogue audio which alls goes through that main mixer, and the output is tapped into the line-in of the same PC with the capture card.

You might not want to go to that amount of effort... but it does allow me to control (and display) all of my systems (and there are a lot of them!) with a single monitor and just two keyboards (one USB, one PS/2) and mice (one PS/2, one USB); the PS/2 devices just living under the monitor until needed.

But cables? You don't want to look at how many there are, they're all in cable trays under the desk and not trailing on the floor, but still, it's not pretty.

Scythifuge wrote on 2021-05-24, 13:21:

I have considered this with all of the cables, using VGA, 3.5mm, and PS/2 extension cables. Doing so may end up with having less cabling than with a KVM+A, though it is definitely less than ideal. I'm seeing a few units that aren't too expensive. I'm avoiding the ones without selector buttons. Back in the day, I had a neon yellow or yellow-green octopus by I believe IO Gear, and it required a keyboard combo switch. I do remember using it to provide a wireless keyboard and mouse on a 486, so that was neat. However, something happened to it and it stopped working.

Other requirement I'd recommend is the KVM uses standard cables or includes all the cables as standard.
I've been caught out in the past with Belkin I think where we wanted to add a few more PC's and found generic cables didn't work. Lucky that was for work so I wasn't paying the premium.

If the KVM has the VGA and 2 PS2 ports for each PC you can buy pre made KVM cables that combine all 3 into 1 cable but yeh no matter what its best to just put the cables out of sight and pretend its all fine

megatron-uk wrote on 2021-05-24, 13:38:

VGA, PS/2 keyboard + mouse switch: IMG20210524142934.jpg […]
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VGA, PS/2 keyboard + mouse switch:
IMG20210524142934.jpg

HDMI (or DVI to HDMI) + USB keyboard + mouse switch:
IMG20210524142941.jpg

Line in switch for additional base units:
IMG20210524143009.jpg

Main 8-channel mixer:
IMG20210524143003.jpg

The way I have it set up is that all of the VGA inputs go through an OSSC, then into the HDMI switch. The HDMI switch output is then split into two - one to the monitor and one to an HDMI capture card - so anything can be captured, regardless of source. Same with the audio - it's either HDMI audio (and thus gets captured directly from the HDMI switch), or it's analogue audio which alls goes through that main mixer, and the output is tapped into the line-in of the same PC with the capture card.

You might not want to go to that amount of effort... but it does allow me to control (and display) all of my systems (and there are a lot of them!) with a single monitor and just two keyboards (one USB, one PS/2) and mice (one PS/2, one USB); the PS/2 devices just living under the monitor until needed.

But cables? You don't want to look at how many there are, they're all in cable trays under the desk and not trailing on the floor, but still, it's not pretty.

Wow! That is awesome, though definitely beyond the scope of what I'm looking to set up, at least for now. If I start doing more, like making videos and what not, and if I ever move into a bigger place where I can set up more systems, I will probably start looking into set ups like that, for various projects.

chinny22 wrote on 2021-05-24, 16:19:

Other requirement I'd recommend is the KVM uses standard cables or includes all the cables as standard. I've been caught out in […]
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Scythifuge wrote on 2021-05-24, 13:21:

I have considered this with all of the cables, using VGA, 3.5mm, and PS/2 extension cables. Doing so may end up with having less cabling than with a KVM+A, though it is definitely less than ideal. I'm seeing a few units that aren't too expensive. I'm avoiding the ones without selector buttons. Back in the day, I had a neon yellow or yellow-green octopus by I believe IO Gear, and it required a keyboard combo switch. I do remember using it to provide a wireless keyboard and mouse on a 486, so that was neat. However, something happened to it and it stopped working.

Other requirement I'd recommend is the KVM uses standard cables or includes all the cables as standard.
I've been caught out in the past with Belkin I think where we wanted to add a few more PC's and found generic cables didn't work. Lucky that was for work so I wasn't paying the premium.

If the KVM has the VGA and 2 PS2 ports for each PC you can buy pre made KVM cables that combine all 3 into 1 cable but yeh no matter what its best to just put the cables out of sight and pretend its all fine

I'm going to use hooks attached to the back of my desks, velcro, and other things to run and hide the cabling. I have a Creative/Cambridge Soundworks 4.1 speaker set, which is the same set that I had back in 1999-2001, and I hide the wires by running them through hooks along the backs of the desktop and shelves.