Aten
Masterview Series: Switchboxes For DVI
The first KVMs to hit the market with DVI support
come from Aten. Both models in its Masterview Series, the CS-1762
and the CS-1764, are built around the same enclosure that this
vendor has used for some time now. These small metal cases are
adequate at handling all the necessary cables, even for the
four-port versions. But their weight (around two pounds) barely
suffices to anchor them against the pull of all the cables they can
accommodate. Buttons on the front of the box handle switching among
PCs, while the connections for the console peripherals and matching
client devices link up to the back. The compact CS-1762 places its
USB connectors for the mouse and keyboard on the front side as well,
mostly to save space; the CS-1764 provides those ports on the back
instead. Both KVMs have two additional USB ports that can link up to
a client PC. This means, for example, that when a USB printer or
scanner from one client is attached to the KVM, those devices become
available to other clients as they're selected for use. These USB
ports can also accommodate external USB 2.0 disk drives as well.
And now, a KVM with DVI support
The keyboard can also control the KVM. A series of
hotkey sequences provides multiple ways to change the KVM focus, and
even permits the KVM focus to change separately from an audio or USB
focus. Hotkey assignments are flexible, and may even be managed by
editing a special plain-text configuration file.
Specific button combinations on the KVM also
provide sophisticated controls, and permit all signal sources or
only individual signal sources to be manipulated. Thus, for example,
you could use one computer to surf the Web and write letters, while
listening to music on a second computer, or waiting for a
notification beep from a third computer to let you know it has
finished burning a CD or DVD (an audible signal on its audio channel
would let you know when the work is done). And while all this is
going on, you could even play a game, or take work on yet another
client PC.
BACK | NEXT: CS-1762: 2-Port DVI Switch
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