8+ Port KVM - looking for a robust one for vintage machines + adapters

[westveld]

I have a continuous rotating busload of old stuff to run long processes on (system diag, burn-in, hard drive wiping, Spinrite, system setups, etc.)

Mostly 8086 to Pentium PCs, some Apple II series, some Classic Mac, C64, and others.

I'm hoping to find one that is robust as far as handing various adapters (AT2XTKB, PS2 -> Apple II, etc)

Any recommendations of a good PS/2 + VGA KVM to try for this?

I suspect even some of the enterprise ones may be quirky with adapters involved.

IP would be nice too

Thanks,
Matt

 

[Unknown_K]

I don't know of any KVM that would deal with non VGA graphics.

A good compatible KVM for PCs (not XT) would be a Belkin F1D066

4 Ports, you can mix AT and PS/2 keyboards and it emulates serial mice if you use a PS/2 mouse (yes even Microsoft optical PS/2 mice).

Cables are nothing special like on some systems.

 

[Unknown_K]

Think they made 8 port models as well.

 

[Plasma]

I like the (slightly) newer Belkin F1D104/F1D108.

 

[Unknown_K]

I like the (slightly) newer Belkin F1D104/F1D108.

I have those as well, slightly more expensive I think.

If you are a gamer look up Belkin SOHO that switch 1 audio line as well. They make PS/2 + USB and DVI models as well.

 

[westveld]

Thanks, I'll check them out!

 

[westveld]

I decided to try an Avocent DSR2020 - a more enterprisy server-room 16-port box that runs over cat5 + adapters at the end.

I just had nightmares remembering the pain dealing with full VGA+PS/2 cable sets back in the day...

$125 off eBay with 8x VGA+PS/2 client ends.

Seems to work great -

Tested so far:
Modern i7 PC
Many 386/486/Pentium motherboards
PC 5150 board with AT2XTKB adapter from TexElec

Waiting on an AV2VGA adapter to try that.
Tried an RGBtoHDMI adapter + HDMI to VGA adapter - no luck - but I suspect the HDMI to VGA adapter may be bad.

Also ... old power supplies without OCP / SCP / OPP are not my friend, haha

 

[westveld]

Oh, haven't gotten the KVM-over-IP part working yet.
It runs via old Java JAR files, ug.
Write once, run for a month until new Java runtime breaks it...