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I can't for the life of me find it now but about five or six years ago I had need for this when taking my work laptop home to hook it up to my desktop monitor without having to cable switch and there was a program that allowed me to do this (so long as the devices were networked). The closest I can find now is Maxvista - the name doesn't ring a bell and I'm sure the one I used was open source/freeware while this is a paid app, but I'm sure there must be something out there. I've also used Synergy before to reduce the amount of clutter on my desk and it's an amazing piece of software but this other thing basically was like extending your screen over a second monitor.

There's a product called MaxiVista that will do this for you. Haven't tried it myself, but it seems cool.

And that software would be Maxivista.

I'm surprised that I didn't see this suggestion posted but why not just use network try this! http://www.maxivista.com/multi_monitor.htm You can network any old laptop and use it to extend your main computer's screen space.

Mod parent up. I've used Maxivista on and off and it's a great way to use what would otherwise be a wasted screen.

1/ Turn them into additional monitors. Use http://www.maxivista.com/ 2/ What about an Arcade Game machine? Asteroids, PacMac, Space Invader, etc. Use Mame. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAME 3/ Digital picture frames, as already proposed. Use http://repair4laptop.org/notebook_picture_frame.html, but please be ecology friendly.

I've not used it myself, but some friends have and it worked pretty well. http://www.maxivista.com/ Also perhaps you could bug the synergy team (this is an open source project), although I don't think this feature is something that will be implemented anytime soon... http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/ Though if you just want to control all the computers from one place, then synergy should work.

$luck, if you are running Windows and the machines are networked, you might be interested in the software MaxiVista.
(I don't know if you could easily cycle through each computer to each utilitze two displays, but you can download a free demo.)

* Use a monitor of another PC as if it is a second monitor attached to you main computer.
* Keyboard/Mouse switch (aka Remote Control mode): Each monitor shows what's on the computer it is attached to, and you can move the mose among them. Keyboard input is directed to the screen the mouse is on.
* Desktop mirroring.

Quality is quite good, but I haven't tried gaming on it. I used to use a KVM switch, but I find that the remote control mode is much nicer than having to constantly press ScrollLock.

I imagine other similar software exists for other platforms. (I'd be interested in something for Mac OS X.)

$luck, if you are running Windows and the machines are networked, you might be interested in the software MaxiVista.
(I don't know if you could easily cycle through each computer to each utilitze two displays, but you can download a free demo.)

* Use a monitor of another PC as if it is a second monitor attached to you main computer.
* Keyboard/Mouse switch (aka Remote Control mode): Each monitor shows what's on the computer it is attached to, and you can move the mose among them. Keyboard input is directed to the screen the mouse is on.
* Desktop mirroring.

Quality is quite good, but I haven't tried gaming on it. I used to use a KVM switch, but I find that the remote control mode is much nicer than having to constantly press ScrollLock.

I imagine other similar software exists for other platforms. (I'd be interested in something for Mac OS X.)

$luck, if you are running Windows and the machines are networked, you might be interested in the software MaxiVista.
(I don't know if you could easily cycle through each computer to each utilitze two displays, but you can download a free demo.)

* Use a monitor of another PC as if it is a second monitor attached to you main computer.
* Keyboard/Mouse switch (aka Remote Control mode): Each monitor shows what's on the computer it is attached to, and you can move the mose among them. Keyboard input is directed to the screen the mouse is on.
* Desktop mirroring.

Quality is quite good, but I haven't tried gaming on it. I used to use a KVM switch, but I find that the remote control mode is much nicer than having to constantly press ScrollLock.

I imagine other similar software exists for other platforms. (I'd be interested in something for Mac OS X.)

I second Microsoft Power Toys and add some more:

* AutoIt for simple automation tasks and creating small programs with graphical user interfaces

* Firefox, of course. Opera is also a good choice.

* Daemon Tools for mounting ISOs as virtual CD/DVD drives

* Trillian--AIM, ICQ, IRC, MSN, and Yahoo messenger client


* QuickTime Alternative

* RealPlayer Alternative

* IrfanView--small, free, fast image viewer



* SysInternals utilities--useful for admins

* Scanner--shows hard drive usage as stacked pie graph of files/folders

* 7-zip: similar to WinZip or WinRAR or StuffIt

* Foxit [PDF] Reader--a lite alternative to Adobe


Following ones aren't free but are very useful Windows-only programs:

* FinePrint--n up printing, universal print preview, etc.

* MaxiVisa--use a networked computer like a secondary display

* TextPad, though I opt for the open-source and FREE SciTE

There's a product called Buddy that's been doing this for many years. Originally, the Buddy card was a combined PCI video card and PS/2 keyboard+mouse controller, which spit all the signals out an 8-position modular jack (RJ45 for the cretins), and a little breakout box at the other end of a (long, shielded cat-5) cable accepted the monitor and input devices. The software gave two Windows95 users the impression that they were the only one on the machine, and I'm still not sure how they did that on a non-NT architecture, but it worked and worked well. Only trouble is, the video bandwidth of the cable was limited, and the RAMDAC in the video card didn't support sync rates over 60Hz, so the flicker on the slave station was pretty obnoxious.

In the years since Buddy was first released, PCI video cards have learned to play nice with their neighbors, and USB has provided a way to connect oodles of keyboards and mice to the same machine. Thus, Buddy is reincarnated as BeTwin, a software-only product that associates specific keyboards, mice, and video cards with specific sessions on the machine. (I'm not sure how it deals with sound. Multiple soundcards would seem easy.)

They say it only supports 5 users, but that sounds like an arbitrary limit and I'm sure they'd tweak a 28-user version if you felt like it.

Related links... I'm going off-topic here, but playing stupid tricks with virtual hardware is fun.

Check out MaxiVista, a "virtual video card" which Windows treats as a second monitor, allowing you to do multi-head tricks. The data for the second display goes out over the network (a la VNC) to a client machine, which simply pipes it into the video buffer. Turn that scrap laptop into a second monitor! I stuffed a 10base-T card in my old lappy and it was perfectly usable for everything except fullscreen video. At 100 or gigabit, it'd be worth a try.

Xinerama is Linux software that does the same thing, creating one large virtual X display, which then chops up the image and sends it to a number of smaller actual displays, some or all of which can obviously be located across the network.

As long as we're doing silly tricks with virtual hardware, you should be aware of Virtual Audio Cable, which enables digitally-perfect audio patching between applications' outputs and inputs, even if the apps themselves think they have exclusive control over the soundcard. (Also enables multiclient sound output under 9x, even if your card doesn't support it, because it does software mixing.)

If video is your thing, try Softcam, to feed your videoconferencing software any old source you feel like. Switch between actual cameras, use your desktop screenshot as a "camera input", add effects, etc. Their WaveMux tool is a nice complement to VAC, too.

Maxivista is my new monitor. It's freakin' sweet!

If you're not using Linux, but Windows instead, you can use MaxiVista, which unfortunately is far from free, but works great. Having the otherwise idle laptop as a third monitor is handy to say the least.

No, I'm not affiliated with them.

This is funky

For me, any spare/obsolete laptop still in one piece and able to boot Win98SE gets turned into an extra screen using Maxivista. If it's damaged but still able to boot something and has a working screen, it will be turned into a digital picture frame. If the screen doesn't work, there's nothing that makes it better than all the other spare computers I already have.

Yeah, or maybe even VNC. The trick I would think, on any OS, is, to create an offscreen frame buffer and serve THAT over VNC, connecting the two somehow. Then the supplementary machine would be a client and not a server.

However, my skills are nowhere near that...

I know MaxiVista creates a virtual video card so you can use Windows' native multi monitor support.

As neat as that is, I wonder if that's too complex to start with though (Linux or OSS Windows). Ultimately it would be the best solution though...

My 266MMX ultralight notebook is being an extra monitor for my main work laptop. It's also a small amount of network attached storage if I feel the need.