Posted by
michael
on from the double-your-pleasure dept.
cojsl writes "Anandtech reviews the Jetway Magic Twin small form-factor PC that allows two simultaneous users on one Windows PC. The article mentions a mobo only option too."
These have been around for some time
by
spidergoat2
·
· Score: 3, Informative
These are nothing new. The PCBuddy has been around for a number of years. We don't pay much attention to this stuff in the USA because PC's and parts are cheap. These devices are popular in third world countries where resources are streched.
Re:I want the opposite...
by
esac17
·
· Score: 3, Informative
That problem is easily answered when considering 1 or 2 computers run off one interface (VNC, TS, telnet, ssh). But the problem comes when one wants to manage their whole lab infrastructure or every computer in their home from one interface. Windows 2003 comes with a neat little MMC snapin called "Remote Desktops" that lets you manage all of your TS sessions. The problem with that is that there is one process for each computer, and if you can imagine, 100-1000 mstsc.exe processes can consume quite a bit of memory. As well it doesn't support features that KVM does like being able to broadcast to all of the machines at once.
What would be nice is software that lets you split your computers into groups, allow you to broadcast to those specific groups, etc..
More information plus pricing
by
erick99
·
· Score: 5, Informative
This website does a pretty good job explaining the technology involved and also provides some pricing.
Happy Trails!
Erick
-- http://www.busyweather.com/
Also via a PCI card
by
phoebe
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Applica have been doing this for a bit, they also sell 4-station cards so that 5 users can share one PC!
Install guide has some more details...
by
morcheeba
·
· Score: 3, Informative
We can only guarantee that the program will properly run on a completely reinstalled Windows XP system, using the latest hardware drivers and system requirements,
without third-party software and hardware.
.. so as long as you don't try to run any applications on it, you'll be fine! The software is fully tied to Windows XP, so no chance of running other operating systems. It looks like there is only one copy of Windows XP running, but then Page 13 has this quote:
Microsoft Windows License Request: After you have read and accept the Microsoft license terms, the MagicTwin software will explicitly ask you, the licensee, whether you have obtained a sufficient number of Windows licenses. If your choice is "NO" then at every restart the software will notify you of this issue.
Page 8 tells you to turn off the system standby in XP's power management. Guess they don't have that working well. But they do warn the second user if the first user decides to shut down the system.
There are already a few misguided posts on the matter so hopefully, I can clear this up for you.
Microsoft and many other software makers already address this licensing issue. On this machine Microsoft requires either two licenses for Windows or one Windows license and a Terminal Server Client Access license. For MS Office a license is required for each per seat instance. SO, two users in Word requires two licenses.
This same licensing system is also required by many/most other commercial vendors. Anyone familiar with Terminal services or Citrix should be familiar with this licensing model. If they aren't Microsoft will enjoy speaking with them.
Re:should possible on any PC with sufficient hardw
by
Qwell
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Not a whole lot keeps two X servers from running locally. I saw this howto at tldp.org a few months ago, and was very interested. It requires a kernel patch or two, but it seems very nice. http://tldp.org/HOWTO/XFree-Local-multi-user-HOWTO/
-- As of 10/06/03, I hate COBOL developers.
Re:Terminal Server
by
Malc
·
· Score: 4, Informative
bhtooefr is correct. There can be only one person connected whether it be at the console or via RDP. Logging on via RDP disconnects everybody else and connects to an existing desktop if that user has already logged in. Logging on at the console will then disconnect that remote user, and connect to the same session if it is the same username.
I wish there were a way to hack XP's terminal services to allow multiple concurrent logons.
I already did the same thing with plain old X-windows on a linux *LAPTOP*. Windows is so behind the times. (With X, you can define the two outputs of the video card (VGA out and the LCD screen) to be different screens altogether, and define one to use the laptop's keyboard and laptop's touchpad, and the other to use a usb keyboard and mouse, and violla, localhost:1.0 is user 1 on the laptop, and localhost:2.0 is user 2 using the usb keyboard, mouse, and the external VGA monitor.)
--
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Re:Unique? No... but legal questions?
by
Myself
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Yeah, it was called the Buddy, and the old incarnation sucked. It was a PCI board which was essentially a video card plus a PS/2 keyboard and mouse controller. The video capabilities were terrible (sync rate limited to 60Hz, IIRC), and the second keyboard was prone to random resets and other problems.
The new incarnation of Buddy seems to address all those problems by using standard hardware. Buddy and BeTwin (they look like the same software) appear to work with any PCI video board that'll coexist with other video hardware, and since they use USB keyboards and mice (and audio, if you want), the proprietary controller problems should be gone too.
The new Buddy doesn't stop at 2 stations, either. It'll happily run up to 5, which might have a chance of using some of the absurd CPU power available in a modern PC. They have a trial version up for download, I might have to check my hardware compatibility and tinker with it later.
Slashdot Mirror
These are nothing new. The PCBuddy has been around for a number of years. We don't pay much attention to this stuff in the USA because PC's and parts are cheap. These devices are popular in third world countries where resources are streched.
That problem is easily answered when considering 1 or 2 computers run off one interface (VNC, TS, telnet, ssh). But the problem comes when one wants to manage their whole lab infrastructure or every computer in their home from one interface. Windows 2003 comes with a neat little MMC snapin called "Remote Desktops" that lets you manage all of your TS sessions. The problem with that is that there is one process for each computer, and if you can imagine, 100-1000 mstsc.exe processes can consume quite a bit of memory. As well it doesn't support features that KVM does like being able to broadcast to all of the machines at once.
What would be nice is software that lets you split your computers into groups, allow you to broadcast to those specific groups, etc..
Happy Trails!
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
Applica have been doing this for a bit, they also sell 4-station cards so that 5 users can share one PC!
Page 8 tells you to turn off the system standby in XP's power management. Guess they don't have that working well. But they do warn the second user if the first user decides to shut down the system.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
There are already a few misguided posts on the matter so hopefully, I can clear this up for you.
Microsoft and many other software makers already address this licensing issue. On this machine Microsoft requires either two licenses for Windows or one Windows license and a Terminal Server Client Access license. For MS Office a license is required for each per seat instance. SO, two users in Word requires two licenses.
This same licensing system is also required by many/most other commercial vendors. Anyone familiar with Terminal services or Citrix should be familiar with this licensing model. If they aren't Microsoft will enjoy speaking with them.
Not a whole lot keeps two X servers from running locally. I saw this howto at tldp.org a few months ago, and was very interested. It requires a kernel patch or two, but it seems very nice.O /
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/XFree-Local-multi-user-HOWT
As of 10/06/03, I hate COBOL developers.
bhtooefr is correct. There can be only one person connected whether it be at the console or via RDP. Logging on via RDP disconnects everybody else and connects to an existing desktop if that user has already logged in. Logging on at the console will then disconnect that remote user, and connect to the same session if it is the same username.
I wish there were a way to hack XP's terminal services to allow multiple concurrent logons.
I already did the same thing with plain old X-windows on a linux *LAPTOP*. Windows is so behind the times. (With X, you can define the two outputs of the video card (VGA out and the LCD screen) to be different screens altogether, and define one to use the laptop's keyboard and laptop's touchpad, and the other to use a usb keyboard and mouse, and violla, localhost:1.0 is user 1 on the laptop, and localhost:2.0 is user 2 using the usb keyboard, mouse, and the external VGA monitor.)
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Yeah, it was called the Buddy, and the old incarnation sucked. It was a PCI board which was essentially a video card plus a PS/2 keyboard and mouse controller. The video capabilities were terrible (sync rate limited to 60Hz, IIRC), and the second keyboard was prone to random resets and other problems.
The new incarnation of Buddy seems to address all those problems by using standard hardware. Buddy and BeTwin (they look like the same software) appear to work with any PCI video board that'll coexist with other video hardware, and since they use USB keyboards and mice (and audio, if you want), the proprietary controller problems should be gone too.
The new Buddy doesn't stop at 2 stations, either. It'll happily run up to 5, which might have a chance of using some of the absurd CPU power available in a modern PC. They have a trial version up for download, I might have to check my hardware compatibility and tinker with it later.