Multiple Keyboard inputs - Is it possible?

LukeyKid · 18-11-2019 10:25PM #1

Hey guys!

So im doing a project concept for my final year at college and one of the ideas i have requires 6 keyboards, is there anyway to have 6 keyboards inputs for one computer or would i need 6 devices?

Thinking about it, I dont know, i no longer have spare keyboards so i cant test myself.

This will more then likely be a virtual machine job? As its also been quite some time since i used VMs can you run 6 instance at once? They only need to display text.

Long story short - I need 6 screens with 6 word docs open at once with as little amount of space needed.

Thanks!

JoyPad · 19-11-2019 09:37AM

Yes, you can connect multiple USB keyboards to one PC, and anything you type on any one of them will be sent to the application that has the focus. Using VirtualBox (or similar), you can run multiple VMs and have each keyboard assigned to a VM.

One problem will be having 6 screens. Yes, it's possible, but most PCs will be limited to 3 because of the outputs.
You would need a second GPU with 3 more outputs for the additional screens.
Or, if you have monitors that support DisplayPort daisy-chain, you could drive them all with one GPU, but you'd probably be testing the limits of the hardware (YMMV).
One more thing: unless you have 6 GPUs, you cannot assign separate screen per VM. Even if you have 3 screens attached to one GPU, all of them will belong to the VM that has control of the GPU.

Also, if the VMs have to run Windows and MS Word, you'll be needing quite a lot of RAM. I think Office recommends a minimum of 4GB, and multiplied by 6, plus the host, you would need quite a lot. Does it have to be MS Word, or could your project work with something lighter?

Come to think of it, you're better off with separate machines connected over the network. Less trouble and cheaper setup.

Lucifer · 19-11-2019 10:43AM

How about 6 raspberry pis?

LukeyKid · 23-11-2019 11:56AM

Thanks for your replys!

JoyPad: yeah the more i thought about it the less convient it sounded to me haha.

This is for a really quick concept video so the less effort and time the better.

Yes the Pis were also an option, I actually have a 3rd option after a little bit of messing around. Its probably the esiest and cheapest option to set up a small chat server. That can be run locally, after looking it up it seems to be pretty straight forward and there plenty of tutorials aswell.

Multiple Keyboard inputs - Is it possible?

Comments