[G4] How can I share keybaord & mouse between USB & ADB Macs?

[Daniel Brieck Jr.]

Hello,

Well what you could do is settle on a standard and convert one of the 
machines to the standard that they lack. Since you don't like the new 
style apple usb keyboard, you could buy a USB to ADB adapter for the G4 
and use you existing apple classic full size keyboard. You will need a 
USB to ADB adapter and a ADB switch to do this. Here is a link to the 
USB to ADB adapter, the iMate by griffin. 
http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/imate/

Or you could convert the old mac to USB by adding a USB PCI card if 
possible.
Hope this gives you some ideas and suggestions for you.

Dan Brieck Jr.
On Jul 27, 2004, at 2:15 AM, Foggy MacUser wrote:

> I have a spiffy new G4 - well, new to me.  It's a 733
> MHz Quicksilver, loaded with Panther, and
> unfortunately, running a lot of OS 9.2.2 stuff still.
> The budget has to recover from the machine purchase
> before I can upgrade Office and so on.  I don't even
> want to *think* about the upgrade cost for Photoshop,
> since my version (photoshop LE) was discontinued
> without any OSX version available, and Adobe advises
> there's no upgrade discount.  Hmmm, my just do
> without.
>
> Anyway, I still have my old Mac, a PPC 604e/250MHz,
> running OS9.0.4 or something a bit newer.  Because it
> has SCSI, it's my only machine that can use my
> scanner.  So, sometimes I'd like to turn it on and use
> it for scanning.  Also, the old machine has sound
> input, and the new one seems to have forgotten that
> Macs are good for AV, so it does not have a sound
> input, and I do a lot of LP transfers.  So you see, I
> need the old machine.  However, I do not have desk
> space for two keyboards, two mice and two monitors.
>
> So here's the rub.  The monitor is easy to share.  Any
> old two-port video switch will do it.  But how can I
> get the two machines to share keybaord and mouse?  The
> old machine is Apple Desktop Bus and the new one is
> USB.  Does someone make a KVM switch for Macs that
> fixes exactly this problem?   I'd rather use the OLD
> keyboard and mouse (ADB) because, well, to be honest,
> the little clear keyboard and mouse that came with the
> G4 are awful.  But if I'm stuck with the USB
> kbd/mouse, well, that's OK until I can afford better
> units.
>
> Any experience before I go searching in the
> never-never land of Google?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Foggy MacUser...VERY Foggy actually
Dan Brieck Jr.