Two touchscreens for one PC

R

Thread Starter

Rob Hulsebos

Hi,

In a machine with one PC two touchscreens are needed, at the near and far end of the machine (less walking for the operator). At both screens control of the machine ought to be possible.

We've thought about using a KVM switch, but this is not useful - it is for the situation where one controls multiple PC's from one keyboard/mouse/terminal, but we have the reverse situation.

Oh yes, when one operator uses a touchscreen, the other one must be temporariliy locked out - and freed after several seconds of inactivity on the other touchscreen.

How can this be done on a standard PC with only one keyboard/mouse input? The VGA output is not the problem (with a splitter), but the input is - how to connect two keyboards + two mice (= from the touchscreen, actually) to a single PC? Is there standard hw available for this?

Rob Hulsebos
(nospam) Rob dot Hulsebos at Philips dot com
 
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James Ingraham

> "...when one operator uses a touchscreen, the other one must be temporariliy locked out - and freed after several seconds of inactivity on the other touchscreen."

This is a very difficult requirement. I'm not sure it's possible with standard hardware and software.

> "How can this be done on a standard PC with only one keyboard/mouse input?"

There are numerous companies that sell mouse y-adapters. But the easier thing to do is use a PC that has USB ports. If your touch screens are serial, you can use a USB to serial adapter. If they actually plug into a mouse port, there are USB to PS/2 adapters. I would start at www.CDW.com, but any computer accessories vendor would be able to get this stuff.

-James Ingraham
Sage Automation, Inc.
 
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Blunier, Mark

Can you run a second copy of the MMI on a second PC? If the PC is not using a typical MMI you might try running a VNC server on the PC, then for the second touch screen, run a VNC viewer. PC anywhere, or Netops would probably work as well.

Mark
Any opinions expressed in this message are not necessarily those of the company.
 
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Mauricio Ponzo

Hi:

If you already can't solve the problem, there are some trick can help you.

You could use Windows 98 (maybe Linux), and could connect any mouses/keyboards to your PC. You need to use diferent kind of connections for each duplicate device. For example: a serial mouse + ps/2 mouse + usb mouse (and of course: ps/2 keyboard + at keyboard + usb keyboard) All of them will work simultaneously, without any additional software Windows (and of course Linux) will detect all of your devices and assing diferent device drivers for each. I sugest PS/2 + USB (for two devices). About Screen (and Touch Screens). If you need to view the SAME screen in both places, you could use an amplifier for VGA (capable to connect up to 4 monitors). Each of them with a different touchscreen. Usually, touchscreens are serial devices. You could connect each to several COMM ports of your PC, run multiple instances of the driver, and assign the rigth COMM address to each instance. With Microtouch, it works fine. If you experiment some problems, you can use diferent brand of touchscreen (one for each monitor). The different brands has different drivers, and could not interfere each one.

Excuse my english.

Regards.
 
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