Can I connect two MacPros with one monitor?

[henryrobinett]

Is there a way to connect two Mac and use one monitor? I have two Quad 2.8 MacPros. I had two because I had a studio outside my home. Now I am home with both Macs. I intend to out a studio outside again, so I'm keeping two. But I'd like to use both, maybe. I could have a different OS on one, and use another for backups.

If so how do I do this?

[henryrobinett]

Network? I think I had a couple or three Macs on a network many years ago - Mac Tower, iMac and powerbook. But you know, that was a long time ago . . .

[G]

The easiest way would be using multiple inputs on your display, but that depends on what inputs it has and what the video cards in your Mac Pros can output. Right now, my Mac Pro is delivering a signal to my 27-inch display using Display Port, and a new, custom-built PC is sending dual-link DVI-D (don't worry, the PC is just for workhorse stuff and gaming — can't wait to get a Skylake CPU in a MacBook Pro, though!). Both are digital signals, both support the full resolution of the display, so it works perfectly.

When I want to switch to the PC, I just hit Control-Shift-Eject on the Mac to turn off its video feed. The display "sees" no video coming from the Mac, so it automatically switches to the PC. Switching back for you is easy, just do the same on the second Mac and hit any key on the first to "wake" it. On Windows, there is no similar keyboard shortcut, so I had to rig up a mini-app.

If you do end up moving one Mac far away again, or if the others will only be subservient to the main Mac, you could use something like screen sharing or Remote Desktop.

Aside: I thought it would make sense to have a separate keyboard and mouse for each computer. I discovered what a mess this was only after buying extras and trying to set everything up. I quickly killed that plan and got an Iogear GUS402 USB switcher instead, for a whopping $28. Now, one keyboard and one mouse do double duty. It's much nicer, and works great. It would probably be possible to get a KVM switch and include the display in the switching, but KVM switches that can handle high resolution Display Port (1440p) were not inexpensive last I looked.

[henryrobinett]

Excellent! Thanks G! I'll have to look into that. I have a Samsung ToC. I'll look it up when I get a minute. My cinema died last year!