Multi simultaneous user computer

[slaves123]

I was talking to the father of one of my best friends... they've got 4 computers in their home some of them are a little bit old, other older... but none is absolutly useless... well the father asked me if i could build a type of "big computer" his own words... in which he can attach four monitors and run four different sessions, even of different OS's, on different hard drives....
maybe you've got crazy ideas... these man... has a lot of money, but wont spend ten thousand on something like that, so don't name a 8 processor server, oK?

Thanks... have fun

 

[tart666]

the power of the PC shouldn't be a big deal, but you will only be able to use PCI video cards... also, last i checked you'd have to pay $99 per user for software (so, $400 for 4 stations)

with those limits, might as well buy 4 dells at $300 ea

 

[slaves123]

it has to be ONE computer, ONE SINGLE CASE, that can provide me 3 or 4 Monitor Out, and the same nombur of mice and keyboard, also audio system.

 

[ribbon13]

How about four 1U blades?

 

[imported_waldo]

As far as I know, I have only heard about 2 user motherboards and not 4.

 

[Maxil223]

buy 4 cheap shuttle barebones, weld them all together and repaint

 

[halfadder]

I've read where someone used several PCI video cards and several USB keyboards and mice to do this with Linux on a PC.

Probably easier to just build a bunch of $250 PCs.

 

[ribbon13]

I dunno if there is software to support it, but a dual opteron based on the Thunder K8WE with two XFX 6600GTs would have 4 video outs and more than enough horsepower for 4 users.

 

[slaves123]

maxil... that seems to be a very good idea! hahaha but may be there is another way... like for example dumb terminals... connected to a very big one...heeeeeelp me

 

[VirtualLarry]

JetWay makes dual-user mobos, that along with their "MagicTwin" software, can turn a single XP machine with multiple video and input devices into a dual-user workstation box. Most of the "magic" appears to actually be software, so it should be doable with any XP machine with the right "magic registry tweaks". Sadly, those aren't really documented. The idea is to allocation multiple "Window Stations" (more than just the default WinSta0 device), and then bind them to the appropriate video/input/sound devices that are present in the system. (Similar to how Linux has multiple "virtual consoles", in a way.) I'm interesting in doing the same thing. That would allow playing multi-player FPS games against one of my friends on the same computer, which would be very convenient.

 

[Gunbuster]

Blade PC's

or

Thin Clients

 

[slaves123]

Originally posted by: ribbon13
I dunno if there is software to support it, but a dual opteron based on the Thunder K8WE with two XFX 6600GTs would have 4 video outs and more than enough horsepower for 4 users.

yes horsepower sure... but it would't be independent between them... i'm asking you for some things which i consider that exist, so don't invent.... nothing personal ribbon, really