Comment by a-dub
5 hours ago
back in the '00s i used a hardware kvm that could be controlled by the keyboard with some weird key combo (~ ~ (1|2)? maybe?). these days i strongly prefer deskflow (oss version of synergy) for this sort of thing or just ordinary remote desktop for the secondary. (depends on the task, if you're just building for the secondary or reading email it doesn't really matter- but if you're developing interactive applications or you need to reboot a bunch or something, then having the physical hardware with a local head can help).
I still use hardware KVMs. Tesmart is OKish, but fails within a couple years, usualy. AV Access is on par with it.
Level1Techs are the best but also cost double or triple.
Where I worked in the 00s, they had rack mountable kvm. The clients were just a small box with utp and the peripherals. A double press on ctrl opened a menu and you could choose a server. Neat.
it was embedded/client land for embedded systems that were connected to tvs (had one of those on my desk too). i had a primary windows dev box for wrs tornado and e-mail and then a linux box for ci dev and build/release infra. the kvm also allowed me to switch to whatever engineering sample hw i had on my desk. fun times!