Two computers, one display

They are certainly available:

Something like this?:

Can some KVMs cope with PCs which have different video connections - eg VGA on one and HDMI on another, feeding HDMI to a monitor.

My current setup has one monitor with VGA, DVI and HDMI inputs and a button on the monitor to cycle between. I then have two keyboard and two mice (labelled to *try* to minimise confusion).

Almost certainly, but at a much higher price. It's probably cheaper to use a standard HDMI one with a VGA->HDMI converter for one computer.

You could use one of the VGA KVMs to switch keyboard and mouse, or an HDMI one with a converter to do the lot.

It seems like that monitor has a single VGA port, so you'd need a KVM switch with VGA rather than DVI, HDMI or Displayport. VGA is pretty old now, so I'd look on ebay.

As an alternative, you could think about replacing the monitor with one that has multiple inputs, and connect each computer to a different one. Then you switch by pressing a button on the monitor. The only thing you don't get is keyboard/mouse switching (although there is software that can send keyboard/mouse input from one machine to another).

The L1706 is about 20 years old now and monitors have moved on a lot in that time. A 20-24" widescreen monitor (perhaps a similar height to your 4:3 17" but a bit wider) can be picked up for not-much nowadays, and even-less-much used.

Theo

Ah! A likely problem in view of the PC age differences.

At a pinch, I could live with two lots of mice and keyboards

In message snipped-for-privacy@jrenewsid.jretrading.com>, Joe snipped-for-privacy@jretrading.com writes

I knew this would start to get tricky.

The current monitor is VGA (AFAIK)

The price seems to jump to £100 or so but probably worth the convenience long term. Changing the monitor likely to cost more..

It still does a job. I'm not drawing or fiddling with pictures, split screening etc. Otherwise point taken. Might be time for a chat with the nearest repair centre.

Yes, but those are much more expensive

I have four in use here. The issue is how well they emulate the devices when they are switched away, otherwise the computer loses state.

I found Belkin pretty useless. I now use a brancd called ATEN. They even support firmware updates.

Further to my previous reply, take a look here:

Ok Bob.

From the response so far there are lots of ways forward.

I am not competent to specify an appropriate solution for my particular situation but have local contacts who may help.

None of this is urgent and will wait for holiday returns.

Thanks

I have a DVI model and a DP model from Aten

I have two of these:

which I use to switch one of my screens between the two Mac Minis in front of me (one 'mine', the other our file server). I only use the second of these switches (they cascade) when I need to hook up a Pi for software testing and want to give it that screen.

My friend has such, but I dont know what he uses.

My solution was a virtual machine.

My windows machine is just another window on my desktop.

Have you considered Anydesk or Teamviewer? That's a way to achieve this, without any hardware.

Plug the monitor into the desktop, and then control the laptop from there.

Affordable! On a point of order, is the 24" measured diagonally as with early TV screen sizing?