Inverse or Sharing Hubs
Also available are so-called "sharing hubs", which effectively are the reverse of a USB hub, allowing several PCs to access (usually) a single peripheral. They can either be manual, effectively a simple switch-box, or automatic, incorporating a mechanism that recognises which PC wishes to use the peripheral and switches accordingly. They cannot grant both PCs access at once. Some models, however, have the ability to control multiple peripherals separately (e.g., two PCs and four peripherals, assigning access separately). Only the simpler switches tend to be automatic, and this feature generally places them at a higher price point too. Modern KVM switches can also often share USB devices between several computers.
Read more about this topic: USB Hub
Famous quotes containing the words inverse, sharing and/or hubs:
“The quality of moral behaviour varies in inverse ratio to the number of human beings involved.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“The meaning of the Street in all ways and at all times is the need for sharing life with others and the search for community.”
—Virginia Hamilton (b. 1936)
“He sent for lancewood to make the thills;
The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees;
The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese,
But lasts like iron for things like these;
The hubs of logs from the “Settler’s ellum,”—
Last of its timber,—they couldn’t sell ‘em,”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)