System and method for a graphics terminal multiplier

摘要

Thin-client terminal systems allow server computer systems to be shared by multiple computer users. However, thin-client terminal systems that use analog signals can only be placed a limited distance from the main server computer system. On the other hand, thin-client terminal systems that rely purely on digital signals can be expensive to produce. A thin-client multiplier that combines the two different approaches communicates digitally with main server computer system such that it can be placed any distance from the main server computer system. The thin-client multiplier also provides output information received from the server system and electrical power to analog thin-client terminal systems and receives input information from the analog thin-client terminal systems. The received input information is provided to the server system for processing.

主权项

1. A terminal multiplier apparatus, said terminal multiplier apparatus comprising:
an interface component configured to bi-directionally communicate data between a thin-client terminal and a thin-client server system; a control system connected to the interface component and configured to:
receive output data that includes an address of a terminal interface circuit among a plurality of terminal interface circuits at the terminal multiplier apparatus from the thin-client server system, anddistribute the output data from the thin-client server system to the thin-client terminal via the terminal interface circuit identified by the address included with the output data, the terminal interface circuit configured to process and distribute the output data to the corresponding thin-client terminal, the terminal interface circuit comprising:a screen buffer to store a digital representation of a video display of the thin-client terminal, andan input interface to receive input information from the thin-client terminal,at least one terminal interface circuit of the plurality of terminal interface circuits further comprising at least one input/output device port configured to directly connect with a user input/output device of a thin-client terminal corresponding to the at least one terminal interface circuit, the terminal interface circuit comprising a video adapter to read the screen buffer and generate an analog video signal for the corresponding terminal system, the control system being further configured to aggregate the input information received by the plurality of terminal interface circuits, and the interface component being further configured to receive the aggregated input information from the control system and transmit the aggregated input information to the server.