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Ask HN: Advice for creating a USB device linking 2 computers

20 points WorldDev | 1 comments | 25 Oct 25 19:01 UTC | HN request time: 0.222s | source

I want to build a little device that connects two computers together via usb, and send keystrokes from one to the other.

(I would use it to use a laptop keyboard on a headless computers).

I am looking for an easy solution, it does not have to be the cheapest.

ChatGPT points me to Arduino, but as far as I can see, there's no arduino with 2 usb ports. It also points me to Raspery pi zero, but that's a computer, not a microcontroller, so not sure if it's suitable.

If anyone with experience can give me some pointers, it would be greatly appreciated!

1. throwaway290 ◴[25 Oct 25 20:15 UTC] No.45706639[source]▶
Most keyboards run on standard ARM chips and firmware is a mini OS. Check out one of open source keyboard firmwares and you can adapt related code to run on your laptop and pretend to be keyboard over USB port. If you run Linux on laptop you maybe don't even need separate device.