Patent ID: 8407347

Claim:
A non-transitory computer readable medium embodying a computer program that, when executed by a computer, causes the computer to use a single graphical interface layer on the computer to simultaneously support the independent operation of multiple terminals consisting of Groupings of Locally Connected Devices (GLCD-terminals) from a single computer wherein a device is Locally Connected to a computer when the device's operation is fully supported by that computer without the device requiring its own CPU and operating system wherein each GLCD-terminal is defined in part as a grouping comprised of at least one locally connected input device exclusive of any other GLCD-terminal with at least one locally connected output device exclusive of any other GLCD-terminal; wherein the computer program causes the computer to invoke both a pointer and a focus for each terminal so as to be accessible only via the particular input and output devices associated with that GLCD-terminal; wherein the computer program comprises computer executable program code for invoking: an event queue and/or handler modules for receiving input commands from each input device and automatically directing input commands from specific input devices via corresponding socket/listeners to corresponding ones of multiple pointers, focuses and client applications based on predetermined associations between the GLCD-terminals and respective ones of the socket/listeners; an output module for directing output commands from each of the independent client applications in use by a user of a particular GLCD-terminal from the corresponding socket/listener only to the output device of the corresponding GLCD-terminal that originated the initial input command.