Not to be taken in a bad way but, so many people wondering "what is a KVM" is telling a lot about HN reader base evolution.

It used to be a time that any proper geek/hacker would obviously know what a KVM is. More the normal KVM than the IP-KVM that could be considered a marvel of our time in the end.

Because it was so common to have just a single screen and keyboard but multiple tower desktop computers. Especially at school and home. Nowadays we mostly all use laptops so it is well irrelevant and I guess only a few young reader ever saw one in the field.

At the beginning of my career, it was typical to have servers in the office, either in a server closet, or in a proper server room. Even if we had servers off-site, the development infrastructure was often still local. It was typical for experienced developers to know how to do basic "physical" maintenance. I was a system administrator before I was a developer, so often I was the one who ended up doing it. I imagine many HN readers remember those days. I miss it a bit!