(FORTUNE Magazine) – If you share a PC with your kids, you already understand the First Law of Nondistributed Computing: The number of people who need to use a computer always exceeds the number of PCs available. This law typically manifests itself at night, when you have to finish a report due on the boss' desk at 9 a.m., while your teenager has to do research on the Web for a paper due by first period tomorrow.

When such conflicts happen often enough, you have two choices: Buy another PC (expensive choice) or clone the one you have--which is cheaper, thanks to Vega Technologies' new $150 Buddy System. This ingenious kit allows two people to work independently on the same PC. With Buddy installed, you can crunch a spreadsheet while junior plays Doom, or you can browse the Web simultaneously over one phone connection.

The Buddy System is ideal if you've just replaced an old clunker with a spiffy new PC--for your second workstation you need a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and your old monitor may work just fine. Even if you start from scratch, you can pick up the equipment you need for $200 or less.

I tried the Buddy System on a 350MHz Pentium II computer--a good machine, but no barnburner by today's standards. The system consists of three components. The first is a video adapter card for monitor No. 2: It snaps into an ISA expansion slot inside your PC (not an arduous task to perform, though you're out of luck if your PC doesn't have a free ISA slot). The second is a small beige control box with receptacles to plug in your second monitor, keyboard, and mouse. The third is a 25-foot network cable that runs between your computer and the controller box. With a longer cable, you can put a remote workstation up to 50 feet away from the PC.

Once I had my cloned PC running, my son and I were able to use Microsoft Word and Excel simultaneously without hiccups. Then I dialed my Internet service provider and started Microsoft's Internet Explorer while my son ran Netscape Navigator on his end. They both worked--just don't expect blazing speed if you're both downloading Web pages at the same time over a single phone line. But when we concentrated the heavy-duty stuff on the main PC and let the remote workstation handle tasks like word processing and spreadsheets, the system worked beautifully.

Curious about what was happening under the hood, I called Bill Berdux, Vega Technologies' vice president, who said Buddy is based on the premise that today's fast PCs are actually loafing most of the time and have plenty of horsepower for two people. The Buddy's basic hardware was developed years ago for multiuser Unix systems. The key was writing software that adds time sharing to Microsoft Windows--splitting the processor's workload among multiple users. "Basically, we've taken the computer back 30 years," Berdux joked. "We've taken a desktop PC and turned it into a mainframe."

Vega's next trick will be an improved Buddy with a video controller that uses the faster PCI expansion slots in today's computers. Meanwhile, today's Buddy System is a cheap and effective way to make sure no one in your home or office has to stand in line to use a PC. For information, call 888-654-5415 or 510-654-5650, or point your Web browser to www.vegatechnologies.com.