Traditional pairing uses one keyboard, and one screen (or one pair of screens, etc). When i went to Pivotal, that was the first time i had seen two keyboards and mirrored screens.
I think the Pivotal way is significantly worse - you have a physical machine to yourself, but not a logical machine, so there is a base level of confusion. Sharing a single keyboard means that it's always obvious who is driving. Sharing a single screen means you can gesture at things.
Rather than giving everyone a machine, you can have a few spares for doing email and other solo stuff (as long as you are using webmail!). If people are pairing most of the time, you don't need a dedicated machine each.
I often did remote pairing over screenhero some years ago. We just got really good at communicating with each other who gets to type and who has to keep their hands off. The first few weeks were hard, we'd naturally just try to fix a typo or something and end up conflicting, but after a short while we got into a nice groove and it was never a problem again.
I think the Pivotal way is significantly worse - you have a physical machine to yourself, but not a logical machine, so there is a base level of confusion. Sharing a single keyboard means that it's always obvious who is driving. Sharing a single screen means you can gesture at things.
Rather than giving everyone a machine, you can have a few spares for doing email and other solo stuff (as long as you are using webmail!). If people are pairing most of the time, you don't need a dedicated machine each.