This is nice, but how about a way to connect modern computers to old displays? I have several really nice displays (mostly in old laptops, but also an SGI 1600SW) that it would be great to have a DVI or similar input for in one way or another.
I've spent many hours trying to get my 2012 iMac to function as secondary display for 2020+ macbook(s). It worked perfectly well with 2019- macbook(s). The iMac is perfectly functional and has capability to be used as a "Target Display". Screw the folks who advocate dropping features like this so that I can generate more waste & buy newer crap from them.
One reason that Target Display Mode has faded away could be a real, tech hardware issue: retimers required to drive the High-DPI displays on recent Macs.
It's not a satisfying thread of speculation. And it's not even wrong: all 2020+ Macs support Thunderbolt, the whole point of which is to drive DisplayPort and PCIe over the wire...
How hard could it be, to get a Mac to just run as a ThunderBolt screen?
So the next thing I considered was Thunderbolt, DMA, PCIe, and security.
The new Mac hardware has tried very hard to protect the machine from data exfiltration. You can fall through the rabbit hole at the great Eclectic Light blog, but anyhow it can seem needlessly complex, and yet full hardware encryption while supporting system updates out in the world is challenging. I've been unable to brick my MacBook, so far, so that's an improvement.
I am dropping off my 27-inch iMac for recycling next week. It's not a retina model, and I did use it as a target display, but mounting hardware age (I replaced the motherboard etc myself) have rendered it to be too much work to deal with. It's 12 years old, that's almost good enough for me.
I also came here to ask more or less this question. I have an old HP fixed frequency monitor (https://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=208) that I want to connect to a Raspberry Pi, and its not clear how to achieve this.
for I guess 1280x1024@60Hz? Maybe you don't even need to, because that is a common VESA resolution(SXGA) which should be provided anyways? So by setting this as fixed resolution by whichever means at startup, it could work. Maybe there are a even a few different ones to choose from, with slightly different timings, polarities. Or you could change that at the monitor itself. The second pdf from your link suggests that. I mean if the picture is rolling slowly up or down, or something like that.
I don't use PIs, so I don't know how the firmware works, which modes it supports, and how this all interacts with that videocore-thing, nowadays.
But that you'd need the converter gadgets and cable from there is obvious.
Your laptop monitors probably use lvds/edp to interface with the motherboard. You can buy a converter to displayport for those. For your old monitors that use non-standard interfaces you should just buy a new one. Acquiring a converter will be expensive and time-consuming. You might as well just buy a new Dell ultrasharp, which is guaranteed to be much nicer.
> Your laptop monitors probably use lvds/edp to interface with the motherboard. You can buy a converter to displayport for those.
As a sidenote - why is a converter for eDP needed in the first place, other than to supply power for the backlight, and to adapt the connector to the usual flat cable?
If I read the Wikipedia article correctly [1], eDP is a superset of the DisplayPort standard, with added functionality to control the panel/backlight via the AUX channel and support for an on-panel framebuffer - so in theory one should be able to directly drive an eDP panel from a DisplayPort connector with a passive adapter and some way to supply power to the backlight.
The idea is to avoid a big chunk of e-waste from disposing of a perfectly good monitor. Of course the converter introduces electronics of its own, but it's a much smaller thing than a new Dell Ultrasharp, and hopefully much less expensive as well.
lvds to displayport converter is interesting and I should look into it. Thanks for mentioning.
“Modern” displays are some combination of 16:9 at best (and even that is being supplanted by even more ridiculous aspect ratios), use fake 10-bit color mode, have terrible color gamut, bad viewing angles, horribly glossy, or some other incredible limitation. There is literally no “modern” equivalent for my barely ten year old ZR24W/ZR30W. It heats up my office in ways a new UltraSharp doesn’t, but that Dell wastes its retina pixels on real estate I can’t use. I say all this as someone that actually welcomes a hi-dpi, hi-fps, low-power, etc version of the hardware I’ve got.
> fake 10-bit color mode, have terrible color gamut, bad viewing angles, horribly glossy, or some other incredible limitation.
From the ad copy of a Dell U2720Q 4K 27":
> Exceptional color: Get wide color coverage with 95% DCI-P3 – which covers approximately 25% more color space than sRGB – for true color reproduction. This monitor also offers 99% sRGB and 99% Rec 709 color coverage.
> Outstanding color depth: With and outstanding color depth of 1.07 billion colors (that’s 64 times more color depth than standard monitors), excellent peak brightness and a high contrast ratio of 1300:1, images are displayed in true-to-life color with clear details even in dark shadows or brightly lit areas. Be prepared for better color gradation and precision in more shades on this VESA DisplayHDR™ 400 monitor.
> True-to-life details: 4K UHD (3840 X 2160) resolution with a high pixel density of 163ppi gives you four times more details than Full HD.
> Accurate color, out of the box: Your monitor is factory calibrated at 99% sRGB to an accuracy of Delta-E less than 2 for accurate colors right from the start.
Even if you don't get 10-bit you'll get more accurate colors because the deltaE value is lower. And since you panel is 10 years old panel uniformity will certainly be much better.
I bought 2 used 4K Dell U2718Q displays (the older model) for 250 each. The best displays I have ever used. Very worth it. I recommend you demo 1 if you can.
That's a 16:9 display and you won't get the same real estate. I'm using my monitor at its native 2560x1600 at 100% scaling. 3840x2160 at either 27" or 32" (I've tried both) is unusably small at 100% and only a scant 2560x1440 at 150% scaling. The difference from 1600p to 1440p is rather stark and very hard to swallow.
If you’ve got extra money, I can recommend the UP2718Q (not the U2718Q), which is used ~800€, but has a true 10-bit panel and 1000 nits peak brightness.
That's a 16:9 display and you won't get the same real estate. I'm using my monitor at its native 2560x1600 at 100% scaling. 3840x2160 at either 27" or 32" (I've tried both) is unusably small at 100% and only a scant 2560x1440 at 150% scaling. The difference from 1600p to 1440p is rather stark and very hard to swallow.
