Emac Resolution issues
Hi
As a Newbie to this discussion, I tremble at my audacity in offering input to my hero ibodnar. I have been working on this video issue as well; but first a little history. My machine was an 800 MHz eMac that my School Corp. delivered to me brand new (about a calendar year after it had been discontinued: record time!). It only had 9.2 installed on it, so I bought a copy of 10.2 OSX. I discovered later it was shipped with OSX preinstalled but the Corp. (May they slowly roast!) deleted it so as to be in accord with their standard, No really useful stuff allowed policy, aargh!
I decided to try the biggie first and was able to clock it to 1.33 on my first try. It has run with total stability ever since. I then installed a 250 GB internal hard drive and though Disk Utility hiccupped up a little gob (something like this disk cannot be read) it still formatted almost all the space. I think I ended up with about 238 GB of usable space. I installed the old 40 GB drive in a Firewire enclosure. This comes in handy when I need to boot the internal drive externally, but dont want to drag another machine over to target it though fire wire. Next, I used the Screen Spanning Doctor app, and was able to run spanning to a 19 inch CRT. I also overclocked the video card at this point using the ATI app mentioned earlier in this thread, and upped the ram to I GB. I also hooked up a 300 GB internal hard drive mounted upside down under my desk powered by an old salvaged pc ATX power supply, also so mounted, and connected by a long round IDE Cable to the underused optical drives IDE channel. (I cut a notch out of the little white bottom cover plate and gave it running room by adding Apples eMac Swivel Base).
This was a truly awesome advance for me as a teacher. Do not ever think you are dabbling in side waters if you enjoy what you are doing. Enjoyment breeds real creation. I was able to have my classes work while viewing the CRT image projected by my(see above Corp. policy) Infocus X1 while I worked ahead of them on the eMac screen readying the next conceptual or exploratory, graphic, activity, or web diagram.
This worked so well that I decided to buy a 21.3 inch Samsung LCD flatscreen. This turned out to be a little tricky because of the limitations on eMac resolutions on the Apple end and the limitations of my presenter on the other. Using an app called Switch Res X, I am now able to release all available resolutions on the onboard ATI 7500 plus custom make my own. I was able to span my LCD at its full native 1600 by 1200 in analog mode. This works in OC mode as well as at stock video frequency settings. Unfortunately, my X1 couldnt handle this no matter how closely I matched its optimum frequencies. The best I could do with it in the loop was in the 1200 by x range.
So I just bought a new Optima EP-751 XGA capable presenter that can handle 1600 by 1200 and am now able to put two full working applications on my spanned display so that I can slide developing concepts right into text apps without any fiddling about and still work ahead of them on my own screen. I am going to mount the presenter in my classroom ceiling now and use my old chalkboard as a big 16 by 9 ratio 20 screen.
I would love to get digital capability next, but the prospects for this do seem dim. I tried to just hook up a VGA to DVI adapter hoping the signal was there as the OEM and desktop Mac versions of the ATI 7500 were designed for digital output, but no go! I would sure like to know what that unpopulated connector is on the MB??? No one on this thread seems to have figured out what that is yet. Could that be a technicians diagnostic port for the video card? If so, what goes in might come out. Or might this issue be a hackable item? I am pretty sure that DVI signals can be routed through VGA pin ports. Something in between the ATI app and the Switch RES X app might release the digital signal.
Well, I have gone on long enough; maybe the moderators will give me credit per paragraphs for my posting records. Thanks again Ibodnar and all, you have truly helped out very needy kids with your work. I just wish I would have discovered this thread earlier as all I had to go on before now was Ibodnars Web site NFO. Thanks again.
