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Why do the macs have to have special display connections?

I

imacintel

macrumors 68000
Original poster
I was wondering why they have the weird looking ports for screens instead of just having a paralell one?
 
imacintel said:
I was wondering why they have the weird looking ports for screens instead of just having a paralell one?
Click to expand...

Do you mean the DVI port? If so, PC's are all switching to those too.
 
StoneWolf said:
Do you mean the DVI port? If so, PC's are all switching to those too.
Click to expand...
I've had a video card with a DVI port in my PC for almost 5 years. I'm just sayin... 😀
 
StoneWolf said:
My 1 year old laptop only has the VGA port 😡
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Well, in all fairness, my PC is a custom built machine. I bought a video card with VGA and DVI so that running dual displays would be a piece of cake. 🙂
 
Couple of things I still see in PC's that all my friends own. Parallel ports, VGA only, and no firewire ports. Even apple gave up on serial ports and SCSI at some point. But I know the reasons why many PC's still have those ports and in many cases some PC's have way more port options than macs have.

Just last night I was helping someone find a HD15 to DB15 Video adapter for their old G3 CRT Monitor. Now that's old.
 
my quicksilver has an Apple Display Connector for the
old lucite flat displays...

big cash for the adapter to work that into a usable port on anything else...
 
imacintel said:
I was wondering why they have the weird looking ports for screens instead of just having a paralell one?
Click to expand...

As they said, DVI is standard on Macs these days. The adapters are cheap and there is no quality loss.

As for why they are DVI-I (or ADC) in stead of DVI-D, that is for the Apple display monitors. Your DVI-D monitor should still work in the DVI-I input on the card.
 
MisterMe said:
What are you saying 😕
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...that PC's have had them for years? I never buy pre-manufactured machines so I've no clue what Dell or HP or whoever has been putting in their boxes lately... and I'd like to keep it that way. 😀
 
Well to tell you the truth, where can i buy the adapters? There is no apple store in my great city of calgary. HELP!!!
 
Foxglove9 said:
Couple of things I still see in PC's that all my friends own. Parallel ports, VGA only, and no firewire ports. Even apple gave up on serial ports and SCSI at some point. But I know the reasons why many PC's still have those ports and in many cases some PC's have way more port options than macs have.

Just last night I was helping someone find a HD15 to DB15 Video adapter for their old G3 CRT Monitor. Now that's old.
Click to expand...

I think that you see many of these legacy ports on PC's so that PC manufacturers can continue to support various peripherals. For example, I upgraded the Windows computers for my friend's fish warehouse recently, and the PC's needed to have serial and parallel ports in order to support the temperature sensors and dot-matrix printers. (The dot-matrix printers are used to print triplicates of invoices).

You don't see many Mac's in industrial settings, so there really isn't a need to have ports on Mac's that support these old industrial devices.
 
imacintel said:
I was wondering why they have the weird looking ports for screens instead of just having a paralell one?
Click to expand...
The DVI port Apple has been using is standard on PCs for years. If your monitor only has a VGA port then use this.
 
StoneWolf said:
My 1 year old laptop only has the VGA port 😡
Click to expand...

I think laptops have been a little slower to switch because one cannot assume, whenever one wants to plug into a projector, that there will be a DVI port on it, or that a DVI cable will be available, or that some sort of DVI-A -> VGA adapter will be available. 🙁

And that's a much bigger issue for laptop owners than for desktop owners. 😱

I know, here, the hardware in our lecture rooms is all set up for VGA. But then, so is my iBook! 🙂
 
imacintel said:
Well to tell you the truth, where can i buy the adapters? There is no apple store in my great city of calgary. HELP!!!
Click to expand...
Please help us out -- you surely don't have a parallel port. So, what exactly do you have, and what do you need to plug into it?

PS.
Westworld
Compusmart
BestBuy
Vistek
London Drugs
Future Shop

Go to Apple.ca, Where to buy, Find a reseller, enter your city.
 
My iMac has a mini VGA port... those are not standard in the PC world. I had to pay an extra $20 to plug my computer into a projector that had every connection known to man... except for mine. 🙄
 
EricNau said:
My iMac has a mini VGA port... those are not standard in the PC world. I had to pay an extra $20 to plug my computer into a projector that had every connection known to man... except for mine. 🙄
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mini VGA? Damn, I though my iMac has mini DVI...

Yes, it says mini VGA on iMac's box 😱
 
EricNau said:
until I went to buy the adapter.
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Yeah I imagine what u have thought back then 😀

The fact that I have mini-VGA instead of mini-DVI doesnt bother me at all, because I don't have an external display/projector 🙂
 
I guess laptops are the only Apple computers that come with the mini-VGA adapters for free then?

Which is weird to me, because every Apple computer I've bought so far has had a converter for VGA come with it.
 
After G said:
I guess laptops are the only Apple computers that come with the mini-VGA adapters for free then?

Which is weird to me, because every Apple computer I've bought so far has had a converter for VGA come with it.
Click to expand...

I kinda wish they'd just switch to that plug format. I hate those big plugs with the screws on the side.... *sighs*
 
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