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I know Laplink still sells transfer cables, they have a USB 3.0 version for $50. https://web.laplink.com/cables...

At that price I'd be better off buying a couple USB to Ethernet adapters and an Ethernet cable. That would be faster, possibly cheaper, not require any drivers (or at least none not easily obtained), and still offer the ability to breakup this "home brew Laplink" to connect a couple computers to an Ethernet network.

By looking hard enough I was able to find someone selling a passive, and USB 3.0 compliant, USB-A to USB-A cable for about $15. https://www.datapro.net/produc...

The warning on the DataPro webpage indicates that this cable will not support networking or file transfer with Windows, macOS, or Linux. Well, why not? Clearly this is supported in the USB spec and Microsoft provides debugging on this cable with some registry editing. Apple seemed to figure out how to write the software needed for networking on a passive cable for Thunderbolt, Firewire, Ethernet, and going all the way back to serial ports with LocalTalk. Seems to me that they are more than halfway there with the hardware and software, they need only to take those last few steps to take this from the realm of superusers to the everyday.

I can understand why Apple doesn't support direct USB to USB networking. First, they support higher speeds on other ports. Second, there's a lot of non-compliant USB cables floating about and they likely don't want to be held responsible for someone burning up their laptop over this. Third, without support from other manufacturers and OS publishers there's no real market for it.

Let's ignore the USB-A to USB-A aspect of this for a moment. I should be able to connect a couple computers together with a USB-A to USB-C cable, or USB-C to USB-C cable, and do more than charge up a laptop battery. There is a data connection there, all we need is the software to transfer some data. Given that Ethernet ports are disappearing from computers, and USB-C is taking their place, one would think that a computer manufacturer would want to assure that the ability to make a fast and direct connection to another computer was maintained. Well, I mean, besides just Apple.

I accidentally posted the same graphic link twice above. Here's a USB A connector:

http://www.datapro.net/connectors/USB-A.gif

Say what? Firewire connectors are not flat. I don't believe gamelink connectors are either. Perhaps you're thinking of the USB B connector. I'm talking about USB A.

I'm also a little skeptical about that funny-shaped plug being invented specifically for the Gameboy. Typically manufacturers use something off the shelf for a consumer item. It's possible that nobody in the U.S. saw these connectors before the Gameboy, just as nobody in the U.S. (except a few audio enthusiasts) ever saw a DIN connector before IBM started using them on PCs.

Say what? Firewire connectors are not flat. I don't believe gamelink connectors are either. Perhaps you're thinking of the USB B connector. I'm talking about USB A.

I'm also a little skeptical about that funny-shaped plug being invented specifically for the Gameboy. Typically manufacturers use something off the shelf for a consumer item. It's possible that nobody in the U.S. saw these connectors before the Gameboy, just as nobody in the U.S. (except a few audio enthusiasts) ever saw a DIN connector before IBM started using them on PCs.

The whole thing about reconfiguring a USB device when changing ports is an OS thing, not a fault of USB itself. Linux handles changing ports just fine.

As for the crossover cable...have you ever bothered looking? For instance...

http://www.datapro.net/products/usb-2-0-host-to-host-cable.html

Dual-link DVI != two cables. It's a single DVI cable with an extra set of pins.

See pics at the bottom of this page:
http://www.datapro.net/techinfo/dvi_info.html

Are you sure you aren't using a dual-link cable?

With these mammoth LCDs that require dual DVI inputs... Is it possible to hook them up to a lower-end video card (eg, my laptop) and run them at a lower resolution?

I recently went to an Apple store and asked the fellow behind the Genius Bar the same question, and we did some in-store experimentation. So my experience has been:

1) It doesn't require "dual DVI inputs", it requires a single "dual-link DVI input". The difference is basically that the DVI bus can actually have two transmitters running over a single line, which allows it to pump way more pixels. So instead of taking a dual-head DVI video card and hooking up both connectors to this monitor, you take a recent, powerful DVI card and hook up only one connector to this monitor. (I was under this misconception for a while, so I post this in order to clarify for others...) You can find out more detailed information about the DVI analog and digital, single- and dual-link configurations here.

2) As long as you have a genuinely digital DVI feed (rather than, e.g., an analog one generated by a VGA-DVI converter-- again, see the DataPro link above for details)... yes you can hook up a card using a single-link DVI transmitter to such a monitor. The Apple Cinema Display scales up the resolution as necessary, so that your 1600x1024 will in fact fill the entire screen; I can't speak for the Dell, but I imagine the behavior's the same. However, the final effect looks pretty terrible.

The upshot: I used to have two machines hooked up to a single 20" CRT, and both were managed by KVM. When I buy a 30" Cinema HD display from Apple sometime in the next few weeks, I'm going to hook it up to the G5 and operate the PC in a window through Remote Desktop, or VNC when I have it booted from a Linux drive. But since I write Windows drivers for a hobby (that's loadable kernel modules to you Linux folk :) I have the potential to periodically turn my computer into a non-booting doorstop. For those times when I'm in such a pinch, I'm going to buy a cheap $50 single-link DVI card to hook up to the big-ass monitor for troubleshooting. I'm sure the BIOS and boot disk video will look horrible, but then I hope I won't have to spend much time at all in there anyway :)

*snort* Today's captcha == "optical" :)

Just found this info on DVI connectors: All About DVI

Hope this helps..

See here for more info.

See here for more info.