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Agreed that is more "efficient" to just buy 2 cheap monitors and use the extra cash to buy something like the "Neo-Flex Dual LCD Lift Stand" that will rotate any monitor 360 degrees. :-)
http://www.ergotron.com/Products/tabid/65/PRDID/241/Language/en-US/Default.aspx

  Both nVidia and ATI drivers have native monitor rotation built-in but just in case you can't activate it for Windows there is an useful utility: "iRotate", which is only 110K.
http://www.entechtaiwan.com/util/irotate.shtm

You may be interested in this ...

Hardware - Neo-Flex Dual LCD Lift Stand, $149
http://www.ergotron.com/Products/tabid/65/PRDID/241/Language/en-US/Default.aspx

Software - iRotate - This little util is (tiny 111K) & free, and supports dual screen, if your display driver doesn't let you rotate the image.
http://www.entechtaiwan.com/util/irotate.shtm

Oh, and the schematics - don't have them to hand, but this page has most of the relevant info. (ISTR if you use the cheaper chip the schematic might need to be slightly different - the sense of the write-enable pin is inverted or something, but can't remember the details!)

I couldn't find active links for one or two of them myself, but here's an updated list -- in some cases these aren't the original sites, which have disappeared, so obviously it's worth being extra careful with antivirus software... apologies for the mess of links; the filter doesn't like short lines...

1by1 (play MP3s), AriskKey (recover passwords), AutoRuns (enumerate startup tasks), BurnCDCC (burn ISO images), CD (basic CD player), CDex (rip CDs + convert MP3/WAV), Copier [0X Copy Machine] (scan + print), CWShredder (clean spyware), DComBob (tame DCOM), DirLister (make quick file lists), Discover (force windows onscreen), DupeLocater (find and clean), FileRecovery [PC Inspector] (undelete), Folder2ISO (use with BurnCDCC), FoxitReader (read PDFs), GUIPDFTK (split/join PDFs), HijackThis (find spyware), HJSplit (split/join files), Identify_Boards (identify hardware), KatMouse installer (due to MS drivers), LCISOCreator (make ISO image from CD), Leaktest (test firewall), Microsoft keygen (people lose things), MultiRes (change res + force refresh), Multi Timer (stopwatch), NoteTab Light (text editor), NTest (test monitor setup), OnTop (pin windows to foreground), Process Explorer (task manager), ProduKey (recover passwords), Registry Commander (virus cleanup), ResHacker (examine executables), Rootkit Revealer (just in case) ShootTheMessenger (turn service off), Shred by AnalogX (simple filer shredder), TedNPad (unicode text editor), TFT (dead pixel locator), UNPnP (tame SSDP), UPX (compress executables), UnitConverter (what it says), utorrent (basic torrent app), VCdControlTool (mount ISO images),

Powerstrip: http://www.entechtaiwan.com/ps.htm

duh . . .

Thankfully, it doesn't really do it at 1280x1024@85, so I kinda lucked out. It has some other issues though, namely, there's a bit of blurring that occurs in a certain part of the screen. I don't know if it is due to the guns wearing out or what. Anyway, for a free 19 inch monitor, I'm not going to complain. I like it.

That's not entirely true. Using something like Powerstrip you can run your PC at HDTV resolutions. At that point, you're HDTV is really just a BIG, high resolution PC monitor.

Detailed information can be found on the AVS HTPC Forum

Absolutely. What you need is a transcoder. They usually run around $100.

I have a PC in my component rack doing VGA out -> transcoder -> component video -> my 16x9 TV. Using PowerStrip, I'm running a resolution of 960x540 (in 540p mode). It's the perfect environment for watching DivX movies. Many high quality DivX rips look near-DVD quality on it. S-video doesn't even come close.

Keep in mind that a TV will loose about 30% of the resolution on a TV. While NTSC is 640x480, the optical effect of interlacing (your computer monitor is non-interlaced, more commonly referred to as as progressive) the TV screen appears to be about 448x336.

And that's why you buy a TV with HD inputs, and a VGA to Component transcoder. That way, you can get progressive scan resolutions (480p, 720p if you buy a TV that supports it), or higher resolutions (1080i, while interlaced, is still pretty good -- 540p, which is based off of 1080i and really is still interlaced, is also pretty nice). And the most important part -- you don't need a separate video-out card to do composite or s-vid to your TV. This works with any standard VGA port, and requires no software support at all (well, aside from being able to manipulate your resolutions, but PowerStrip does that, and while it's Windows-only software, it can spit out X modelines, so you can use it in a roundabout way to do Linux.

Actually the Radeon 9700 Pro comes with a standard set of component cables (feed off the TV-out) that can work at 480i/480p/720p/1040i on a TV capable of receiving HD resolutions.

Ah, yes, ATI's component convertor. Sure, it was only $30, but most people who have one have reported flakiness and problems (check out places like the Home Theater Spot or AVS Forum).

The overscan issue seems to have been from the cable conversion the AIW Radeon 8500's had & the fact your using a non-Ati device to do the same on a AIW Radeon 7500.

No, the overscan is an issue of how TVs work -- all TVs have some amount of overscan, and TV broadcasts are designed to compensate for this. Even after having my RPTV professionally calibrated, I still have the recommended ~5% overscan on all sides (anything less and you start getting into geometry and convergence issues). nVidia graphics cards support any custom resolution you can define (within their hardware capabilities, of course, but 1080i doesn't even make nVidia cards break a sweat) , and thus you can define a custom resolution that compensates for overscan (you'll need something like EnTech's PowerStrip for this, of course). ATI cards are much less flexible in terms of custom resolutions (or, at least, the 7500 was, and I believe the 8500 was as well). Thus, my wishlist is that ATI would at least come up to the level of nVidia and properly handle custom resolutions.

Unfortunately thier is still no component in though... I could make use of that as well...

Immersive's Holo3DGraph video processor card does have component inputs, but those only accept SD interlaced inputs (480i, basically), not HD or progressive scan inputs (480p, which isn't HD, or 740p or 1080i). I've heard mention of DirecTV units that can be captured from via coax input (something about the box will output whatever channel it happens to be on through channel 3 or 4 of the coax, so you'll need an HD tuner card in your PC to pick up the signal from the STB), but I haven't researched this very much, and I have no idea if AT&T will do something similar (they're bringing HDTV to digital cable in my area sometime in the next few months). If that doesn't work, then I'm SOL with my HTPC once HDTV gets here (and I'll definitely at least try the HDTV feed, because I've been pining for it for over a year).

I use PowerStrip to control my video card. If you get a card with DVI out, this program should support it. It supports about any card under any O/S, too. In the Display Configuration, you should be able to configure custom resolutions. One of the presets is already 1360x768. A few more clicks should get you to 1366x768.

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first off, the nature of most of the replies here seems to indicate that slashdot isn't a great place to ask home theater questions. try the home theater forum on the av science forum. basically, what you are going to want is a vga card with the ability to output arbitrary scan rates and resolutions. try the ATI radeon line using software to adjust your scan rates like powerstrip. finally, as one other poster mentioned, you're going to want a vga to component video transcoder, like this or this. with the appropriate video card and the vga transcoder, you'll be able to run native HDTV resolution into pretty much any consumer grade HDTV set.

Many of the newer boards DO support HDTV frequencies.

There is an application called Powerstrip that is made for just that - you just need adapters (and Windows .. not a perfect world). Many HDTV's also come with a VGA-in plug.

As well remember that the X-Box will output to HDTV as well and the core is .... what ... can't hear you ... the nForce you say ?