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MassMultiples LCD Screen
Rackemup writes: "For those days when you're thinking to yourself, 'Y'know, one monitor just doesn't cut it anymore... I wish there was a way to hook up a bunch of LCD screens to my computer. Check out the MassMultiples website. Now you can hook up two, three, four or more 18" lcd screens to your pc! Custom configurations, low footprint, and not a price to be found anywhere on the web site. Like anyone cares how much they would cost ..." Update: 05/04 02:17 by H : I actually saw their quad system last week -- it looks really, really good -- quality work.
I'll take that custom job of 8 18" displays please, yes with the infrared keyboard and mouse... a camera? Sure why not! Um, I'll take them in a metallic green color please. What do I need them for? Why to play Quake III, Unreal, and Diablo 2 when it comes out of course. That and look at the most porn I can in the smallest amount of time.
I saw no pricing info on the web site. Anyone got some?
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Ahhhhh, finally I can read slashdot, play quake, and download my pr0n with gnutella all at once. (while avoiding the wall of shame of course)
/. ? They've got news over at Kuro5hin.org...
Slight rant follows, skip to next comment if you don't want to hear ranting:
I just have to question, is this really stuff that matters? I mean sure it may be a slow news day but is a link to a commercial site really worthy of our esteemed
Anyhow, keep up the good news.
-Mad Dreamer
...are pretty neat. I've been running two 19" iiyama monitors on a Matrox G400 MAX (under Win 2000) for a few months, and, for a developer, it's downright indispensible. App on one side, debugger on the other, or multiple source files simultaneously...it's really spoiled me to the point that I could never go back to a single screen (which means I'm nuts whenever I'm on the laptop). By far the most interesting thing, however, is the gaming capability that the monitors provide. Multiple views are supported in some games (mostly Microsoft ones: FS2000, Baseball 2000, etc.), but, unfortunately, not too many companies are providing such support, and the display falls back to the single, PRIMARY display. Still, I think this has been the most enjoyable upgrade that I have ever made. If you've got the desk real estate, you can get the CRTs pretty cheaply...of course, if you've got the deep pockets, go get that quad.
What'dya mean there's no BLINK tag!?
Wasn't this posted several months ago?
Matrox has standard dual cards and a line of semicustom quad cards. Good luck getting the quad, ours have been on order for months, but they are out there.
The last I saw XFree86 didn't like the duals, but the quad cards are just four single controllers glued down with a PCI bridge and should work fine with XFree86.
Go to Matrox's website to get more details.
Is it? I mean, isn't it the same as hooking up a bunch of monitors to your computer? All you need is one video card per monitor. Let's say I have an Apple Cinema Display 22" LCD hooked up to my Power Mac G4's AGP DVI port. Then I can add another video card (say, an ATI Xclaim VR 128) in a PCI slot and hook up some LCD to that. Then add another video card (like a Voodoo3 3000) and hook up some odd LCD to that. Oh yeah, add one last video card (a Matrox dual-display card) to the last PCI slot and add TWO LCDs to that! that's five LCD monitors! Then just casually turn on the Mac and all five LCDs turn on simultaneously, with the primary LCD showing the Mac logon screen. When the desktop and icons appear, you'll see the default pattern appear on the other four monitors. Open the Monitors control panel and you'll see five monitors.. just lay them out in whatever way you want, pick a primary menu screen, set the resolutions/colors for each. Heck, pick a desktop picture for each one too while you're at it. Hint: try opening Photoshop and creating a desktop picture that spreads across five monitors! Easy, huh? No damn DLLs or other crap. The Mac will automatically detect the manufacturer hardware signature from each LCD and set its capabilities (no files needed). Like I mentioned, it's really not that difficult; just depends on what system you're running on and if you have the money to buy all these LCDs =)
-----
Linux user: if (nt == unstable) { switchTo.linux() }
Those who laugh at you for you having a Mac.. are the people who constantly call you to fix their PC.
I've been running with a 17" a 15" and a 21" monitors hooked up to my Mac for years.
:-)
I look forward to installing OS X (and getting a real OS,) on my G3 but, while flat screens are neat 'cause they don't eat your desktop for breakfast and leave you balancing a tablet on your knees, multiple heads is old hat to anybody in the Visual arts.
Get over it guys.
Next miracle, please
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
This is sooo handy! Finally, I can put a screen in every room in my house. Now I just wish that they I could hook up multiple keyboards (with really long wires). Then I could really use my computer in the bathroom or the kitchen.
I guess I will have to stick with watching the screensaver for now.
back in 1990, i had a 386SX16, and 2 video cards, one vga 256k, and one hercules (that i replaced with a CGA one) and two monitors, and i used Turbo Debuguer with the 2 displays, pretty cool, my app running on the vga, and the debuguer on the hercules :)
it still work i think, the point is to have a videocard buffer on B800, and one on B000 iirc which is the B&W one, so there's no overlap, even on bios, one on C000 and the others on i don't remember.
--
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"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
This article was posted almost a year ago. Archived story.
http://www.talknerdy.org
"This? Oh, this is our new Quake rig, Robin. Let's see j0KK3r frag me now!"
Why do businesses insist on keeping their prices under lock and key? I have no desire to interact with their sales staff, much less be on someone's email list. Don't they realize that consumers can and will go somewhere more convenient?
Yeah, multiple screens. Nifty.
It's no Fakespace.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
As it says - isn't this somewhat akin to a text/X console? I would expect this wouldn't be too hard to rig up under Linux...
http://blog.grcm.net/
One of the cool features of Win98 was the ability to have more than one monitor. (It was about time they added that feature.) So I got an extra network card and another 17" monitor, and I had more desktop space than I knew what to do with.
However, there was a serious problem: my mouse wasn't responding quickly enough. It was taking too long to get between the monitors.
Now, being a former Mac person, I immediately went to go find something like "TurboMouse" for Windows, which would speed up my mouse past the MS speed limit. No such luck. (Anyone know of such a utility?)
This speed limit problem was made all the more difficult by my IBM trackpoint keyboard. That keyboard was wonderful for my carpal tunnel (no more braces), but the movement is pretty sluggish. My right-hand pointer finger was now in pain most of the time.
Anyway, so now I'm back to one monitor and a Cirque keyboard that has a trackpad underneath the arrow keys. It's okay, but I'd give anything for a really responsive trackpoint keyboard and two monitors again.
Okay, okay, not anything, but maybe $200 or so.
-- Diana Hsieh
-- Diana Hsieh
GeekPress: The Weirder Side of Tech News
X-Window is capable to support more than one screen for a long time ago. Only XFree86 didn't include such a support since the last release. However, I remember one of my customer using 4 CRTs back in 1993. It's a very nice feature for huge systems real-time monitoring.
I decomissioned my 4 headed Mac 7100 a long time ago (something like 6 years now I think). It is a comment on the Wintel platform that this stuff would even be remotely considered news. But who am I to stand in the way of Bill Gates and innovation (like using the control key instead of the alt key in the copy command...)
I remember seeing someone use an additional moniter to scroll through his source code while the program output to the first moniter.
That was roughly ten years ago, on an old mac.
No time for
Multiple monitors are GREAT. I developed on a Mac 9600 a few years ago with dual 21" monitors. It didn't leave much space on the desk but it is really easy to get used to following the mouse from one window to another, and monitor real estate is like drive space, you can never have enough.
What do Mass really give you? I can't see this going too far.
>MASS Multiples ship as a complete solution: No need to find, purchase and assemble proprietary mounting arms, discreet LCD monitors, video cards and special driver software from various vendors to arrive at a solution
i.e. It comes as WE like it - we hope that's how YOU like it.
>The modular design provides easy set-up, servicing and upgrading
How could it be any simpler? It still has one VGA connector per display. Is sharing a power cable that much of an advantage?
>Each display is able to tilt and book to achieve optimal viewing position
i.e. same as if you bought discrete monitors
>Superior image clarity, brightness, and color reproduction result from the use of the best LCD and electronic components in the market
Go out and choose the best yourself. What they think is best might not match what you personally prefer. Monitors are very subjective, just like speakers.
(And if you want to know my personal choice, it's the Sony GDM-F500. As flat as any LCD, half the price, and no restrictions on which resolutions look good. 100Hz refresh isn't really hard to take.)
>Analog interface facilitates use with most video cards
Not a particularly unique feature.
>Apple Macintosh compatible
Neither is this.
>MASS will protect your monitor investment by providing a liberal trade-up policy that provides credit on any returned MASS multiple for the purchase of your next MASS display system or display system addition
Can't see this business model working - what good is this if they go out of business through a too-liberal upgrade policy?
>MASS will arrange 3rd party leasing to make your purchase as enjoyable as working in front of our monitors
No big advantage there. Lots of places will lease you anything.
>All monitors can be purchased separately or bundled with a high performance multi-output display adapter
Let me guess which one that would be! Not too many dual head cards out there. And any number of places will sell me video cards and monitors at one time. Are they suggesting their combinations are CHEAPER? I doubt it.
The product is still available at http://www.stbstg.com/mvppro.htm (3dfx spun off the 'specialized technologies' to a new company, Enseo).
This was posted to Slashdot a few months back. The web site has changed, but it's the same product. You should check for past posts before.
-Nicholas Blasgen
the thing posted awhile back about connecting multiple flatscreens seamlessly? It seems to me that this multi-screen thing is just a step backward from that.
Also, while I can see some applications where having multiple phisical screens might be good, why not just deal with the nice multiple logical screens in X? For one, it certainly costs less. Your eyes can normally only focus on a small area at a time anyway. I find myself thinking that I have multiple screens, because I just substituted rolling my mouse over the edge of the current screen for turning my head. I've fully integrated with my virtual screens. I like it. I feel limited now in yet another way when I have to deal with a windoze machine.
--
Seeing is believing; You wouldn't have seen it if you didn't believe it.
Maybe I just have a sicker (read: juvenile) sense of humor than most, but doesn't MassMultiples.com sound just a little too much like a Pr0n site?
I was doing this under DesQview/386 with a VGA and a CGA card sitting on an ISA bus. Since they don't share the same video memory addresses, it was easy. I used the VGA for anything pretty, and ran a text console on the CGA, with a little window open on the side showing my memory stats, system load, and modem indicators.
Ha!
Using multiple LCD screens is a good idea, but is actually behind the times. If you are really looking for something to help your eyes and with better resolution, so with a projector. For about the same cost as these multiple LCD screens you can get one or even two high res projectors.
There are multiple ways to mount them and they actually look good projecting onto even a normal white wall (of course a screen are better). After using one of these you'll never want to go back.
"Usenet is a strange place." - Dennis M Ritchie, 29 Jul 1999
Ok, your url has 2 links. one for free bsd, and the other is an email. Where are the pics of the system?
Who needs all dat p0rn crap when all you really need is multiple desktops, dvd, and Quake (plus a bitchin' sound system of course). These monitors do seem a bit overpriced though.
----Quid
Less talk, more caffeine
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I remember YEARS ago, at a Macworld Expo, GraphSim demoed F/A-18 Hornet (which was mac-only at the time) running on a Quadra 840AV (so this was about 1993) on four monitors ...
:-)
Cool. id Software's game "Doom" (remember that?) did something like this, too. If you had two extra PCs, you could position them left, center, and right, network them using IPX, and run the same game on all three. About as close to VR as first-person-shooters have gotten on the PC.
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