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Is Monitor Spanning Possible on an iBook?
bcassell asks: "I just recently (a few days ago) purchased an iBook. It's the base model (600mhz, 12" screen). After playing with it for a while I decided to plug it into my nice 21" Dell CRT, only to find that the iBook ONLY supports display mirroring (so I'm stuck at 1024x768). Well, knowing that the video card in my iBook is an ATI Radeon mobility which, by ATI's specs, supports monitor spanning, I decided to do some research. I found several discussions about the subject, and one person who even claimed to have monitor spanning working on his iBook in Mac OS 9. So does anyone know of a way to get monitor spanning to work on an iBook in Mac OS X? Or, if not, where would a very proficient coder/hacker like myself, who has very little Mac OS X experience, find information to attempt a hack like this?"
even though it is easy and cheap to include such a feature. apple won't do it. doing that would prevent "serious users" (read: users with cash burning a hole in their pocket) from buying their $3000 machine in favor of their $1500 one.
welcome to apple. bend over.
A steam roller should span out your monitor to a good size.
SCO (noun.)- A Slimy Corporate Ogre. Often seeks free money.
I came across the same info myself- same chip as in older PowerBooks which had the ability to monitor-span. I've a feeling that it's disabled as a part of the driver- to give people a reason to get a PB over an iBook, I suppose.
:)
To get it to work with the iBook, I imagine you'd have to write a new driver for OS X. Perhaps the ATI 128 driver from Linux and docs from ATI (specs) and Apple (DDK, monitors-api for OS X) should be enough? Apple may have done something to disable this feature on the chip itself, or perhaps in OpenFirmware, but I pray that it's just an issue of drivers.
Can Linux/X11 use monitor spanning on a PowerBook with the same chip as in the iBook? If that's the case, perhaps the next step to determine if it's just a gimpy driver in OS X or something in HW/firmware would be to see if the same technique to get dual-head setup for a PowerBook works for the iBook with the same gfx chipset.
Many iBook owners will be forever in your debt if you got this to work. Myself included, at least until I sell my iBook to get an OQO for running Dynapad.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
You might try posting this question to the forums at www.xlr8yourmac.com (did you know you can overclock your iBook via software?). There's also a similar thread on the iBook forum at apple.com, though the only answers so far there is to buy a PowerBook instead.
Actually, OS X has great support for monitor spanning. In fact, for all the bad things about previous Mac OS versions, one thing that they always HAVE had is good multi-monitor support. It's just that apple seems to have disabled that feature JUST for the ibook.
Apple seems to have made the consumer models non-spanning (imac,emac, ibook). If you look at the specs of the models on apple's web page it says mirroring only.
IThe ibook doesn't allow spanning AND you can't increase the resolution on an external monitor past what the ibooks flat panel is. It's a great little portable machine, but lowsy if you can only run the 19"inch monitor at the same resolution as the flat panel.
I like apple, but intentionally hobbling there machines like this is inexcusable. I won't buy a new one until they change there ways.
It works fine in OS X, its just not supported on that model.
It could be for a number of reasons- a software issue, memory issue, of a hardware design compromise that was necessary to save costs on the iBook.
The idea that apple deliberately disabled it seems paranoid... but it certainly works on OS X on machines that do support it.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
Copy the drivers, first, in OS X.
Then boot into console mode. Single user, as it were.
Back up the originals, then copy over with the PowerBook drivers.
I imagine this would work.
If it doesn't, I guess you reinstall OS X?
GPL Deconstructed
Has anyone tried the OSX version of SwitchRes? No guarantees but it fixes a number of OSX video settings "features".
IIRC, Monitor Spanning is the special case of Multiple Monitor Support where you have displays with the same geometry and color depth settings, with one big rectangular desktop.
I've got a nice little setup going with a 15" monitor in 16-bit mode at 1024x768 positioned off the bottom left corner of my main 21" 1280x1024 32-bit mode main display. I use the tiny one for full-time e-mail. That's multiple monitor suppport as I understand it. I'm not sure about Windows, but X's Xinerama has only begun to know how to deal with this, since the port of XFree86 to OSX made it necessary. Macs, of course, have had no trouble doing it since a mac with slots was introduced. ('86?)
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
To correct a few of your statements:
MacOS has been Multi-tasking since Apple came out with Multi-Finder in the 80s.
More recent versions of the OS 7, 8 and 9 where better multi-taskers, but still used cooperative multi-tasking. Cooperative multitasking IS true multitasking, it just requires programmers to do certain things to cooperate, and is more "chunky" than the current preemptive multitasking that is used in OS X.
Apple's OS X is compliant (mostly) with the new HIG document. Yes, Apple has tossed out most of the old stuff, but reading through the new "Jaguar Human Interface Guidelines" (available on Apple Developer Connection) it makes sense. Times changed and the guidelines evolved. Change hurts, but for the most part it is better I think.
OS X does indeed have multiple monitor support or "monitor spanning". I am in fact running three displays from my OS X machine at this moment. Two displays are connected to my ATI 7000 via PCI, and one display to the built-in video of the machine (this is a Beige G3).
The card is driving at 1600x1200, and the built-in at 1280x1024, all in millions of colors. My desktop is roughly 4480x1200! If it wheren't for my use of FW/USB and SCSI disks, I'd have another two displays connected up.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
I've been eagerly waiting for some Mac OS X guru to spit out the answer, but in the meanwhile perhaps some Linux guru can tell us how we'd do this in XWindows? Maybe we could try and hack it in Darwin w/ X11.
/. story.
:^)
For those who have posted that it seems that Apple wouldn't do this deliberately, I believe the point of the article is that they have. If you steal the right components from certain versions of OS 9, *poof*, you've got monitor spanning on iBook hardware. This is a limitation created by software -- purposefully. The extensions the link has you moving around are similar to trading for different versions of dll's on Windows, and basically the hack makes OS 9 treat the iBook hardware in a more generic, non-disabled fashion.
I haven't tried the OS 9 hack on my 'book just yet, but if the page ain't lying, Apple has disabled spanning on the iBook in software though the hardware could do it. Wouldn't be the first time Apple didn't want you to access hardware that's in your system -- remember when Apple removed the Mezzanine slot from the Rev. C (iirc) iMac so that you couldn't install a Voodoo2 any more?
And isn't a Celeron chip just a Pentium III with a poor yield? Intel just smacks out half the cache and *poof*, same chip in a lower price range -- great for over-clocking once you learn that's what's going on (though my 533 didn't behave). And there was also the PDA with flash-rom disabled in a recent
Point is, yes Virginia, companies purposefully disable or don't advertise features of hardware quite often so that they can pitch it to a "lower niche audience". But danged if I don't enjoy my iBook anyway.
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
There are a lot of people criticizing Apple for purposefully limiting this feature. To these people I would point out the fact that Apple isn't the only company to do this. For example, processor companies sell thousands of chips that are identical, except for their clockrate. Many processor batches are so stable that they can be turned into whatever people will pay for. In fact, Intel used to take a batch of Pentium 2 chips, give half of them half as much L2 cache, and sell them as Celerons. At heart, however, they were still just Pentium 2s.
Apple's no better than the rest of the industry, but they certainly aren't any worse.
MacOS has been Multi-tasking since Apple came out with Multi-Finder in the 80s.
That would be System 6 in about 1988, to be precise. Just, you know, for the record.
Man, System 6 kicked ass. It had 32-bit QuickDraw, man!
I'd be willing to try that file, if you'll e-mail me it.
I have an iBook 600, late 2001 model, that have the older Rage video chipsets. I have read about someone getting these thing either spanning or at least outputting to the VGA port at a higher resoultion in XFree a while ago.
I am running 10.2 now, however I'm willing to install 10.1.5 into a spare partiton to test this, if you're willing to e-mail me the file.
Thanks in advance, Mr Post.
It worked in early versions of 9.1 but disabling it was a "feature" of one of the updates. According to Apple it "ran too hot".. and then apple started locking any threads on their boards about it.. Heh.
If it wheren't for my use of FW/USB and SCSI disks, I'd have another two displays connected up.
Whaaa! You're insane man! All I can handle is 3 monitors attached to my Mac, 5 is... is... well insane!
You're just nuts.
sin(6cos(r)+5A)
first, this is possible. monitor spanning can and has been done on iBooks under OS9 and OSX.
seems it's a software limit in the OS for the hardware.
try this site for an account of someone who's done it.
The pref to enable this feature is stored in the following file: ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.windowserve r.[random hex value].plist
/Developer/Applications to edit this file. Unfortunately, instead of just having something that tells it to mirror or span, there is a ton of really complicated information about each monitor connected to the system in there. If you want a copy of mine, send me an email, but let me know the resolutions you're running first, because if you don't, you'll have stuff going off the edge of your iBook's screen, and your external will be set to 1280x1024.
On my system, the file is com.apple.windowserver.003065f5a262.plist
If you have the Developer Tools installed, you can use the Property List Editor, which is in
Karma: Ran over your dogma.
Great, So I have to buy a 2500$+ g4 ti book to get a higher resolution than the screen? I actually like my ibook's small size over the bigger ti book.
/off. With the screen off and a external monitor set up I could change the resolution of the monitor to greater than that of the computer.. Why can't the ibook do this?
that my cheapy 200 mhz PC notebook with a simple fn f2 could toggle the internal screen on
If you're developing a larger program 5 can be really useful. Especially if you have shelves that you can "stack" montors over each other, three on bottom, two on top.
You get one screen dedicated to Finder and system stuff like Email. One screen for the compiler/debugger. These two go on top.
The three bottom monitors all display various source code windows. You can have up to 6 full pages of text open across that kind of space.
The BEST flight sim I ever played was on my Q900 with 3 displays and flying F/A18 Hornet from GraphSim. Sadly they've removed multi monitor support last I checked. Flying with REAL side views was just awsome.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
That's better!
I believe you'll find the chip does support spanning, but the ability has been disabled so that Apple can clearly delineate the iBook/PowerBook lines
;)
;)
;)
spanning = G4
G4 = G4
Bigger screen = G4
Slot Load Driver = G4
DVI = G4
etc...
Anywho, assuming the hardware is capable of it, then the ability has just been disabled.
I can think of 3 areas where it could be disabled
1) the openfirmware could disable it in the chip... somehow
2) the driver could disable it, or just not advertise the ability
3) the config software could pretend it doesn't exist, and perhaps actively set it to mirroring
if its 2 or 3, then most likely, there will be a gestalt check (gestalt will tell the software which model/series the machine is etc), and after the check the software will make the necessary adjustments.
If that is the case, then all you need to do is 'krack' the driver/config software. Simply set the jump so that the driver does not recognise teh ibook, or recognises it as a powerbook, or recognises it and DOESN'T disable spanning.
Or whatever.
Your first step should be to prove that the hardware is capable of spanning, and if this works in OS9, then go and install OS9 right now
Just because you don't want to use OS9 is no reason not to use it to prove that it works... if you are serious about tackling this issue
Anywho, once you've proved it works... then you have to work out when/where it gets disabled...
Bit tricky... I don't even know how OSX software detects models (ie gestalt).
There should be no reason to right your own drivers, just hacking the drivers to *not* screw up the spanning should be enough.
With luck, it'd just be 1 byte.
You'll be wanting to find a good disassembler, and learn PPC asm
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Live Long & Prosper \\//_
CYA STUX =`B^) 'da Captain,
Jedi & Last *-fytr
The problem is iThings don't have multi-monitor support, they just have display mirroring...
yes, multi-monitor support is even better than the normal spanning, but in the context of this discussion, they are the same thing.
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Live Long & Prosper \\//_
CYA STUX =`B^) 'da Captain,
Jedi & Last *-fytr
You should try OSX 10.2 on it ;)
:)
Perhaps you'd use it more then
---
Live Long & Prosper \\//_
CYA STUX =`B^) 'da Captain,
Jedi & Last *-fytr
I have a 700Mhz ibook with radeon, and on two occasions monitor spanning has occured, apparently as a bug.
What I did was the following (although I've not been able to recreate it reliably): After booting the ibook, I plug in the vga adaptor cable. Then I plug the vga cable into it - while the monitor is turned off. At this point (or when the adaptor was plugged in? Don't know for sure) the ibook display switches to 800x600 50Hz (as when connecting a pal television). I then turn on the monitor, and select detect displays from the display menu in the menu bar. (Note, this is under OS 10.2 Jaguar) Voila! The external monitor extends my desktop.
I put a screenshot here.
And the iMac, and the eMac. Actually, there are only two Macs (The G4 powerbook and the G4 tower) that support spanning. No other Mac does, which is sad.