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Apple's Mini DisplayPort Officially Adopted By VESA
DJRumpy writes "The Video Electronics Standard Association officially issued its Mini DisplayPort standard Tuesday, based on the technology licensed from Apple. VESA said that all devices using the Mini DisplayPort connector must meet the specifications required by the DisplayPort 1.1a standard, and cables that support the standard must also meet specific electrical specifications. It's a formal confirmation of the news from earlier this year, when VESA announced the Mini DisplayPort connector would be included in the forthcoming DisplayPort 1.2 specification."
IIRC, HDMI's signaling is basically a single DVI link, and isn't rated to push anything past 1920x1200. Pretty much anything higher requires a dual-link DVI connection, which involves more complex cabling and signal routing on the board.
DisplayPort is a much smaller connector and has an overall smaller PCB footprint, as well as using a thinner cable. I suspect that if Intel doesn't manage to run it by the wayside in a year's time with Lights Peak, you -might- see video cards with combination Mini DisplayPort + HDMI outputs.
Agree fully. I still drop my jaw everytime I see a laptop from the past 3-4 years still sporting a friggin' VGA connector, or even worse, from some "PC" manufacturers, a parallel port.
Sadly, there will always be that crowd of conservative oddballs and anal retentives, barking like old dogs refusing to learn how to sit, for keeping old standards, trying to justify it by reasons of pointless, smelly compatibility that is long past its expiry date.....and everyone knows they are the ones who contribute to nothing but stagnation, not the ones who help driving the world forward.
Yeah, just like people using serial ports to program Cisco gear or people in EE using serial ports to program microcontrollers by plugging the RX and TX pins directly to a serial port. And what about those people presenting their research at conferences around the world wanting to use a display connector that's supported on every single projector around the world in all convention centres instead of carrying a suitcase of adapters. We all know those aren't the people who help drive the world forwards, right?
Jean-Francois Im's blog
Why force people to buy a new monitor and a new projector just because they got a new laptop/PC?
What? There's no need to buy a new monitor or projector. DVI/DisplayPort will drive a VGA device without any problems at all. But the reverse is not true. It really is bizarre that they still make laptops with just VGA output, when the digital alternatives offer VGA and more, with smaller connectors.
... and then they built the supercollider.
The idea is that the new standard goes on the laptop, and from that nicely small connector, you can adapt to any standard, including new ones with much higher capacity.
Want a VGA adapter? Done. Want ah DVI adapter? Done. Each $30 at the Apple Store, and soon probably cheaper elsewhere. Other adapters possible. More capacity in the standard, for other folks who want to hook up to something else. Small connection to help keep your laptop small.
The only reason you actually need an ungainly VGA connector on your laptop is if you either refuse to pay $30 for an adapter, or you expect that you might lose the adapter yet still have your laptop for that super-important presentation.
Sure. The 95% of the time that I carry my laptop for my own use only, I have a slimmer machine that I throw in my backpack. That's convenient.
When I might make a presentation, I can throw in a small cable and I have full-sized VGA. Another small cable gives me full-sized DVI. Other cables will come that provide other standards/sizes.
When I'm going to a conference where I will make a presentation, I'll have my big laptop bag with all of those connectors, and I'll have a USB stick with my presentations on it, and a DVD, too, burned in PDF as a lowest-common-denominator.
Lugging around a laptop with a VGA (which size) port and also a DVI (which size) port on it all the time is inconvenient.
I guess you have never used jtag.
It's very easy to create a simple device to reflash firmware via a parallel port.
For example adding the codes to your hardware to a one for all universal remote.
Or recovering from a failed flash of some firmware.
It can be quite difficult to recreate a fully working parallel port via usb.
Another fun thing is to use the data lines for I/o controlling what ever you want.
I don't expect many people to appreciate the uses of the parallel and serial ports but on slashdot ? ...
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