In Memoriam: VGA (hackaday.com)

szczys writes: VGA is going away. It has been for a long time but the final nails in the coffin are being driven home this year. It was the first standard for video, and is by far the longest-lived port on the PC. The extra pins made computers monitor-aware; allowing data about the screen type and resolution to be queried whenever a display was connected. But the connector is big and looks antiquated. There's no place for it in today's thin, design minded devices. It is also a mechanism for analog signaling in our world that has embraced high-speed digital for ever increasing pixels and integration of more data passing through one connection. Most motherboards no longer have the connector, and Intel's new Skylake processors have removed native VGA functionality. Even online retailers have stopped including it as a filter option when choosing hardware.

Comments

It was the first standard for video?

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, WHAT THE FUCK???

CGA? EGA? MDA? Hercules? NTSC? PAL? SECAM?

"and is by far the longest-lived port on the PC."

Serial port?

Who the fuck wrote this piece of shit revisionist ignorant blurb?

Re: It was the first standard for video?

[red_dragon]

And now we know what to expect from the new overlords.

Re: It was the first standard for video?

[alvinrod]

I don't know if it's fair to blame the people who just took over the site for a long-standing editor posting a story that was written by another third party. You might as well blame Obama for this, because I'm sure it's somehow his fault as well.

Re: It was the first standard for video?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if it's fair to blame the people who just took over the site for a long-standing editor posting a story that was written by another third party. You might as well blame Obama for this, because I'm sure it's somehow his fault as well.

Every story, save for a couple, since the announcement of the takeover has ostensibly been posted by timothy. Samzenpus and Soulskill have apparently been sent to pasture, and I suspect that this 'timothy' is only 'timothy' in name only. It's likely a shell account, run by who knows who, that the new editorial overlords are going to use while they transition to their new staff.

Re:It was the first standard for video?

[Junta]

For those wondering, it seems that C13 (the power plug) was 1970. DB-9 dates to 1952, though RS232 dates to 1969 (still older than C13).

Of course I would say DB-9 has been far from ubiquitous for quite a few years. Most boards have a header for it (not much reason to not have that). Even in servers, they increasingly omit a physical connection (favoring instead using network to get serial port data). On network datacenter equipment, they generally use something like a mini-usb or smaller form factor, or even sleeve-tip-ring ports, breaking out to DB-9 because they don't want to spend the precious port real estate on something as large as a DB-9.

So C13 is not longer lived than DB-9, though one could argue it has had the 'longest life' compared to RS-232 over DB-9, if you accept that the past few years don't count for DB-9 so much (clearly still around, but usually only from an adapter or breakout)

Re: It was the first standard for video?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you don't see the point of an ultra book because you don't use your laptop as an actual mobile device. Surprising.

Re:It was the first standard for video?

[gmack]

That.. is the single most misguided reason I've ever heard for choosing a laptop over a desktop. My desktop PC was built with quiet components If I push the graphics really hard (games, not HD movies) I can hear the fan on that start up.

For my trouble, I get more RAM, a more powerful CPU, better graphics, and far more expansion ports and my laptop stays on a shelf unless I'm travelling or I need an on site computer for a contract and in both of those cases size really does matter..

Re:It was the first standard for video?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know a few guys like that.

The only explanation I can come up with is they are so butthurt from spending so much money on an iPad that the salesman/hype-machine promised them could do *everything* that they absolutely must use it for everything or risk admitting to themselves that they are a sucker.

No one wants to be a sucker.

Re:Eventually... But not yet

[AthanasiusKircher]

And projectors! How else can I connect to those projectors if not VGA? And their life-span is probably decades. I think the new projectors actually have alternatives to VGA optional, but usually this is HDMI,

THIS. The person who wrote TFA must not do any presentations anywhere ever. Yes, new projectors often have other inputs, but that's often irrelevant in a conference venue or a classroom or whatever, where often there's ONE cable that's presented to you to hook in your laptop -- and it's a VGA cable (often with an audio headphone jack plug, if you need it).

That's the same as it was most places decades ago. If your laptop today doesn't have a VGA port, you get a dongle. Everybody who needs to plug into a projector has a standard VGA one. Switching to another standard would require a major initiative, since this is NOT a place where you can just adopt a different standard on the fly.

Probably tens of thousands of people show up an unfamiliar place every day and expect to be able to plug a laptop into a projector to give a presentation. For better or for worse, everybody knows that you bring a connector for VGA, and if you change that, you need to be darn sure all of your presenters know that (and, even if they do, lots of people who give talks can be old and won't understand if they show up with a laptop that doesn't connect to something else, so you'll be scrambling at the last minute to move stuff to another computer or whatever).

I don't see this standard switching anytime soon -- it tends to be used in high-profile, time-sensitive situations where people expect to be able to plug a computer in and have it work instantly. Unless a venue is going to provide a dongle that fits every possible port on the planet (and most don't), it will be really hard to switch.

The only thing that will eventually allow the switch won't be a new port standard, but rather wireless broadcast of video directly to the projector. It's still quite rare, but it's feasible and the only way to get out of the VGA rut. I doubt HDMI/DP/whatever is EVER going to overcome VGA for such applications -- the next "standard" won't have cables at all.

Re: I'll stick with VGA and SDI as long as possibl

[Anonymous Coward]

Your concern seems to be with HDCP, not HDMI; the latter is just DVI with an extended table of resolutions, hence why passive cables work. Your ThinkPad is not encoding HDCP over the HDMI connector.

I don't know why people like the ghosting that occurs when going through a DAC and ADC to use VGA on a digital flat panel. Trying to sync on the analog timing signals is a mess. I personally can see the artifacts and it hurts my eyes.

Oh noes. the radiations!

[EvilSS]

My favorite quote from TFA: "Unless the monitor you’re viewing this on weights more than 20 pounds and is shooting x-rays into your eyes, there’s no reason for your monitor to use a VGA connector."

I thought this bullshit line of thought died out in the 60's or 70's.

Removes the abilty to copy

[Catbeller]

No more analog holes for you! Surveillance and control for all.
Last stop: earphone jacks. Then everything is locked down for external monitoring and permission.