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?

[Ol Olsoc]

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?

One of those people who think that everything can be done on a smartphone

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?

[KermodeBear]

What about the port you stick the power cable into?

Re:It was the first standard for video?

[Anonymous Coward]

It was the first standard that most millenials ever had to deal with. That's the recognized standard for fact checking on the Internet.

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?

[Osgeld]

serial ports were around back when the power cable was still attached

hell serial ports predate computers

Re:It was the first standard for video?

[NormAtHome]

Rob Malda just had an aneurysm either that or he's laughing his ass off.

Re:It was the first standard for video?

[BarbaraHudson]

What do you expect - it's from hackaday - you just know it's bullsh*t written "because we need to write something."

Add in Hercules port, parallel port.

Also

Most motherboards no longer have the connector,

I guess he hasn't bought a recent laptop - mine has both hdma and vga. And even this gamer laptop at tiger direct has vga out.

ASUS ROG G751JT-DB73 - Core i7 4720HQ / 2.6 GHz - Windows 8.1 64-bit - 16 GB RAM - 256 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD - DVD-Writer - 17.3" 1920 x 1080 ( Full HD ) - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M - 802.11ac - black

Connections & Expansion
Interfaces: Headphone/SPDIF combo jack ¦ Thunderbolt ¦ HDMI ¦ 4 x USB 3.0 ¦ LAN ¦ VGA ¦ Microphone input
Memory Card Reader: 2 in 1 ( SD Card, MultiMediaCard )

Re:It was the first standard for video?

[houstonbofh]

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?

Not to mention a total BS premise. They have been saying the serial port is dead for DECADES! And I can't tell you how often my USB floppy drive has been a life saver at a client with critical data on floppy and no floppy drives to read it!

And does the moron know that the DVI ports that are now on most motherboards HAVE FUCKING VGA BUILT IN?!?

Re:It was the first standard for video?

[__aaclcg7560]

One of those people who think that everything can be done on a smartphone.

I had a friend who gave me an expensive Asus wireless router because he made a change to the configuration from his iPad that locked out his iPad. He refused to reset the router to factory settings and use my laptop to configure the settings via a wired connection. It had to be done through the iPad only. No matter how I tried to explain what he wanted wasn't realistic, it had to be done the way he wanted it done. He want back to using the Comcast modem, which had an external button for turning on the wireless.

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?

[hackertourist]

It was the first decent standard for MS-DOS/Windows video. Everything before it was a pile of shit, where you needed a new standard every time a higher resolution became available. Remember separate modes for text and low-res graphics? Remember how painful those early PC monitors were to work on?

Re:It was the first standard for video?

[Anonymous Coward]

It was evolutionary rather than revolutionary. The EGA was its immediate predecessor and was pretty good, except for some reason the resolution didn't conform to the 4x3 aspect ratio which was standard at the time.

VGA came along with 640x480 res, which was decent. But within a couple years that was obsolete, so there came 800x600 (IBM later called that XGA) and then a succession of "Super VGA" "standards" (as in the joke, there are so many of them) all with different resolutions higher than 800x600, and some supporting wide aspect ratios.

BTW VGA also supported two low res, 256 color modes, mode 13h and Mode X, which became favorites of DOS gamers because they were well suited for smooth animation while not requiring exorbitant amounts of installed RAM.

Re:It was the first standard for video?

[Anonymous Coward]

'taint no such connector as a "DB-9." There's a DB-25, even a DB-37. There's also a DE-9 and a DE-15. But a DB-9 doesn't exist, despite what lots of people incorrectly call a DE-9.

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?

[Dunbal]

To be honest, VGA (nor EGA, CGA, XGA etc) was not a "standard". VESA was a standard.

Re:It was the first standard for video?

[TWX]

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).

Last generation of desktop computers I've routinely worked with at work, Dell Optiplex 7010, has DB-9 serial, and it looks like the 4th Quarter 2015 Dell Optiplex 7040 still has a DB-9 serial port as well.

I had to do firmware updates on some Fluke network testers last week. Admittedly these were slightly older models, but the update gave them the ability to identify 1G advertisement from the switch, to do in-line PoE voltage monitoring, to identify appliance/voice VLAN, and to do identify CDP from the switch. Doing this required the use of a serial cable with good old pins 2, 3, and 5 for receive, transmit, and ground respectively. It was harder to get the serial-part of the process going than it should have been, trying to use a serial-less Windows 8.1 laptop with adapters was a challenge and I finally ended up getting out a WYSE 52 terminal and null-modem cable to see if the software on the PC was actually sending anything out through Microsoft's weird wrappers on top of the keyspan USB to serial adapter, then establishing that yes, the software was talking, try to figure out why the scanner wasn't acknowledging. Turns out that was problems with the socket for the 2.5mm phono jack on the scanner itself.

Anyway, as much as some of us might like for RS-232 serial to be dead it doesn't look like we can write it off entirely any time soon, given the sheer expense of the kinds of devices that we have to support that use it. It's a lot easier to give up VGA because monitors, by and large, are not expensive, and even when they are there will still be methods to get analog video to them either through add-in cards or through conversion devices.

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?

[fisted]

The connector is gone, but the need for something equivalent persists. Network, adapters etc are nice, but they are very complicated to use; complicated enough to require a device driver [stack], which implies a booted operating system.

Until the OS is booted, all those ports are dark, IOW, one cannot use them for debugging the boot process, or the (booting) loader and kernel. The IBM PC, as much as I despise it, makes using the serial port trivial, since the BIOS effectively has a device driver for it (although manually driving it isn't much of a big deal either).

It takes:
mov ah 1
mov al <char>
mov dx 0
int 14h

to vomit <char> out the serial port from 16-bit real mode (i.e. the mode the loader starts in)

So one way or another, a serial port (equivalent) will persist. It might get a little harder to access, though (e.g. some Android phones have their serial console going out the audio jack...), but it can't be done away with altogether.

Re:It was the first standard for video?

[drinkypoo]

If you were extremely charitable you might describe it as the first standard for computer video output which could actually handle video, except even that would be wrong. The first such standard was RGB with separated syncs, then came sync-on-green RGB. VGA came from that and added the communications channel.

Re: It was the first standard for video?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm...interesting. Actually it seems that timothy has been the publisher of every article for almost 3 days.

Re:It was the first standard for video?

[Waffle Iron]

serial ports were around back when the power cable was still attached

hell serial ports predate computers

9-pin serial ports were a nonstandard "optimization" introduced with the PC/AT, which was in the early 1980s. These ports have arguably have been more dead than the VGA connector for some time. A couple of motherboards I bought this year still happen to have VGA connectors, but no external 9-pin serial port.

Re: It was the first standard for video?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Maybe he's healthy enough that carrying a 4 pound laptop won't leave him winded halfway down the hall. Put down the Twinkies and Mountain Dew, and try the stairs once in a while...

Re:It was the first standard for video?

[gmack]

I could never downgrade to using a laptop screen for a dual monitor setup. I prefer to have the screens next to each other (dual 22.5") on a proper ergonomic stand since I spend many hours on working and staring downward will cause a massive neck cramp.

Also, only an american would assume I do most of my travelling by car.

Re: It was the first standard for video?

[whipslash]

Timothy is still here.

Re: It was the first standard for video?

[whipslash]

Give us some time my friend. It's been 72 hours. It's not easy to fix a site that's almost two decades old.

Re:It was the first standard for video?

[tepples]

DB is the shell and 9 is the number of pins. Therefore, a DB9 is a DB25 with most of the pins missing. There is no standardized DB9, but one wouldn't be unjustified in claiming that the de facto DB9 is DB25 that has only the pins used by a PC serial port (the ones that have counterparts on the DE9).

Re:It was the first standard for video?

[Anne Thwacks]

For those who are too young to remember...

CGA = Crap Graphic Adaptor = no porn
EGA = Extra Graphic Adaptor = some porn
VGA = Very Graphic Adaptor = loads of porn

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:It was the first standard for video?

[thegarbz]

but one wouldn't be unjustified in claiming that the de facto DB9 is DB25 that has only the pins used by a PC serial port

Except that's not what the de facto use describes. DB denotes the shell size, commonly the one with 25 pins in it DB25. What people call "de facto DB9" is a DE shell size. Anyway you cut it the common usage is wrong.

At least it would be if the definition was regulated at all. Since it's not it's kind of hard to argue that a DB-9 isn't just another name for a DE-9 given how even manufacturers of connectors are using that nomenclature.

Re:It was the first standard for video?

[thegarbz]

Desktops are no longer cost efficient now that laptops are so cheap. $400 gets you 8 gigs, quad core, and a screen, so you only need one screen to have a dual-monitor setup.

Depends on performance now doesn't it. $400 gets you 8 gigs (where by the way? $400 typically gets you 4gigs), quad core mobile variant that's slow at best and thermally throttles if you look at it funny at worst, and a tiny tiny screen with uneven backlight bleeding and if you're lucky crap viewing angles, 6-bit colour, and glossy enough to see the sad look on your face at the underwhelming performance when you realise that you spend a lot of money for something that was primarily designed to be small.

You don't need to go anywhere near an i7 with 16gigs to get performance anxiety.

Re:It was the first standard for video?

[armanox]

Oh goodness. I still have a PCMCIA MPEG co-processor in my desktop drawer from my first laptop (a Satellite Pro 435CDS, 32MB RAM, Pentium I, etc. Dual booted Windows 98 and Red Hat 6.1. Good times - that thing probably could have taken a bullet for me).

Re:It was the first standard for video?

[silentcoder]

In a previous job (now some 9 years ago) I had several big-metal servers which could only have their early boot systems (like a BIOS but not) accessed over serial ports, and for repairs and maintenance a serial terminal was critical.
Everybody else used software terminal emulators with USB adapters but it was a constant nightmare, it would be months between uses and the next time one was needed, invariably something would get messed up between the drivers and the emulator.
So I hunted around and bought an old discarded hardware serial terminal for around R200 (at the time just over 30 dollars) from a pawnshop. It was a breeze, when one of the old clunkers needed serial port access, you just plug it in and turn it on and everything just worked.

Sometimes old tech is actually easier to use than new, especially for interfacing with other old tech. Many of those servers were over a decade old - hell there was two original DEC alphas there that were both over 30 years old by then - those were rocksolid though, I never had a problem with them except the one time the server-room's cooling failed, those CPUS are so not designed for a South African summer without climate control... fried one. Luckily I was able to get a replacement second-hand from an Iron Refinery which still used a number of alphas and kept an entire warehouse full of old ones they'd bought up in bulk just for spares.
Suffice it to say that HP service contracts for alphas are terrible, they will provide expertise but generally cannot provide parts.

Eventually... But not yet

[oic0]

It certainly has stopped being so popular but it isn't likely tl fade completely away for a long time. I still see it on monitors and TVs. These thin devices thst have no port usually have a display port that easily converts to vga with a cheap dongle.

Re:Eventually... But not yet

[Anonymous Coward]

I still see it on monitors and TVs.

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, which I predict is going away sooner than VGA. (HDMI being replaced by DP)

Re:Eventually... But not yet

[smallfries]

Mine does? I have a 4k screen plugged in on displayport so that it can do 60fps. It definitely does audio as well...

Re:Eventually... But not yet

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

What you claim is untrue. https://superuser.com/question...

In particujlar, this bit:

From displayport.org/faq:

Q. Does DisplayPort also support audio?

A. Yes, DisplayPort supports multi-channel audio and many advanced audio features. DisplayPort to HDMI adapters also include the ability to support HDMI audio.

I wound up on this page however because my DisplayPort audio wasn't working. After searching many sites, I learned that the video driver (vs. audio driver) is responsible for the DisplayPort audio; while updating my video drivers (Intel HD Graphics 4600) I specifically noticed in the log it installed an Intel audio driver as well. After this driver update I'm able to see the TV/audio device listed under Control Panel->Sound (LG TV/Intel Display Audio), as well as under Device Manager as Intel Display Audio (in addition to my regular audio device).

As others have mentioned, it's up to the manufacturer to support/implement audio over DisplayPort. Other research has indicated that the DisplayPort to HDMI adapter must also support audio. Odds are if you're using a laptop with a common video device like Intel or AMD, they implemented audio over the DisplayPort and you just need the drivers for it.

Bottom Line: Update Video Drivers.

Re:Eventually... But not yet

[MightyYar]

Maybe you are thinking of return audio? DisplayPort has audio. One trick DP offers is a single cable hooking up two monitors - handy from a laptop.

But mainly for any given generation, DP has better throughput - more resolution/refresh rate.

Re:Eventually... But not yet

[klapaucjusz]

I don't understand why people want DisplayPort

HDMI is a synchronous interface — video and audio data use up fixed parts of a frame's time. One might almost say that's it's just a digital mapping of an analog television signal.

DisplayPort is a packetised interface — video, audio, and whatever else you might want to carry over it can be sent at any time. Because of that, it's a little more expensive to implement (you need more hardware in the device), but it's immensely more flexible: you could carry multiple low-resolution video streams over a single port, or 3D video, or multiple audio streams, or even something else (IP, SMS, whatever) with no hardware changes.

Re: Eventually... But not yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Those resolutions technically not VGA. The original VGA standard only went to 720x400 in monochrome text mode, 640x480 graphics with 16 colors - although some nonstandard signal timings could push it a bit higher.

Once SVGA and MultiSync became available, lots of "unofficial" super-high resolution modes popped up, but about the best you can do with a standard VGA cable is 2560x1600.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VGA_connector#Cable_quality

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:Eventually... But not yet

[RogueyWon]

As others have pointed out, DisplayPort does do audio.

There are two main reasons to favour DisplayPort over HDMI on PC, though both of them are situational. The first is that it supports multiple monitors from a single port/cable.

The second, perhaps more significant, is that the first generation of "affordable" 4k monitors (ie. sub $1,000) generally don't have HDMI 2.0 support. This means that if you want 60Hz output at 4k, you need to use a DisplayPort cable.

Re:Eventually... But not yet

[serviscope_minor]

You know you can get 2560x1920 over a VGA port right?

Anyway, plenty of high res projectors still use VGA, because they're (a) on the ceiling (b) wired in and (c) VGA supports very very long cables and none of the other standards do except display port, but it's not all that common compared to HDMI. HDMI is shocking.

not first standard

[Anonymous Coward]

"It was the first standard for video" - not quite
Perhaps NTSC monochrome RS-170 on a coax connector might be the first standard for video.
And even in the IBM PC world, monochrome and CGA were earlier.
Of course, perhaps the author of this article wasn't alive back then, and hasn't yet learned to "check your sources before publishing"

HDMI=mostly disadvantages

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure the world must move on some day, but I'd like to point out that at least for me HDMI has only ever brought disadvantages. Apart from severe problems with dealing with several audio channels or routing audio to external analog speakers, it also had and still has the charming property of turning the whole display black for 1-2 seconds from time to time. Not to speak of countless problems with false colors and red-tinted display on my Philips TV.

Frankly speaking, after years of using it I have come to the conclusion that HDMI is just shit in comparison to analog VGA, no matter how much seemingly more clear the display may be. I believe it was mainly forced on everyone for introducing DRM crap and to sell expensive cables and VGA would do well enough. Digital is not always the best.

Re:HDMI=mostly disadvantages

[houstonbofh]

I believe it was mainly forced on everyone for introducing DRM crap and to sell expensive cables and VGA would do well enough. Digital is not always the best.

This! And it is the reason they are trying to kill VGA.

Re:HDMI=mostly disadvantages

[ColdWetDog]

HDMI sucks:

HDMI is a horrid format; it was badly thought out and badly designed, and the failures of its design are so apparent that they could have been addressed and resolved with very little fuss. Why they weren't, exactly, is really anyone's guess, but the key has to be that the standard was not intended to provide a benefit to the consumer, but to such content providers as movie studios and the like. It would have been in the consumer's best interests to develop a standard that was robust and reliable over distance, that could be switched, amplified, and distributed economically, and that connects securely to devices; but the consumer's interests were, sadly, not really a priority for the developers of the HDMI standard. ... HDMI has presented a few problems. Unlike analog component video, the signal is not robust over distance because it was designed to run balanced when it should have been run unbalanced (SDI, the commercial digital video standard, can be run hundreds of feet over a single coax without any performance issues); the HDMI cable is a complicated rat's-nest arrangement involving nineteen conductors; switches, repeaters and distribution amplifiers for use with HDMI cable, by virtue of this complicated scheme, are made unnecessarily complicated and troublesome; and the HDMI cable plug is prone to falling out of the jack with the slightest tug. On the plus side, in the great majority of simple installations,

Re:i don't want thin, design minded devices

[Junta]

The female may be durable, but I've seen my fair share of bent pins on the male end.

Now you could say the traditional retention screws are more secure, but I really haven't had an issue with connector security for video. For one some have a much easier retention clip. And for another I'd rather the connection come apart than put stress on the system if something severe were to happen.

I agree with sentiment about serviceability and cooling, but the VGA plug doesn't help that.

Video Games Adapter

[MrKaos]

When it first came out I remember thinking of it's acronym that way, instead of Video Graphics Array.

monitors

[fluffernutter]

I feel sorry for a world that must get rid of electronics because they use a port that looks old. I have three VGA monitors that work perfectly fine, and I hope to not have the throw them in the trash before they stop working perfectly fine.

Re:monitors

[jeffb (2.718)]

I still have at least two composite-input monochrome monitors that work perfectly fine, or did when I last tried them -- probably twenty years or so ago. I intend one day to haul out the old TRS-80 Model I and see if it still works. If not, I stand a really good chance of successfully repairing it myself, unlike most electronics released in the last couple of decades. (Of course, it's more likely to work than more recent equipment, if only because it predates the biggest capacitor-quality catastrophes.)

But I acknowledge that this represents a hoarding disorder, not a virtue.

Sometimes equipment outlives the standards it implements. How would you prefer to fix this? Would you rather your new phone be large enough to engage in a standard acoustic coupler? Because I still have one or two of those that probably "work perfectly fine"...

Re:monitors

[fluffernutter]

Yes and I swear at Apple every time I go to use my Macbook on a monitor and I can't find my adapter. When I bought the macbook, it didn't even occur to me that there would be anything different then VGA.. because VGA was still working for me everywhere else. All the other systems I purchased at the same time or later came with a VGA port, and I really wasn't even looking for a VGA port on them. I know I'm fighting a losing battle here, because we live in a world where consumers want what they want, and industry changes to the whim of consumers and old electronics get thrown out and the world is becoming a giant garbage heap and that is the way it is. All I'm saying is that it would be nice if industry moved a little slower for the sake of the environment.

Re:monitors

[fluffernutter]

Well of course you will have custom needs as a person who is disabled. I cannot speak from that perspective. As I have been saying all along, I can understand if there is a physical reason why you cannot carry the extra 12 pounds, and you have identified a reason. From the perspective of 99% of people, they can carry a 15 pound laptop as well as a 2 pound laptop, and their hyper-sensitivity to 'extraneous weight' is a weak reason at best.

TIMMAY!!!!!!

[OzPeter]

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

And his Hackaday shrill

Re:TIMMAY!!!!!!

[BarbaraHudson]

Definitely a hackaday shill account. I got bored after looking through his first 45 submissions - it's all hackaday, all the time.

Re:TIMMAY!!!!!!

[lhowaf]

I don't read hackaday but, from this brief exposure, I can tell they're asshats.
1. They think cheap, reliable, widely-supported hardware is going away because all computer users are "design conscious."
2. They use white text on a black background.

Also, when my CHIP arrives, it'll have a VGA adapter.

Note to new Slashdot management

[PopeRatzo]

You think we can get some better snacks in the commenter lounge vending machine? I know there's going to be belt-tightening, but Bit-O-Honey and yogurt granola bars aren't going to cut it.

Re:i don't want thin, design minded devices

[Ol Olsoc]

The female may be durable, but I've seen my fair share of bent pins on the male end.

That's what she said!

Looks Antiquated

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, VGA needs to FOAD because it looks antiquated.

Come to think of it, you're looking rather antiquated. What to do about you?

Slashdot, it looks totally antiquated too. I can;t wait for the new owner to implement a beta interface design that better monetizes community synergies. Make sure you model it after flat UI design so no one can see or find anything. It'll look so sexy!

RIP DVI...

[__aaclcg7560]

I was looking at new monitors recently. Seems like DVI is going away than VGA. Many monitors have VGA, HDMI and occasionally DisplayPort connectors. The only two connectors I use in my home network is VGA for servers and HDMI for everything else.

8 channel audio + gbps on aux lane. Short cable th

[raymorris]

The Displayport specification optional audio up to 8 channels, plus gigabits available on the auxiliary for whatever else a manufacturer wants to support.

The main advantage of HDMI is longer cables. Displayport is currently speced at three meters, while HDMI is longer (10 meters?). Of course with either standard you can use a longer cable and it may work with your specific devices and that specific cable, but it's not guaranteed beyond the specified lengths.

I was thinking about VGA the other day

[Tuor]

It's still almost everywhere. At work we still have VGA monitors and docks. The monitor also has a digital connector of some kind, but never more than two other flavors. My TVs have VGA.

You know what's great about VGA sticking around? Older equipment that was often expensive and built like a tank still works. Projectors, CRTs, and KVMs. I've seen retrocomputer enthusiasts build VGA adapters for all kinds of old systems. It's nice to have something that you can rely on when you're traveling; if you have a VGA dongle you know you can work.

I hope VGA has a couple more decades in it, and with the slow adoption of 4K TVs, it just might.

Re:8 channel audio + gbps on aux lane. Short cable

[guruevi]

Even HDMI is not guaranteed at 10m, there is actually no length requirement for HDMI. To maintain the minimum spec for HDMI over 15m, you need very high quality cabling or fiber. DisplayPort is by spec 15m (50ft). Additionally DisplayPort runs over both Thunderbolt and USB-C without any conversions.

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.

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

[k6mfw]

I want my video port to send the video signal to my monitor without hand-shaking, asking for permissions and assuming I'm a pirate and kitten-murderer.

I notice ***all*** broadcasters and serious videographers use SDI because it is uncompressed unencrypted HD video that includes audio all in a single coax with a locking BNC connector. None of this DRM baggage, and those big boys on a video shoot need to connect cameras to switchers and recorders need them to promptly feed the video instead of spending time on WTF this ain't displaying (but you probably already know that). I'm surveying camera equipment, and these days it is all HD, and to feed signals to multiple displays. Talking with someone said keep it all baseband until maybe the monitor if it doesn't have SDI.

I also notice that all SDI gear has loop out which is nice when installing switchers, recorders, or whatever in the food chain but I can continue the signal on to another destination. And like VGA, there are boxes of one input to four outputs (there's always more than one that wants that same video feed). So when I look into different modes, I clearly saw HDMI problematic and so not waste time surveying equipment with that mode. I also learned DVI is the same as HDMI but no audio, but I guess it still has DRM baggage as well. I hear of DisplayPort, I don't see it around that much. I read someplace DisplayPort is going nowhere as the "standard" for monitors because it is royalty free and companies don't like that as they can't do their control freakery like they do with HDMI. I imagine SDI is immune to all that as it remains in the world of professional video (who are also the content creators).

Anyway during equipment survey and selection, I have cameras with HD-SDI (I call it simply SDI, why would anyone take an old SD camera and feed SDI?). Then route to data inserters (all SDI), to HDD recorders. I then ask for SDI to VGA converters, the vendors give me this weird look of "why do you go through all this expense and squalsh it to VGA?" Our rooms have several monitors that are all VGA, we have lots of computers that do VGA, that's just how it has evolved over time. I'm sure not going to mix and match different monitors as many times same monitor may either view a PC output or a camera output.

Yep, all those converter boxes from BlackMagic to convert the SDI at the monitor (actually it looks pretty good and these things have SDI loop out for auxiliary feeds if needed). Looking to take resolution to the next level, I tried using SDI to DVI converter box but monitor displays nothing. It's gotta be that DRM handshake nonsense. VGA forever!

No DRM on PS/2 port, unlike on HDMI

[tepples]

The PS/2 port also doesn't have to deal with Digital Restrictions Management. There are plenty of adapters that translate between the PS/2 keyboard and mouse protocol and the USB Human Interface Device protocol, allowing use of legacy keyboards and mice with legacy-free PCs. Likewise, HDMI without HDCP could be translated into VGA and analog audio signals by an external DAC. But it's illegal (via anti-circumvention law) to produce such an adapter compatible with HDCP, and it may be illegal (via license terms of HDMI essential patents) to produce an HDMI sink that does not handle HDCP.

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.

Not in the professional/server space

[rrohbeck]

I was just in a meeting with Dell about their next generation. There's no demand for anything but VGA because all infrastructure is VGA based. There isn't even IPMI for anything but VGA.

Yes, VGA not dead

[Blaskowicz]

It's a lot easier to give up VGA because monitors, by and large, are not expensive, and even when they are there will still be methods to get analog video to them either through add-in cards or through conversion devices.

This is precisely what is happening on Intel Skylake motherboards. The chipset or processor doesn't support VGA, but there are like three lines for display outputs internally. It is common already that a converter is built onto the motherboard so that one of the output ends up as VGA instead of digital, and that is cheap enough.

Cursory look at current motherboards ("bottom of the barrel" on price) tells me the COM port is quite common still, and even LPT is still available on the back sometimes.

See :
Gigabyte GA-H110M-S2PV DDR3
ASUS H110M-D D3
Gigabyte GA-H110M-DS2 DDR3