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?

[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?

[__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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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.

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

[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.

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

[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,

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.

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.

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: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: 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: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.

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.