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How
About An Apple 30" Flat Panel for
$1320? April
11th, 2001 My
dream system has dual 22"
Cinema Displays
on a Dual G4/1000. But as the song says, "You can't
always get what you want." So since the dual
gigahertz G4 is still a dream and the 22" display
is out of my price range (even at $2495), I did the
next best thing. I ordered a Dual G4/533 with two
refurbished Apple
15" flat panel Studio
Displays.
($659 each from Small
Dog Electronics.) The
tricky part was finding a way to run the second
flat panel with Apple Display Connector (ADC).
There's only one AGP slot. ProMax
makes the DH-Max
AGP card
that runs two displays but the displays have to
have VGA connectors. Apple will sell you a second
graphics card (RAGE 128 Pro) but it doesn't have an
ADC. There's no such thing as a PCI graphics card
with ADC. (I could have ordered the
older
flat panel with DVI
connector
($599
refurbished)
but it didn't match the look and feel and screen
height of the ADC version. Yes, I'm
picky.) Apple
sells an ADC
to DVI converter
in the Displays section of Accessories on the Apple
Online Store, but it only works to connect older
DVI displays to new G4's with ADC graphics cards.
On
January 30th, 2001, I was contacted by
Linda
Morgan
of Bluesky
Communications.
She was sending out information regarding
330
foot extension for ADC and DVI
displays
for her client, a company called Gefen.
I thought. Hmmm. If they have done that, maybe they
are working on an ADC to DVI converter. The answer
was "Yes!" Come April, they would be shipping a
ExtendIt
DVI to ADC Conversion
Box.
Well
it's April 10th and thanks to Gefen,
I now have dual flat panel displays working
on my dual G4/533 with the dual
graphics cards. And I have dual internal
Ultra ATA drives (one with OS 9.1 and one with OS
X.) I even have a FireWire RAID (dual drives
on dual channels). I'm
in "Dualie Heaven." The
above picture shows the small converter box sitting
on top of the power supply (which appears to be the
one used with the G4 Power Cube). Of course, I
would hide all this behind or under the
desk. Needless
to say, the ExtendIt
DVI to ADC Conversion Box
also
works with Apple's $2999 22" Cinema
Display
with ADC. REALITY
CHECK: and second graphics card (ATI
Radeon
PCI $180
after rebate) bring the "true" cost of the two 15"
flat panel displays to a total of $1797 ($2077 if
you buy new displays). But that's still $1300
cheaper than the Cinema
Display.
DEVELOPMENTS
SINCE THIS ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED: 2.
Dr. Bott now has a DVI to ADC converter called the
"DVIator"
that sells for $149. It's a simpler, cleaner
looking converter for half the price of the Gefen.
However, it does require the same large power
supply as the Gefen converter even though it is NOT
shown in the picture at their web site. 3.
Gefen has dropped the price on
The
ExtendIt
DVI to ADC Conversion
Box
to $199. 4.
Formac
is the first third party to offer an Apple Display
Connector (ADC) called the Formac gallery™
1740 (17.4"). It's snazzy looking. Price: $899. You
can also get it with a DVI connector. 5.
Gefen
has introduced a VGA to ADC converter. (See the
Bare
Feats article.) 6.
Apple
now has their own DVI to ADC converter. It uses a
smaller power supply than the DVIator and Gefen
converter. Price: $150. It was introduced the same
day they rolled out the PowerBook G4/800 with DVI
connector. ©
2001, 2002 Rob
Art Morgan. Gotta
Question? Comment? SPEED
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UPGRADE
guide
May 24, 2002 Updated "Developments Since This
Article" and the Prices
Correction on CRT support
by rob
ART morgan,
mad Mac scientist
1. Apple
has introduced a new 17" LCD Studio Display at
$999, dropped the price of the 15" LCD Studio
display to $599 ($449 refurbished), and dropped the
price of Cinema display to $2499. Two 17" displays
would give 1280 x1024 x 2 pixels -- way more total
screen space than one Cinema display. In fact, I
purchased dual 17's for my wife's Power
Mac.NOTE:
None of the DVI to ADC adapters work with the
Apple CRT's with ADC connector. In the original
article, I stated they did but I was
wrong.
Email rob-art@barefeats.com