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It's this thing's fault, and I'm sticking by my story! You might remember a month or so ago, I came across an nVidia GeForce GTX 770 on the local Craigslist listed for $100 or so dollars. I offered $75, thinking that I'd be happy to pay $85/90 for it, but the guy took the offer. Who am I to look a gift-horse in the mouth (although I do teach about the Battle of Troy)! I installed it. It runs great and is way more video card than my the old Radeon HD 7850. And as I've said any number of times in the past, (being a non-gamer), I don't need much in the way of GPU power. However, it was a good opportunity and I took it.
While looking into what this card would do and my options for connecting my 4 monitors, I began to examine my current video interface set up. It's been awhile, so I'll walk through it for you to set a baseline. I have 4 monitors running as a standard. I've had at least 3 for some years going back to when we lived in Lubbock and worked in IT. It allowed my to keep an eye on how the servers were running while doing other things as well.
At the time, I was using an 17.3" SGI 1600SW LCD which was pretty exotic at the time. Yes: in fact it is the one, more accurately, the ones depicted being used by the Hugh Jackman "hacker" character in the 2001 movie Swordfish. It was my main monitor that worked with a couple of 19"/20" Apple Displays running Trinitron tubes on either side. For 2001-3, that was a pretty high-end setup. I sold and gave away that rig when we moved to the DFW area, but would rebuild it after picking up an unusual (normal for me) an Acer version of their Ferrari line F20 display.
Imagine this monitor, but with all the red parts being silver and no Ferrari badge (of course). I don't even think it was sold in the US. It was 20" and I used a number of other unremarkable panels on the side(s) for some time. As things progress, I started getting more picky with LCD panels and wanted to get into an IPS type screen.
That's when I picked this up, the IBM ThinkVision L200p. In it's day, it was "the big dog" of LCD monitors and was very expensive. When I bought it, it was out-of-date and just being pushed out the door. I actually picked it up locally for $13! The guy advertised it on CL as a 17" and I thought it would go on the side of the 20" Acer quite well. But, once I got a taste of using this IPS panel, the Acer found itself being sold!
Then I found one of these, an ThinkVision L220x for about $100 shipped. It uses an S-PVA panel and is fantastic. Just as sharp as the L200p, but brighter. Not very long later, I found another one on Craigslist for $50 and jumped all over it.
That's when I progress from the above setup with, 1 L220x, 1 L200p, and a 19" Westinghouse TV to 2 L220x, replacing the tv with 2 19" L1940pwd panels. Oh yeah, that little display you see on the lower left was my ThinkPad Tablet connected via USB and used as a touch display. I rarely used it this way, but just wanted to see if it would work. So that's been the state of affairs with the display end of my computing rig for quite some time. I ran 2 Radeon graphics cards to drive these 4 displays and was quite happy. Right up until that trouble-maker GTX 770 came along and started me thinking!
Well..... that's actually, not quite right. I was playing around with the GTX 750 Ti that I had upgraded my son's gaming PC to when I decided to see if it would drive the 55" Sony TV at it's native 4K resolution. Whattayaknow! It did it! I wouldn't play games that way, but it worked. This started me thinking..... if that thing will do 4K, what about that new GTX 770?
You know; that thinking business can get you into some trouble.... I started looking into 4K computer monitors and even looking at 4K TVs as computer monitors. What I found was that the small (24") ones made everything so tiny at 3840 x 2160 that you couldn't see a darned thing. Although, the new inexpensive 27"/28" panels had come out, they were still $700 or so! Looking at used ones, I found that the big boys (Dell, HP, Lenovo) had, had some out for a few years and they could be found used, but still in the $400+ range, until I stumbled onto this:
A ThinkVision Pro2840m, 28" TN panel. Yes, it's NOT IPS, but those guys are still well over $1000, so no $1K for 4K for me. There was one on eBay that was listed at about $200 with a "best offer", so I offered $150. Oh, by the way, the guy said that it displayed the image as a tiny little thing at the top and it would go into "power save" mode and not come out. I suspected that issue to be user error with a GPU that wouldn't support the resolution or a cable that wasn't DP1.2 compliant. He came back to me at $165, but I never could get him to tell me how they tested it; so I let it pass. The following week, I saw it listed again, but this time at $150. I was busy getting ready and then going off to Washing DC on our family Spring Break trip, so I didn't do anything about it then either. When I came back, that monitor was again relisted, but this time at $126 (including shipping). I figured, "what the heck", I could risk it!
The box arrived yesterday. In between running errands and going to look for an new car (I'll discuss this later), I connected it. It detected and ran all on it's very own. I set it up with the 20" L200p on the right, and the 2 22" L220x on the left and ran it for several hours during which, it was amazing to have that amount of real estate (3840 x 2160, 1920 x 1200, 1920 x 1200, 1600 x 1200)! It is showing some issues with going into power save and not coming out, but I think that can be resolved, on top of which, I believe it's still under warranty.
OK, I'll own up to it.....I love screens, the more the better! You remember Hugh Jackman's hacker character in Swordfish, sitting in front of that outlandish rig that he had John Travolta's character put together for him? Something like 7, LCD flatpanels, which was crazy at the time (2001). It'd be even more so, if people know that most of them were the ultra-expensive SGI 1600SW, that sold for $2500 apiece, and that was without the special converter boxes necessary for them to run with normal graphics cards. Otherwise, you'd have to connect them with special graphics cards of which there were only a very few and expensive as well. Other than being a geek/nerd/propellerhead, I noticed them because I happened to have one of these beasties sitting on my desk at home. At that time very few people had LCDs of any kind at home, much less one of these oddities.
Of course, since that time, LCD monitors have become common and even the use of multiple monitors is not that unusual. However, I'll have to say that I am unusual (a little bit anyway). For me, 1 or even 2 has never been enough. During the time of the SGI, I had that one in the middle and two large 19-20" CRTs on each side. It took three graphics cards to run them, but I did it. A few years back, I had read somewhere that as far back as Windows 98, Microsoft had built in the capability to resolve up to 10 displays! They should have never told me that; I've been on a monitor binge ever since.....especially now that LCDs are the norm and take up way less space.
Last year some time, I became aware of the "portable" monitors that were appearing on the market. They began hitting the market in the form of the various 7" Mimo models at first, then Toshiba, along with Lenovo and others. There are more, probably about 5 brands total which are really only coming out of about 2 factories. They are all pretty similar, ranging from 7" to 10", some with touch, some without, but all are USB "bus" powered, taking signal and current from the USB port of the host machine. For obvious reasons, I became enamored of them right away, imagining myself setting up with a laptop and plugging up one of these things along-side like some sort of mini-me version of the big workstation rig at home!
Then, right around the time that I was busy trying to figure out a way to squeeze the $100-150 out of thin air, lightning struck...or more accurately; Android struck! I started getting the craving for a tablet, and you guys know where that led me. So what? End of the tiny portable monitor dream? Well.....yes, and no. I knew that if I got one of those little monitors, it'd sit in a drawer like one of my many, "love it" toys like the Bluetooth GPS receiver (to name one). The fact is that, it's a "one trick pony", so there are only so many situations in which it can be used. However; a tablet......now that's something that can have a variety of uses.
Last night, I came up with use number 45 (or whatever it is now)......an extension monitor.....TA DA!!! I've known for some time that you can get apps that allow a tablet to connect to a computer and use it as an external monitor, but last night, I finally did it. I not only did it, but I did it in the most excessive manner possible (for me anyway)! I set it up on my desk next to the keyboard/mouse area. That's the computer that I currently have a 22" (1960 x 1200) screen, a 20" (1600 x 1200) screen, AND 19" (1440 x 900) TV/Monitor on a swivel arm mount for those times when I need a third screen. That one is on a selector box which allows me to switch between the WHS server and the workstation, as well as having the facility to connect to a DVD/VCR or TV. So anyway, I was up late playing around on the internet, when the thought struck me that maybe I should give one of those apps a try. I started out looking at the Redfly Screenslider, but didn't like that you paid the $.99, but then had to pay more to get the rest of the features on the "Pro" version. So I just ponied up the $4.99 for the one that been in this game the longest: iDisplay. After a little bit of fiddling around with the settings, it worked just fine.
So, what does one DO with a small (1260 x 800) 4th monitor? It turns out that I found the perfect use for it. Drag the music player over there and that way, I can manipulate the controls by touch! This leaves the other 3 free for editing picture, placing Adobe palettes, and monitoring file transfers. OK, really, I'll probably use it with my laptop as my extended desktop screen when I'm on the go, but need to get work done. I feel like James Bond and "Q" all rolled in one.
