I notice a lot of VGA extension cables on eBay are 14-pin only. Everyone assures that pin-9 is no longer relevant, but to be sure I wanted to check here to make sure using 14-pin passthrough cable to a voodoo1/voodoo2 is going to work OK.
kolderman wrote on 2020-03-28, 00:36:I notice a lot of VGA extension cables on eBay are 14-pin only. Everyone assures that pin-9 is no longer relevant, but to be sure I wanted to check here to make sure using 14-pin passthrough cable to a voodoo1/voodoo2 is going to work OK.
Well, I don't for sure, but.. The cable that I made myself (for testing) only has R,G,B, ground and H, V. And it works .
I tested it with both a Vodoo 1 and 2 with a Geforce2 in a PowerMac and S3 Virge in a PC.
"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel
//My video channel//
pixel_workbench wrote on 2020-03-28, 03:33:Standard VGA cable works ok for my Voodoo1 and Voodoo2.
Both 14 and 15 pins are considered standard I believe, the latter usually only needed for TV connections.
kolderman wrote on 2020-03-28, 03:35:pixel_workbench wrote on 2020-03-28, 03:33:Standard VGA cable works ok for my Voodoo1 and Voodoo2.
Both 14 and 15 pins are considered standard I believe, the latter usually only needed for TV connections.
I'm afraid my knowledge is outdated or incomplete, but.. my father used to have a 20" monitor with BNC connectors at the back.
That monitor had BNC connectors for R G B H V, nothing else. Ground was provided by the shielding of cable/connector, I suppose.
Maybe the VGA adapter cable had pins 14/15 not sure. They were not connected to the monitor, though.
Anyway, that was late 80s/early 90s tech. Before the Voodoos, before monitors had fancy On-Screen Displays (OSDs).
That thing was a truely analog single-frequency monitor (had to be adjusted manually to work in 800x600).
"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel
//My video channel//
Pin 14 is v-sync and of course required.
Pin 15 is DDC. That's a serial connection so the monitor can talk to the system, telling it what model it is and what modes it's supporting. It's not required and not connected on anything before the PnP era.
Pin 9 is monitor detect. The graphics card is supposed to supply 5V on this pin to tell the monitor that there is an active connection. A monitor may not wake up from stand-by if this is missing, but it's normally not required by most monitors.
I read pin9 is used to power the eeprom inside some monitors which then spits back on pin15 the monitor name etc. Hence it supposedly works even if the monitor is powered off.
Anyway I bought one of each on ebay...I need a thick cable to replace this thin vga cable I have been using and that I suspect is causing quality issues.
kolderman wrote on 2020-03-28, 09:58:I read pin9 is used to power the eeprom inside some monitors which then spits back on pin15 the monitor name etc. Hence it supposedly works even if the monitor is powered off.
Anyway I bought one of each on ebay...I need a thick cable to replace this thin vga cable I have been using and that I suspect is causing quality issues.
that's correct, pin 9 +5VDC exists only to power the DDC circuit in the monitor
