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Hacking the iMac (8/8/98)
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While the rest of us shmoes are still waiting around for another week before being able to get our hands on an iMac, certain lucky testing-type folks out there not only have iMacs in their possession, but are also already pulling the things apart to see just how far they can push the lovable little blue lumps. The latest death-defying (or at least probably warranty-defying) feat of iMac modification reported by MacInTouch reader Michael Tsaoutos involves hooking up an external monitor. That's right, an external monitor, and not by using some Apple-hacked proprietary video-out card like the ones found in the early demo iMacs. Michael pulled apart his iMac and found that the integrated 15" display is simply connected internally with a standard Mac DB15 monitor port.
After disconnecting the integrated display, Michael plugged in an external 17" monitor, and lo and behold, the iMac worked perfectly, even at resolutions of 1152x870 and 1280x1024. So if you want to get an iMac but for some bizarre reason you want to run it with an external monitor instead of the integrated display, it's certainly possible-- though it'll look a little strange to have a nice, integrated iMac sitting there with a blank screen, sitting next to your monitor that's actually showing the iMac's video. Heck, it might be a fun thing to do just to confuse your friends and relatives.
The Mac gamers among AtAT's faithful viewing audience are probably raising an eyebrow about this little tidbit, and here's why: the current crop of 3Dfx Voodoo-powered 3D acceleration cards won't work in an iMac for two basic reasons. The first, and most obvious, is that the iMac doesn't have a PCI slot to hold the card. But the second reason is that the Voodoo cards are "pass-through" units; you plug your on-board graphics port or your standard graphics card into the Voodoo card, and then plug the Voodoo card into your monitor. In most circumstances, the Voodoo card sits between your monitor and your graphics chip and does nothing, but when you fire up a 3D game like Myth or Unreal, the Voodoo card kicks in and vastly enhances your gameplaying experience. Well, even if the iMac did have a PCI slot, there appeared to be no way to attach its integrated monitor in a pass-through configuration. However, with the revelation that the iMac uses an internal standard DB15 monitor port, that point is now moot, and it's not out of the question for someone to come up with an iMac-only Voodoo accelerator card that plugs into the iMac's proprietary expansion slot. If the iMac sells as well as people seem to think it will, it seems pretty likely that some enterprising company could come up with such a card and make a fortune. Heck, we'd buy one.
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SceneLink (920)
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 8/8/98 episode: August 8, 1998: The Kinko's defection rumor was hogwash, at least according to their own website-- but was it hogwash before some Kinko's higher-ups received a telephonic tongue-lashing by Captain Steve? Meanwhile, one lucky iMac-tester reveals the secrets of that machine's monitor connections, and someone manages to pump an Apple rep about the same system's mysterious "proprietary expansion port..."
Other scenes from that episode: 919: Pulling Strings (8/8/98) A couple of days ago, we broadcast an episode of AtAT that dealt with the rumors surrounding a possible Windows defection by longtime Mac supporter Kinko's. In fact, though at the time of writing Kinko's had yet to address the issue, by the time the episode hit the airwaves, the home page of Kinko's web site became a vehement denial; Kinko's publicly denounced the rumors as false, and claimed that they would continue to support Macs at all of their full-service locations... 921: Burn Baby Burn (8/8/98) As for what that much-discussed proprietary expansion slot in the iMac is supposed to be for, well, Apple's not talking. At least, not on the record. But off the record, things are little more fleshed out: just check out Lucas Carlson's report over on the iMac NewsPage for a firsthand account of his experience with the iMac-- and how to get an Apple employee to open up about "unannounced" projects. As it turns out, the Apple rep's "no comment" melted away when Lucas started chatting him up about FireWire, Apple's pet high-speed expansion bus architecture...
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