[vcf-midatlantic] OT: One modern PC, two screens
Jason Perkins
perkins.jason at gmail.com
Thu May 19 10:07:53 EDT 2016
I actually have 3 displays on my work and home machines. I find it
helps my productivity a lot, you can say have a spreadsheet up in one
monitor and another document open on the other (I usually have IRC
open on the right monitor, I can't say that helps my distraction
factor...)
I would think a 5 year old PC would have PCI Express slots, which
makes adding extra cards easy.
-J
On Thu, May 19, 2016 at 9:52 AM, Ian Primus via vcf-midatlantic
<vcf-midatlantic at lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:
> You can either just replace your existing video card with a dual
> headed one, or stuff another video card in there to drive the other
> monitor. Five years old is quite a bit newer than anything I have, so
> I'm not sure if you have PCI or PCI Express slots - figure out what
> kind you have, find another video card that fits in that sort of slot,
> and add it. Shouldn't cost much at all, especially since I know you
> aren't going to care about 3D graphics. Pretty much any video card
> will do.
>
> And, of course, you'll need another monitor. Used ones are pretty much free now.
>
> You can easily do this for less than the price of a case of beer.
>
> Having two monitors is really great - it lets you keep reference
> material and code on the screen at once, keep tabs on online
> conversations while doing other things, etc. Not distracting at all,
> if anything, it's less distracting, since you can keep work areas
> separate.
>
> Or, you can get around the whole video card problem entirely, and plug
> a VT100 terminal into the serial port, and use that as an extra
> console. If you spend as much time in the command line as I do, it's
> pretty much the same thing as having another monitor ;)
>
> -Ian
>
> On Thu, May 19, 2016 at 9:40 AM, Evan Koblentz via vcf-midatlantic
> <vcf-midatlantic at lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:
>> Starting to think I need a second computer monitor. My PC is 5 years old and
>> only has the one VGA port (no DVI/HDMI), so do I need to get a video card?
>> For those who've done it -- do you find it distracting to have your display
>> spread across two screens? A priority is to spend as little as possible.
--
Jason Perkins
313 355 0085
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