I’m gonna date myself here and ask….Does anyone remember the Agnus Chip? How about the Fatter Agnus or the Alice? For those of you who don’t know these were the original and upgraded OCS/ECS chips that did most of the amazing (for the time) graphics for the Amiga computer back in the late-80′s/early-90′s. Fast forward to today and the announcement of the “Fatter Quadra Plex” at Siggraph 2008. The new desktop graphics monsters come in two flavours. From the announcement:

The NVIDIA Quadro Plex 2200 D2 VCS, with two Quadro GPUs, 4 dual-link DVI channels, and 8 GB of frame buffer memory, is designed for advanced visualization of extremely large models and datasets, as well as high-performance computing processes. Its partner, the Quadro Plex 2100 D4 VCS with four GPUs, 8 dual-link DVI channels and a 4 GB frame buffer, is optimized for multi-display applications.

The new Quadro Plex 2200 D2 VCS houses two Quadro FX 5800 GPUs, providing 480 NVIDIA CUDA Parallel Computing Processor cores and 8GB of graphics memory. The thermal and power management capabilities of the chassis offer up to 20% performance improvement over standard add-in graphics, making it the most powerful visual computing system available. The Quadro Plex 2200 D2 VCS houses up to four Quadro FX 4700 GPUs, powering up to four displays via its dual-link DVI outputs, and up to eight displays with its high-resolution projection capabilities.

The Quadro Plex D2 will be featured in technology demonstrations of real-time NVIDIA GPU-based raytracing, large scale CAD modeling and 4K HD power walls at SIGGRAPH 2008 in Los Angeles, August 12-14, 2008 (NVIDIA Booth 554). The Quadro Plex D Series VCS will be available in September 2008 with prices beginning at $10,750.

Research, research, research…..and then some more research. (most) LCD manufacturers are trying to cut costs down so you need to know what you’re paying for before you walk into the store. So here are a bunch of good sites to go to in order to find the relevant information:

• Jeff Atwood’s great little introduction of the basics. If you want to pickup the terms/ideas quickly read this.
• Nice summary table (also on Jeff’s site) of all the LCD technologies and their advantages.
• Table of laptop LCD part numbers (by size and manufacturer part number). Yeah this is where you find out that Apple chimped you by selling you a 6-bit philips panel as “Professional”. More on this below.
• Table of desktop LCD part numbers (by size and manufacturer part number). This is great to peak at once you figure out who manufactures the actual panel in your display.
• Table of laptop LCD models (by size and model). This is useful if you need to find out who manufactures the panel in your particular laptop.
• Table of desktop LCD models (by size and model) This is useful if you need to find out who manufactures the panel in your particular display.
• TFT Central’s Panel part database. Again, great DB based on panel manufacturer and size. You can also use their search feature if you know the model number, panel manufacturer model and response time.
• The infamous LCD thread over at anandtech.com. This is basically the soup-to-nuts explanation of the LCD science…..definitely for the N.E.R.D in you .
• Everything you ever wanted to know about LCD and related tech and were afraid to ask. The holy grail of LCD related documents, great reads.
• flatpanels.dk…..THE SOURCE. It’s all there, if it’s not then it ain’t out there (worth it). This is the site that 3 years ago pointed me at the cheap and excellent Viewsonic VP201s panel which I use for my Photography (since I can only see in 6-bits on my Macbook Pro, thanks to Apple).

And now for the Apple portion of this program…..If you’re buying an Apple Macbook Pro laptop thinking that it’s got the PRO attached to it so it must be a great 8-bit panel, think again. They use 6-bit TN panels (as of this writing) like everyone else, but make a point of “millions of colors”, when that’s not completely truthful. See this article to see why I say didn’t say “It’s a lie”.

If you have an OSX machine and want to quickly find out the manufacturers part number of your display(s) (yes even external panels are supported by this program), use SwitchresX. I grabbed the Control panel version of it since I did not want to install the entire application. Once you run the control panel you’ll see the following screen:

DDC block report generated by SwitchResX version 3.8.3 for display
Color LCD (1)

-----------------------------------------------------
------------------- RAW DATA ------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------
      0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  A  B  C  D  E  F
-----------------------------------------------------
0  | 00 FF FF FF FF FF FF 00 06 10 62 9C 00 00 00 00
1  | 0F 10 01 03 80 25 17 78 0A 7E A0 98 57 51 8B 27
2  | 22 50 54 00 00 00 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01
3  | 01 01 01 01 01 01 7C 2E 90 A0 60 1A 1E 40 30 20
4  | 36 00 6F E6 10 00 00 18 00 00 00 01 00 06 10 30
5  | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0A 20 00 00 00 FE 00 4C
6  | 50 31 37 31 57 45 32 2D 54 4C 41 31 00 00 00 FE
7  | 00 43 6F 6C 6F 72 20 4C 43 44 0A 20 20 20 00 EB
-----------------------------------------------------
 <  00FFFFFF FFFFFF00 0610629C 00000000 0F100103
80251778 0A7EA098 57518B27 22505400 00000101
01010101 01010101 01010101 01017C2E 90A0601A
1E403020 36006FE6 10000018 00000001 00061030
00000000 00000000 0A200000 00FE004C 50313731
5745322D 544C4131 000000FE 00436F6C 6F72204C
43440A20 202000EB >

-----------------------------------------------------
                   Valid EDID block: checksum passed

-----------------------------------------------------
------------------- MAIN EDID BLOCK ------------------
-----------------------------------------------------

EDID Version........1.3
Manufacturer........APP
Product Code........25244 (629C) (9C62)
Serial Number.......00000000
Manufactured........Week 15 of year 2006
Max H Size..........37 cm
Max V Size..........23 cm
Gamma...............2.20
Display Supported Features:
---------------------------

Display type:
-------------
            RGB 4:4:4 & YCrCb 4:4:4 Color Encoding Formats
            Display is non continuous frequency
            Default color space is not sRGB standard
            Preferred timing mode includes Native Pixel Format

Input signal & sync:
--------------------
Digital Input
           Color Bit Depth is undefined
           Digital Interface is not defined   

Color info:
-----------
Red x = 0.595  Green x = 0.319  Blue x = 0.154  White x = 0.312
Red y = 0.343  Green y = 0.545  Blue y = 0.135  White y = 0.328

Established Timings:
-------------------- 

Manufacturer Reserved Timings:
------------------------------ 

Standard Timing Identification:
------------------------------- 

Monitor Description blocks:
---------------------------
             Descriptor #0 is Timing definition:
             Mode = 1680 x 1050 @ 59.883Hz
                            Pixel Clock............. 119.00 MHz  Non-Interlaced
                                                          Horizontal  Vertical
                           Active..................    1680 pixels  1050 lines
                           Front Porch.............   48 pixels     3 lines
                           Sync Width..............   32 pixels     6 lines
                           Back Porch..............   80 pixels    21 lines
                           Blanking................  160 pixels    30 lines
                           Total...................    1840 pixels  1080 lines
                           Scan Rate...............  64.674 kHz   59.883 Hz
                           Image Size..............  367 mm   230 mm
                           Border..................    0 pixels     0 lines   

                                          Sync: Digital separate with
                                                      * Negative vertical polarity
                                                      * Negative horizontal polarity
             Descriptor #1 is Manufacturer specific data (not interpreted here) 

             Descriptor #2 is ASCII data:   LP171WE2-TLA1 

             Descriptor #3 is ASCII data:   Color LCD

Now as you can see my LCD’s part number is LP171WE2 (TLA1 is not important). If you type this on LG/Philips lcd site you’ll get the details of it:

Well now atleast I KNOW FOR SURE….I’m in 6-bit Hell….Thanks Apple!!!!

Just found this on Cory Doctrow’s blog…..When SysAdmins Ruled The Earth….It’s a great read/listen, specially if you’re a current/former SysAdmin.

Here are the different parts read during his podcast over a couple of sessions:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6