The Pro Display XDR from 18 years ago!

The Weird Way That This Thing Handles Inputs

Around the back where most monitors you would expect to find a mess of cables with this one, we only find one. And on the other end of it, oh there's the mess. Okay, so what do we have here? Well, this is the aforementioned and very snazzy dual link DVI. Then next up, we have a FireWire pass-through, followed by a USB pass-through, and then we have our power connector. But here's the thing, Apple was clearly so focused on getting everything all into this one chord to make a nice clean setup that they forgot to really factor in the usability of this long-term.

When you plug this into a Power Mac, it's great because it goes under the desk, that's where you put your power supply, that's where you plug all of these pass-throughs in and then you can use the ports up here and it's beautiful. It's flawless. But once you try to do it with anything else, well things get really annoying because the power cord can only be like eight inches away from the rest of this cord which is also where the display connection is. You see, Apple thought of this because when they started moving over to Mini DisplayPort and then later Thunderbolt and Thunderbolt 2, they came up with a clever solution. They just made the adapter really long. I'm just going to plug in the DVI over here, and then we'll plug in our USB so now when we go to get our Thunderbolt 2-equipped MacBook Pro from 2014 things couldn't be easier. Just open it up, plug it on in there, plug the USB in there, and in just a short while, we get an output at full 2560 by 1600 resolution. Ironically, the same resolution as the native display on this MacBook Pro.

But ironically, this simplicity belies some complications under the surface. You might think that plugging in this USB is only necessary for powering the USB 2 hub on the back of this monitor. Well, this is what happens if you try to get away without using the USB. The display dies. So, this adapter is not just passing through this USB for the hub; it actually powers the adapter. It's part of what makes this display work, and that can become really, really irritating, especially if you like many people nowadays have a Mac that primarily uses USBC.

We've got ourselves the M1 Max MacBook Pro, nice and easy, let's go ahead and grab a look at this. The Apple-specific Thunderbolt to USB-C adapter is what we need to make it work right. So, if we plug that in here, then clearly, we're getting that special sauce that they baked into this thing. To make it work. Nothing happens. This does not work, and I know you might be thinking, "Oh Luke, but remember maybe you have to plug in USB?" Nope. Doesn't work.

At this point, when working on this video, this was really just starting to piss me off because this is a really cool old display that looks really great, and I really wanted to use it, but I just couldn't find a way to use it with a modern machine until I finally found this adapter on Amazon. I'll put a link to that down in the description below, but I don't know how they've pulled this off.

We can get rid of this 80 Apple adapter. Get rid of the 50 Apple adapter down there. I'm just gonna plug that in no USB into here. Give it a second and look at that. We now have the gorgeous 30-inch Apple Cinema Display working with an M1 Max, the latest and greatest. The M1 Macbook Pro, it works.

So, would I recommend buying one of these now in 2022? Well, I mean it's a very specific use case because when you buy a monitor, you expect to be able to plug most things into it, but that's definitely not the case here. So, you'll have to do your research. The thing is, I only paid $200 for this display. I think it was $250 because I had to buy the power adapter separately, and then it was another $45 dollars for the dongle that worked with this display. So, I guess you're looking at around $250-$300 to get this thing hooked up to a modern Apple Silicon MacBook Pro. And honestly, that seems like a pretty good deal to me. I mean, I'd rather spend the money on this monitor than on a RAM upgrade in the Macbook Pro. This this seems much more useful. But I am curious to know what you guys think is this a good deal in 2022? What do you think of the 30-inch Apple Cinema Display?

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis is a 30 inch apple cinema hd display and while it might look a lot like a pro display xdr this is actually 18 years old that's right this monitor can vote this is quite literally the pro display xdr of 2004 and in today's video i'm gonna tell you how apple made this thing 18 years ago and how you can still use it today in 2022 so make sure to get subscribed leave a like down below and let's get started the year is 2004 and most monitors out there look something like this they're not exactly attractive but apple has always really been known at this point for making really good high quality color accurate displays with relatively high pixel count and density for the time as of 2004 these were the types of monitors apple had been making the cinema hd display came in sizes up to 23 inches and resolutions up to 1920x1080 that was very good for the time and let's be honest is still probably the average standard monitor that most people would use with their desktops today around 24 inches around 1080p so apple was clearly on top of their game 19 years ago but those cinema displays were using apple's older design language and come 2004 apple was starting to roll out some new stuff aluminum was clearly the direction apple was headed and so they thought hey let's redesign the new displays to match this aesthetic but just changing the design adding this aluminum stand and some thinner bezels that wasn't really going to cut it for steve jobs in 2004 so along came this the 30 inch cinema hd display the largest high resolution computer display ever a new a new 30 inch cinema display now this thing was and still is unbelievable to look at especially when you consider that this is the better part of 20 years old in fact i'm sitting at an extreme angle i'm at like 160 degrees and the colors are not shifting at all this is really really impressive the kind of color accuracy and viewing angles that wouldn't become industry standard until a decade later but more importantly apple didn't want to sacrifice the picture quality when blowing up a display to a size like this i mean it's one thing to take your 1080p panel and blow it up to 30 inches but your pixel density is going to suffer so this monitor from 2004 has a resolution of 2560 by 1600. that is pretty darn impressive and it has a pixel density of 100 pixels per inch now yeah that's not retina quality exactly but that's pretty much comparable with many desktop monitors now and those aren't 18 years old but the real question is how in the world did they push the equivalent of a 13-inch macbook pro's retina display 18 years ago before this generation of apple cinema display they had been using their own proprietary connector called adc apple display connector the point was you could only use adc with powermax because it shipped on the graphics cards that shipped in powermax so that was one of the big revolutions of this design they went to dvi an industry standard however when it came to the 30 inch cinema display there was a problem dvi literally cannot run this many pixels so the solution to that was dual link dvi that might sound familiar to you now in fact chances are if you have an older graphics card or monitor from the mid 2010s there's a pretty good chance there's a dual link dvi port on it but in 2004 this pioneered that technology nothing else had it and as a result nothing could run it so apple had to develop with nvidia a special graphics card specifically for this display and we've worked with nvidia and we are driving it with the geforce 6800 ultra graphics chip it's a new it's a graphics card it's a new graphics card yeah i know so nvidia and apple work together to make the 6800 ultra but they weren't just satisfied with making a card that had this dual link dvi this is apple of course so it had dual dual link dvi which would let you run two of these displays side by side we didn't just stop at one dual link this card has dual dual link and so you can have 8 million pixels i mean the audience reaction there says it all this was unheard of at the time also unheard of was the price tag 32.99 which works out to be news makes no difference 5 dollars today almost exactly the same as a pro display xdr except this came with the stand included how about that that's revolutionary in apple land the dual link dvi port didn't really last all that long this thing came out in 2004 and four years later in 2008 it was gone from all of their notebooks as well as imacs and the only thing that really had it left was like the cheese grater mac pro but that's because you could put whatever graphics card you want in it so apart from that what do you do well to figure out how i have to show you the weird way that this thing handles inputs because around the back where most monitors you would expect to find a mess of cables with this one we only find one and on the other end of it oh there's the mess okay so what do we have here well this is the aforementioned and very snazzy dual link dvi then next up we have a firewire pass through and then we have a usb pass-through and then we have our power connector but here's the thing apple was clearly so focused on getting everything all into this one chord to make a nice clean setup that they forgot to really factor in the usability of this long term see when you plug this into a power mac it's great because it goes under the desk that's where you put your power supply that's where you plug all of these pass-throughs in and then you can use the ports up here and it's beautiful it's flawless but once you try to do it with anything else well things get really annoying because the power cord can only be like eight inches away from the rest of this cord which is also where the display connection is but you see apple thought of this because when they started moving over to mini displayport and then later thunderbolt and thunderbolt 2 they came up with a clever solution they just made the adapter really long i'm just going to plug in the dvi over here and then we'll plug in our usb so now when we go to get our thunderbolt 2 equipped macbook pro from 2014 things couldn't be easier just open it up plug it on in there plug the usb in there and in just a short while we get an output at full 2560 by 1600 resolution ironically the same resolution as the native display on this macbook pro however this simplicity belies some complications under the surface you might think that plugging in this usb is only necessary for powering the usb 2 hub on the back of this monitor well this is what happens if you try to get away without using the usb the display dies so this adapter is not just passing through this usb for the hub it actually powers the adapter it's part of what makes this display work and that can become really really irritating especially if you like many people nowadays have a mac that primarily uses usbc we got ourselves the m1 max macbook pro nice and easy let's go ahead and grab look at this the apple specific thunderbolt to usbc adapter so if we plug that in here then clearly we're getting that special sauce that they baked into this thing to make it work right so now all we're doing is taking this which is not even a thunderbolt signal and putting it over into a thunderbolt signal so we should have plenty of bandwidth to make this happen nothing happens this does not work and i know you might be thinking oh luke but remember maybe you have to plug in usb nope doesn't work so at this point when working on this video this was really just starting to piss me off because this is a really cool old display that looks really great and i really wanted to use it but i just couldn't find a way to use it with a modern machine until i finally found this adapter on amazon i'll put a link to that down in the description below but i don't know how they've pulled this off we can get rid of this 80 apple adapter get rid of the 50 apple adapter down there i'm just gonna plug that in no usb into here give it a second and look at that we now have the gorgeous 30 inch apple cinema display working with an m1 max the latest and greatest and i tested out this adapter on older intel laptops with usbc i tested the m1 macbook pro it works so with all that being said would i recommend buying one of these now in 2022 well i mean it's a very specific use case because when you buy a monitor you expect to be able to plug most things into it but that's definitely not the case here so you'll have to do your research the thing is i only paid 200 bucks for this display i think it was 250 because i had to buy the power adapter separately and then it was another 45 dollars for the dongle that worked with this display so i guess you're looking at around 250 300 to get this thing hooked up to a modern apple silicon macbook and honestly that seems like a pretty good deal to me i mean i'd rather spend the money on this monitor than on a ram upgrade in the macbook pro this this seems much more useful but i am curious to know what you guys think is this a good deal in 2022 what do you think of the 30-inch apple cinema display and as usual make sure to like comment and subscribe and i'll see you guys in the next one youthis is a 30 inch apple cinema hd display and while it might look a lot like a pro display xdr this is actually 18 years old that's right this monitor can vote this is quite literally the pro display xdr of 2004 and in today's video i'm gonna tell you how apple made this thing 18 years ago and how you can still use it today in 2022 so make sure to get subscribed leave a like down below and let's get started the year is 2004 and most monitors out there look something like this they're not exactly attractive but apple has always really been known at this point for making really good high quality color accurate displays with relatively high pixel count and density for the time as of 2004 these were the types of monitors apple had been making the cinema hd display came in sizes up to 23 inches and resolutions up to 1920x1080 that was very good for the time and let's be honest is still probably the average standard monitor that most people would use with their desktops today around 24 inches around 1080p so apple was clearly on top of their game 19 years ago but those cinema displays were using apple's older design language and come 2004 apple was starting to roll out some new stuff aluminum was clearly the direction apple was headed and so they thought hey let's redesign the new displays to match this aesthetic but just changing the design adding this aluminum stand and some thinner bezels that wasn't really going to cut it for steve jobs in 2004 so along came this the 30 inch cinema hd display the largest high resolution computer display ever a new a new 30 inch cinema display now this thing was and still is unbelievable to look at especially when you consider that this is the better part of 20 years old in fact i'm sitting at an extreme angle i'm at like 160 degrees and the colors are not shifting at all this is really really impressive the kind of color accuracy and viewing angles that wouldn't become industry standard until a decade later but more importantly apple didn't want to sacrifice the picture quality when blowing up a display to a size like this i mean it's one thing to take your 1080p panel and blow it up to 30 inches but your pixel density is going to suffer so this monitor from 2004 has a resolution of 2560 by 1600. that is pretty darn impressive and it has a pixel density of 100 pixels per inch now yeah that's not retina quality exactly but that's pretty much comparable with many desktop monitors now and those aren't 18 years old but the real question is how in the world did they push the equivalent of a 13-inch macbook pro's retina display 18 years ago before this generation of apple cinema display they had been using their own proprietary connector called adc apple display connector the point was you could only use adc with powermax because it shipped on the graphics cards that shipped in powermax so that was one of the big revolutions of this design they went to dvi an industry standard however when it came to the 30 inch cinema display there was a problem dvi literally cannot run this many pixels so the solution to that was dual link dvi that might sound familiar to you now in fact chances are if you have an older graphics card or monitor from the mid 2010s there's a pretty good chance there's a dual link dvi port on it but in 2004 this pioneered that technology nothing else had it and as a result nothing could run it so apple had to develop with nvidia a special graphics card specifically for this display and we've worked with nvidia and we are driving it with the geforce 6800 ultra graphics chip it's a new it's a graphics card it's a new graphics card yeah i know so nvidia and apple work together to make the 6800 ultra but they weren't just satisfied with making a card that had this dual link dvi this is apple of course so it had dual dual link dvi which would let you run two of these displays side by side we didn't just stop at one dual link this card has dual dual link and so you can have 8 million pixels i mean the audience reaction there says it all this was unheard of at the time also unheard of was the price tag 32.99 which works out to be news makes no difference 5 dollars today almost exactly the same as a pro display xdr except this came with the stand included how about that that's revolutionary in apple land the dual link dvi port didn't really last all that long this thing came out in 2004 and four years later in 2008 it was gone from all of their notebooks as well as imacs and the only thing that really had it left was like the cheese grater mac pro but that's because you could put whatever graphics card you want in it so apart from that what do you do well to figure out how i have to show you the weird way that this thing handles inputs because around the back where most monitors you would expect to find a mess of cables with this one we only find one and on the other end of it oh there's the mess okay so what do we have here well this is the aforementioned and very snazzy dual link dvi then next up we have a firewire pass through and then we have a usb pass-through and then we have our power connector but here's the thing apple was clearly so focused on getting everything all into this one chord to make a nice clean setup that they forgot to really factor in the usability of this long term see when you plug this into a power mac it's great because it goes under the desk that's where you put your power supply that's where you plug all of these pass-throughs in and then you can use the ports up here and it's beautiful it's flawless but once you try to do it with anything else well things get really annoying because the power cord can only be like eight inches away from the rest of this cord which is also where the display connection is but you see apple thought of this because when they started moving over to mini displayport and then later thunderbolt and thunderbolt 2 they came up with a clever solution they just made the adapter really long i'm just going to plug in the dvi over here and then we'll plug in our usb so now when we go to get our thunderbolt 2 equipped macbook pro from 2014 things couldn't be easier just open it up plug it on in there plug the usb in there and in just a short while we get an output at full 2560 by 1600 resolution ironically the same resolution as the native display on this macbook pro however this simplicity belies some complications under the surface you might think that plugging in this usb is only necessary for powering the usb 2 hub on the back of this monitor well this is what happens if you try to get away without using the usb the display dies so this adapter is not just passing through this usb for the hub it actually powers the adapter it's part of what makes this display work and that can become really really irritating especially if you like many people nowadays have a mac that primarily uses usbc we got ourselves the m1 max macbook pro nice and easy let's go ahead and grab look at this the apple specific thunderbolt to usbc adapter so if we plug that in here then clearly we're getting that special sauce that they baked into this thing to make it work right so now all we're doing is taking this which is not even a thunderbolt signal and putting it over into a thunderbolt signal so we should have plenty of bandwidth to make this happen nothing happens this does not work and i know you might be thinking oh luke but remember maybe you have to plug in usb nope doesn't work so at this point when working on this video this was really just starting to piss me off because this is a really cool old display that looks really great and i really wanted to use it but i just couldn't find a way to use it with a modern machine until i finally found this adapter on amazon i'll put a link to that down in the description below but i don't know how they've pulled this off we can get rid of this 80 apple adapter get rid of the 50 apple adapter down there i'm just gonna plug that in no usb into here give it a second and look at that we now have the gorgeous 30 inch apple cinema display working with an m1 max the latest and greatest and i tested out this adapter on older intel laptops with usbc i tested the m1 macbook pro it works so with all that being said would i recommend buying one of these now in 2022 well i mean it's a very specific use case because when you buy a monitor you expect to be able to plug most things into it but that's definitely not the case here so you'll have to do your research the thing is i only paid 200 bucks for this display i think it was 250 because i had to buy the power adapter separately and then it was another 45 dollars for the dongle that worked with this display so i guess you're looking at around 250 300 to get this thing hooked up to a modern apple silicon macbook and honestly that seems like a pretty good deal to me i mean i'd rather spend the money on this monitor than on a ram upgrade in the macbook pro this this seems much more useful but i am curious to know what you guys think is this a good deal in 2022 what do you think of the 30-inch apple cinema display and as usual make sure to like comment and subscribe and i'll see you guys in the next one you\n"