Display | Plugable

Plugable’s USB 2.0 Graphics Adapter (DisplayLink DL-195)

Posted on 07. Mar, 2010 by Bernie Thompson in UGA-2K-A

Plugable’s new USB 2.0 Graphics Adapter is now available on Amazon.com.

The DisplayLink DL-195 chip inside this adapter is the best high-end chip out there for adding a display over USB. And because it pushes USB 2.0 and analog VGA to their limits, it isn’t likely to be beaten by any other chip in the USB 2.0 generation.

For this new adapter from Plugable, we wanted to offer that high-end choice, and also make sure that everything else about the adapter package itself meets or beats any alternative out there.

The Plugable UGA-2K-A includes a DVI->HDMI adapter (in addition to the usual DVI->VGA adapter)
The latest drivers are available on Windows Update and from displaylink.com
Open source available, so there’ll be new software written for this device, even years from now
Public problem reporting and support, so you can always get the full story about the product
Amazon’s fast shipping and A-to-z guarantee on your purchase

In future posts, we’ll cover some of the cool things this device can do by enabling many displays on any PC (things like create the ultimate day-traders’ war-room, with many displays built around a single laptop).

Until then, you can read more about the product launch in the stuffily worded press release here. And more on the product page at http://plugable.com/products/uga-2k-a/.

9 USB displays illuminate energy security

Posted on 26. Jan, 2010 by Bernie Thompson in udlfb

Here’s a great application for USB displays.

Hal Glenn from 2G Engineering has created an information display (on energy security and alternative methods of energy generation) with 9 USB touch screens, all running off a single Mac Mini running Ubuntu 9.10. And all using the available open source DisplayLink drivers and scripts and info at displaylink.org.

Doing this without USB displays would

Require a big desktop box to support several PCIe graphics cards
Would have triple the cords – Hal’s setup runs a single USB cable to each display. With VGA, you’d still need the USB cable (for touch function), but then would also need VGA and power to each!
Would consume much more power – which would be kind of embarrassing for an energy security display, wouldn’t it?

Hal’s setup builds on and extends some of the USB terminal scripts demoed during this talk at Linux Plumbers Conference 2009.

There are several reasons why this demo is easiest on Linux, one of which is by default, DisplayLink devices are limited to 6 displays on Windows and Mac. The Linux drivers have no limit, so you can connect as many displays as you like — keeping in mind you’re sharing a 480Mbs bus (that itself has a 127 device limit). But it is enough for the apps Hal is running on those nine 800×480 touchscreens.

It will be interesting to see how many screens people get up to for various applications.