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I just found myself being the sudden and proud owner of two wonderful Silicon Graphics machines, an Octane and an Octane 2, both in quite good condition (in particular with very few scratches to the cases).

I'm looking into plugging a monitor to either machine (in turn). I've determined that I'll need a 13W3-to-VGA adapter (I found this one which seems like it should do the job) and I'm now considering my options for the monitor.

I have an ACER K242HL LCD that accepts VGA input but I'm not sure it supports sync-on-green, at least I couldn't find any clear statement online that it does.

While I'd love to find a cheap SGI monitor in a good shape (even a CRT), I'd rather stay relatively cheap so anything that will allow me to (casually) use the machines will be enough for now.

What are my options?

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  • How come you haven't just tested to see if your Acer monitor works?
    – user722
    May 29, 2019 at 15:57
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    Be aware that Sun and SGI have slightly different pinouts for the 13w3 connector, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DB13W3
    – bodgit
    May 29, 2019 at 15:59
  • @RossRidge I'm still waiting for the 13W3-to-VGA connector to arrive.
    – François Beaune
    May 30, 2019 at 7:58
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    @FrançoisBeaune phaq.phunsites.net/2006/08/25/… suggests removing some/all of the smaller pins can make it work. If the Octanes use SoG and don't have separate sync, you only really need the 3 larger pins anyway.
    – bodgit
    May 30, 2019 at 8:18
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    Those were such lovely machines. Hope you found the additional software packages too.
    – Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen
    Jun 18, 2021 at 16:32

1 Answer 1

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There’s a handy list of sync-on-green-capable (and known incapable) monitors maintained by the Linux for PlayStation 2 community. Any of the “tested working” screens should be OK; take a note of any caveats in the comments column.

I used to have an Iiyama 450, which worked fine with sync-on-green systems on both its 15-pin and BNC connectors. Those are quite large CRTs, perfectly in keeping with SGI systems! The list above includes flat-panel screens too if you prefer that.

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