Monday 2 March 2015

Use an old iMac as a Thunderbolt Display

Today i got a thunderbolt cable to turn my old ish iMac into a display for my Macbook Pro. Granted the iMac could outperform the macbook in some tests i thought why not get more use out of both machines. The feature is called Targeted Display Mode and can be triggered on the display mac by using Command F2. Targeted Display Mode isn't all that new, as it first showed up in 2009 using the Mini Display Port on iMacs. iMac models between 2009 and 2011 can be used as displays for other non apple devices such as gaming PC's and consoles. This is due to the fact that Mini Display port cables usually were adapters to HDMI, hence allowing HDMI devices to connect. For post 2011 iMacs you can only connect devices with thunderbolt which is somewhat limiting.
 As you see in the pictures i set my two computers up next to each other and propped the Macbook up using an old box. It is the Oneplus One packaging but it surprisingly worked well.  Yes the back support could potentially collapse so it didn't stay up long, I will have to work on a nice tidy way to add more strength. 
But all in all i thought it looked quite cool, and the empty space at the bottom can hold a hard drive or something. 



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