Apple 14" AudioVision Monitor

[beachycove]

A 14" AudioVision display from 1993-94 came to me in a lot around four weeks back, and I have just gotten around to cleaning it and hooking it up to test (via an included OEM adapter cable, which splits the single cable to standard Macintosh DB15, mic, sound out and ADB).

The AudioVision is the monitor that was manufactured to connect to the unique HDI45 video port of the 6100, 7100 and 8100 Power Macintosh series, though the adapter cable allowed it to be used also with any Apple desktop of the time. The AudioVision display has a Trinitron tube, stereo speakers, an svideo-in port (unsupported, strangely), ADB ports, a high quality microphone ... and is typically regarded as a road apple because of the whole failed HDI45 idea (shades of ADC here).

I have discovered to the contrary that the screen quality is fantastic, and though limited to 640x480 resolution, it is the best 14" display I have seen in many a day. Furthermore, because I have the unobtanium cable, which includes sound and microphone jacks, the display has tonight been very happily working with a G4 tower, pumping out excellent stereo sound and receiving microphone input. The G4 does not seem to know exactly what is connected to it, mind you, but it works with it just fine.

The AudioVision is obviously destined for use with something beige, as 640x480 in OSX is a very tight squeeze, and as there is a Control Panel that can be used to get the best out of it in older System software; I will probably set it up in a dual monitor system with a 17" AppleVision 750 that is not nearly so sharp, and use it there so that I have both the real estate of the AppleVision on one side and the clarity of the AudioVision (and its sound capabilities) on the other.

It is a small find but I like this unusual little thing from what I still think of as the glory days. Cleaned up well, too, so that helps.

 

[Cory5412]

Congrats on the AudioVision! They have long been one of my absolute favorite displays, and I've owned two or three of them at varying times over the years. In addition to working great with whatever Mac you hook it to, on the side there is a line-in port that you can pair with a regular audio cable to hook it to something like an iPod, a Walkman or what ever other audio device you may have hanging around. It's fantastic.

Also, while the display is small, pixel-wise, I've always considered it to be fairly appropriate for 68k Macs. Most of the ones I have are hanging around with their onboard video, so 640x480 produces 256 or "thousands" of colors, just about perfectly, whereas a larger display would be limited to 256, or 16, or grays. Plus, I've always thought of 68k Macs as largely single-tasking* systems, just due to the limited amount of computing resources and memory.

(*) Even though I know that system 7 is fairly good at juggling a few commercial era-appropriate apps, most of my 68ks, except my first 840 and later my second 840, didn't have enough memory to really do a lot at once.

Out of curiosity, what type of adapter are you using in order to hook it up to the G4? I'd never bothered to try to hook mine up to a newer Mac, but it would've been fantastic as a secondary display on a machine with an extra port, or on a Mac notebook/laptop, primarily for the mic/speakers.

 

[beachycove]

Just a standard SVGA to DB15 adapter; the AudioVision adapter cable connects to it, and then connects in turn to the male HDI45 plug from the monitor.

 

[4seasonphoto]

I bought one of those monitors "back in the day" and I liked it too. The HDI45 connector was a bad idea for the 99% of the users who just wound up needing a clunky adapter, but for me, it was fine because it plugged right into my 6100. IIRC, larger Trinitrons were much more expensive, but when prices finally started to drop in the late 1990s, they dropped real fast.

 

[Paralel]

The plug was ahead of its time, basically an analog version of HDMI.

 

[beachycove]

The AudioVision adapter cable on Flickr (no, not my pic).

 

[Cory5412]

The only problem I've ever really had with that adapter is that on the some machines, you need to position it very correctly or else you are prone to ripping ports off of your board. I sometimes left the sound ports unplugged so as to reduce the stress on the cables and my 840av's board, although a solution today for me might involve a lot of duct tape, and simply affixing the audiovision adapter to the rear of my 840av. (that or getting an 8100)