Hi,

On 14 Aug 2002 at 5:32, beaker wrote:
> I came across this and got to wondering if these are intended for
> using Sun monitors on a PC. Is it and, if so, is it safe to do with
> typical PCI SVGA video cards?
> 
>  http://www.pcliquidator.com/detailproduct.asp?which=482

that is right. Be aware that most or at least many older Sun 
monitors (all that I have) are fixed frequency. If you can 
adjust your grafic card to match the monitor it will work (I 
remember some old cards that would allow this - possibly an 
et4000 based vlb card). I have not tested that lately, but I 
think newer cards depend on a driver to do this. So by default 
you will not see anything until X starts (if you set up your 
grafic card under X to match the monitor).

There are some (dos) utilities, that maybe can change the 
default settings of the grafic card for booting, in that case 
you might be able to use the monitor even for BIOS settings 
and such.

Then there are special grafic cards that will let you use the 
fixed frequency monitor in any stage of the computer. These 
cards are expensive (200 to 400 USD IIRC) for the performance 
they deliver. I recently got contact to a company that sells 
bankrupt's estate, a Sony G500 (21" Trinitron multisync CRT), 
unused, will cost about USD 170, a 15" TFT USD 140. So it does 
not make much sense to get such a card (unless you like the 
Sun logo that much ;)).

You might wish to browse following sites:

http://www.repairfaq.org/REPAIR/F_ffmon.html

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Foothills/4467/fixedsyn
c.html

http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~jrk3g/gdm1934.html

This cable could also be to connect a PC Multisync monitor to 
a 13w3 connector on a workstation. I had that working on SGI 
and Sun workstations.

HTH

mike