Specialization is for Insects, Seth says » xo http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/seth A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Sun, 14 Dec 2008 21:16:18 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5.2 en hourly 1 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/ External Monitor or Projector for the XO http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/seth/2008/01/08/external-monitor-or-projector-for-the-xo/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/seth/2008/01/08/external-monitor-or-projector-for-the-xo/#comments Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:42:52 +0000 seth http://www.whyxo.com/2008/01/08/external-monitor-or-projector-for-the-xo/ XO disassembly, vga portDo you see those copper holes at the bottom of the circuit board? It’s labeled CN12, and it’s an unpopulated VGA port, the kind used for desktop computer monitors, and projectors.

This isn’t plug and play by any means. There is a jumper (CN18) *somewhere* on this board that switches between the LCD and this VGA port. Or at least so the specs on the original a-test board suggest.

There is also a chance that the port is disabled in the firmware, but I can’t think of any reason why this would be the case.

There are a few other unresolved issues as well. The LX version of the Geode processor, which all machines since the B2 use, is supposed to support crt/lcd out of the box and I shouldn’t need to use the jumper at all. And lastly, the wiki has this to say:

“In B3/C1/MP versions, additional required passive components will not be populated on the motherboard (but are easier to obtain than the required VGA connector!)”

[Source]

B-test vga port
The last model that did have these parts populated was the B2. It shouldn’t be *too* hard to get someone to get me some pictures of their board. Or perhaps the A-test or B-test boards aren’t so dissimilar that I couldn’t use the images from the wiki.

Since there seems to be some ambiguity on the wiki and people seem to want to be able to project from the XO.  This is a project that I will return to.

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