An Apple A Day......

....keeps Simon grumpy...

No, not that kind of Apple, the iPod, Mac, iPhone kind of Apple.

The heart of our home entertainment system is an old Apple Macintosh Performa. I would guess that it has a street value of about $5, but it works great for us. It has a TV tuner card in it, and a remote control. Yup I can actually power it on, switch to TV mode, change channel and sound volume from the remote! It's a great party trick.

Up until a few days ago I had a really nice 19 inch Mac monitor to go with it. I was at work, so I don't exactly know what Jan did, but when I got home it was broke. I suspect that she abused it!

"No Problem" I said, I pride myself on having a plan 'B', and my plan 'B' was to use a 17 inch Apple monitor that I had kicking around. After much grunting and hernia inducing exercise I got the 19 inch on the floor and the 17 inch in place. I powered it all up (and grabbed a beer), the Apple booted up with no problems. So I switched to TV mode, and got a rude message that the monitor was not compatible with TV mode.

Now it should be pointed out that I do not give up easily. My next plan 'B' was the 15 inch Apple monitor that I have. So, a couple of hernias later I have the 15 inch installed. I did have some nagging thoughts that their was a problem with this monitor, and I was right! The red gun in the tube is on the fritz! But at least we had a TV again. The lack of red does lead to everything being shades of green and blue, so it is not exactly ideal.

My next plan 'B' was to figure out how to lash up a regular PC monitor to the evil Apple. I found out pretty quickly that Apple monitor to PC is a walk in the park, a $5 adapter is all you need. Going the other way is a whole different deal.

Well, as luck would have it, while I was looking for some White Out for a client, what do I stumble across? Yup, you guessed right, the very adapter that I need! Of course there is a catch, you have to set 12 micro switches to get it to work, but I don't scare easy!

Not knowing exactly how many more hernias I can endure, I take the wimpy way out. The TV is very close to my computer, so to test my theory I just move the cable from my 19 inch monitor. WooHoo we have TV, and the colour looks good.

The next step is to move the blue/green monitor to the the ever increasing pile of useless Apple things that is begining to take over the entire living room. I have a nice Gateway 17 inch monitor, so risking further injury I muscled it into place. By this time I am feeling pretty damn good! I have the problem cracked, and Jan is going to think I am a hero! (which I am hahahahaha)

I know that this will come as no suprise, It did not work! So we are still watching everthing in shades of green and blue!