Fun fact: The connector is called a DE-15, VGA is just the protocol using it in this application.
this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2026
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As someone who worked IT help desk in the mid/late aughts: fuck VGA and DVI. Let them stay dead. If I had a nickel for every time I snagged one in a desk's rat's nest on every single USB or power cable while trying to route cables, I could build me a top of the line gaming rig with 2026 prices.
The RJ plugs are my least favourite. Still snags but the plastic bit that snags is feeble enough to break off easily, and then the plug doesn't have anything holding it in to the port. And those covers usually make it harder to fit it through holes intended for ethernet cables as well as make it harder to unclip it from the port.
Like the Cisco switch that needed to be recalled due to the placement of it's reset button.
HDMI also has a leaky hack
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/07/pulling-data-from-hdmi-rf-leakage/
I mean… you have been able to do things like that for a long time. You used to be able to use cable toners to listen to conversations on analog phone lines for instance.
Oh, you want to plug your own computer into your own TV using a cable you own?
Isn’t there someone you forgot to ask (and pay)?
The mighty DisplayPort: "what is this peasant behaviour I'm too royal(ty-free) to understand?"
Explain?
The HDMI consortium are shitheads who demand royalties, and all Linux PCs are gimped to not have modern HDMI features because of it.
It's the year of the linux desktop!
(Unless you enjoy high fidelity gaming)
This play port is superior and is what is used on most high-end GPUs.
bone apple tea
Yeah, but unfortunately most TVs don't support DisplayPort. Although that reminds me someone made patches to the Linux kernel to enable 4k@120 Hz without color degradation on AMD GPUs. I haven't heard much about them since they were brought up in media, but if I recall correctly CachyOS included them in their kernel.
it's the displayport that's giving me trouble, not the hdmi.
Who screwed in vga carefully every time? Without the screws vga was worse.
You can get HDMI with a lock tab . I hate that too. Nothing worse than trying to reach behind a wall mount to squeeze the lock tab.
I did. Because something in me just won’t let something not be secured properly if a mechanism for it exists.
Sometimes you want it to disconnect instead of pull everything down with it if something gets caught on a wire.
Like a cat
I hear you, I just can’t do it. Though all the slack is zip-tied away, albeit messily.
Oh no. Run those cables sloppy free like a 90s cyberpunk rat's nest.
Exactly how god intended
Extra points for the hair dust bunnies on top of the power strip
The curse of the furry babies, cat hair everywhere lmao
It's like magic. I swear, sometimes it gets in places the instant it's able to. Meowphy's Law.
Is it a fair comparison when VGA plugs came with screws pretty much by default? I think I have seen HDMI cables like that too, but if so then it is a much rarer find.
They exist but I'm not sure it's standardized. Every time I've specced one, it was the manufacturer cable "for" that device. Same with USB and DP.
I've seen thousands of devices and those are the only ones I've seen with screws
"Not all hdmi"
Kegels.
(sorry) (not sorry?)
Add the Displayport! Which doesn't even allow hot-swapping, I keep needing to turn my computer off...
Sounds like an issue on your end, not on DP's end. You can 100% just plug in a DP cable into a powered-on computer and have it work instantly.
Is it supposed to work, yes. But I've seen hundreds of computers not work right away and have to reinstall drivers, toggle things on and off swap the cords, then that cord work on another machine right next to it while the other cord worked in its place. Displayport should be great, but I've also seen ~20 of them just split and die at the end as well. Not the most durable, but that's probably manufacturing issues.
That said I currently have to work on a Mac mini at some times, and that uses usb-c to c.... And I have to disconnect the cable and reconnect it after near every reboot to get the monitor to recognize.
Thats a known issue with the Mac Mini when using monitors not made by Apple. I get the same issue when connecting my Monitor using HDMI to my M4 Mac Mini
It's an issue with some monitors, i need to unplug them and plug back in because of the monitor sleep mode or something doesn't talk right with the DP port in the computer
I’ve never had this issue, could be a driver thing, but it’s not common.
I have never encounter a DisplayPort device that doesn’t support hot swap. From the early days, all the way to the latest and greatest they all support it.