Switching off the imac's interal display

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
I have a iMac 500 Snow. I find it annoying to read small type on the screen in most applications and prefer to plug in my old PC's 19" monitor. This all works fine, but I'd love to just have my 19" monitor displaying OS X (preferably at higher screen resolutions) instead of both screens mirroring each other.



Is this possible?



Is this the right place to post?



Please help :cool:

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    stimulistimuli Posts: 564member
    No, only mirroring is possible. Thus you are stuck w/ the iMac's resolutions.
  • Reply 2 of 6
    relicrelic Posts: 4,735member
    This makes no sense to me though, the video card in the ibook supports dual monitors and resolutions above 1024x768. So why does Apple limit this. Win notebooks that cost $800 dollars support this. We're getting shafted by Apple, old technology and limited features to make the higher models seem like more value.
  • Reply 3 of 6
    emaneman Posts: 7,204member
    [quote]Originally posted by Relic:

    <strong>This makes no sense to me though, the video card in the ibook supports dual monitors and resolutions above 1024x768. So why does Apple limit this. Win notebooks that cost $800 dollars support this. We're getting shafted by Apple, old technology and limited features to make the higher models seem like more value.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    The iBook only mirrors at 1024x768. You're right that Apple should give us the option for dual monitors on the iMac and iBooks.
  • Reply 4 of 6
    r@venr@ven Posts: 24member
    Thanks for your help. I'm wondering whether anyone has a software hack that will get round this......
  • Reply 5 of 6
    emaneman Posts: 7,204member
    [quote]Originally posted by r@ven:

    <strong>Thanks for your help. I'm wondering whether anyone has a software hack that will get round this...... </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Sorry, but I don't think there are any.
  • Reply 6 of 6
    As has been said many times, and will be said again for the innocents like yourself that haven't hit those threads yet, Apple has deliberately crippled this feature. PPC-Linux can run without this limitation on the iMacs and the iBooks, so it is the display driver that has the limitation. Fixing it would require figuring out the pertinent difference between the TiBook/PowerMac drivers and the iBook driver, which requires a strong-willed geek with plenty of knowledge, one working system and one crippled one, and a perverse desire to get the feature working on the crippled one. It doesn't seem like a likely combination.
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