The Sgi 1600sw Monitor - Another Technology Triumph From Silicon Graphics
Although best known for it’s powerful graphics workstations and massive servers, SGI regularly produces related pieces of high technology. Back in 1998, SGI gave the monitor industry a wake up call by launching the ground breaking 1600SW monitor.
The SGI 1600SW is a LCD monitor with a resolution of 1600×1024. It was, and remains, the only monitor to offer a full 16:10 aspect ratio, allowing exact work for digital effects artists, as well as being able to show two A4 pages of text side by side. The 1600SW won several awards for it’s innovative design, and the monitor’s brightness and high resolution still places it at the top end of monitor design, over a decade later.
The monitor used the all digital OpenLDI interface, which required special graphics cards. Several models of SGI machine had the required connector either builtin, or available as an add-in card. Companies like 3D Labs also produced dedicated graphics cards with the special connector, allowing the 1600SW monitor to be used with standard PCs.
Since it’s introduction, many companies have also manufactured convertors, allowing modern video cards to be used with the OpenLDI interface. Over a decade after it’s introduction, the SGI 1600SW remains a high quality monitor that is very sought after by graphics artists.
Posted on: Monday, November 3, 2008 at 9:39 am 
Computers & Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.