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Comment by ars | Hacker News Reader

If only it had VGA output - there are so many incredibly cheap old LCD monitors on eBay. You could setup a huge number of very cheap terminals anywhere.

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As lots of people have pointed out it can't do VGA directly. (You could use a USB video adapter but I digress). The number of 'cheap' HDMI video monitors out there is pretty astonishing too. You can do HDMI->DVI (this is just a plug change not a signaling change) and use many of those same monitors.

The challenge of course is that programming the video is dependent on getting support from Broadcom. One thing that has really pissed me off at them is I've got an InPulse watch that I can't get 64 bit Broadcom drivers for Win7 to use their SDK, how sucky is that? So getting support for their video blob in the RpI is probably not going to fly either.

Are you serious? VGA is a terrible analog standard that would've made the video output of this device useless.

Having HDMI means any kid can plug it straight into the family television without any problems, or they can always get a new, cheap monitor for well under $100 if they shop around.

It also doesn't preclude the Pi from being used to drive large displays for commercial applications or for classroom presentations.

Since I'm not made of money, my only display device with HDMI is a Google TV that I got for free (won it) a couple of years ago. If they wanted it to work with "the family television without any problems", they could have added composite video out.

Per http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs, it does have composite video out.

Just be sure your cheap old LCD monitor has DVI input for the HDMI-DVI cable! Maybe not quite as cheap, but still do-able.

I see plenty that do: http://www.ebay.com/sch/Monitors-Projectors-Accs-/162497/i.h...

You can always add a small amount to the cost and get hdmi-vga cables.

There are none. You need a $40 (checked at monoprice) converter that's almost as big as the Pi.

DVI/VGA only works if the GPU puts out VGA in the first place - the VGA signal just happens to be present in the same cable.

Hmm.. you're probably right. But HDMI/DVI adapters work, as do DVI/VGA, why can't they be combined?

DVI has additional pins for carrying an analog signal, but they don't have to be used to transmit the digital one. The simple DVI-VGA adapters are merely shape changers, wiring the relevant pins from the DVI side to the VGA side.

DVI can carry both analog (VGA-compatible) and digital (HDMI-compatible) signals on the same cable. HDMI is digital-only, and VGA is analog-only.

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