Mini-Displayport is still DisplayPort. It has also been common for the last year, how else would they fit six video connectors to the AMD video cards that support six displays with Eyefinity?
Except that it isn't the same. You can attach a displayport device to a thunderbolt port, but you can't use a displayport cable with a thunderbolt device (or plug a thunderbolt device into a displayport). The thunderbolt cable is an active cable that includes a bunch of chips.
Look at the documentation for Apple's Thunderbolt display - it only works with a Thunderbolt-enabled system.
USB is a major counter argument. Back in the mid 90s a computer would typically have PS2 keyboard, PS2 Mouse, Serial, Parallel, maybe Midi/Game, and possibly an AT Keyboard plug. With the partial exception of PS2; USBs killed all of these on mainstream computers. Firewire has come and mostly gone. eSata never really made the transition from a geek to mass market standard. In both cases USBs success was a major factor in holding the challenger back.
TB could potentially eat all the current generation of cables coming out of the back of PCs; although unless costs fall fast I doubt we'll see it anywhere except as a notebook docking connector on higher end models.
I want a single, standardized, powered cable to connect all my devices. Why is this so hard? Why can't I connect my monitor to either a power strip or to a port on my PC? (use cords with the same interface, but two different ends)
Why can't I connect an external Blu-ray player on the same port? I want a video card that can power my monitor, or at least have a split cord that supplies power from a port on my PC and also connects to the video card.
Way back in the day (think AT era); power supplies with an AC passthrough for your monitor were common. I'm not sure why they never made it to ATX units.
The problem with a universal power cable is that there's too much variation in the amount of power a device needs. A universal one would need to be about the size and thickness of a current wall cable to support high end desktops with 1000+W power draws.
Even just dropping down to laptops you've got a huge spread between ultraportables that only need 40W when charging their battery, performance laptops with big batteries that can charge at 100W, and extreme gaming laptops that can suck through 200W while gaming on SLI/xFire GPUs.
I suspect USB charging of small devices is as far as we'll ever see a universal power adapter get (possibly with a bump from 10 to 15 or 20W to allow faster tablet charges); because once you start getting higher power levels your connectors minimum size to handle the load gets larger than needed for stuff like phones.
Also, mini barrel type power connectors are easier to insert blind on the back of devices and because they can freely rotate deliver much lower levels of mechanical stress on devices where use while plugged in isn't unreasonable.
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damianrobertjones - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link
"La la laaa laaaa laaa I don't want another cable for monitors laa laa laaa already have vga, dvi, DP etc laa laaa laaaa"r3loaded - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link
It's the same connector as DP. Don't want to use Thunderbolt? Just use a standard DP cable.damianrobertjones - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link
Oh... okay then. As Thunderbolt has been an exclusive apple lover (Until now) I've not seen any of the cables or really followed the threads.Thanks for the info!
coolkamio - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link
Actually, is not the same connector.DP is one port, and Thunderbolt uses the "mini" version of DP, mini Display Port.
solipsism - Saturday, January 14, 2012 - link
The mini-DisplayPort port is still DP, just another official port interface. USB has plenty of port interface types and they are all USB ports.KoolAidMan1 - Monday, January 16, 2012 - link
Mini-Displayport is still DisplayPort. It has also been common for the last year, how else would they fit six video connectors to the AMD video cards that support six displays with Eyefinity?phoible_123 - Saturday, January 14, 2012 - link
Except that it isn't the same. You can attach a displayport device to a thunderbolt port, but you can't use a displayport cable with a thunderbolt device (or plug a thunderbolt device into a displayport). The thunderbolt cable is an active cable that includes a bunch of chips.Look at the documentation for Apple's Thunderbolt display - it only works with a Thunderbolt-enabled system.
MrX8503 - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link
Uh...thunderbolt promotes single cable usage.Deleted - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link
Yeah, not really.http://xkcd.com/927/
DanNeely - Tuesday, January 17, 2012 - link
USB is a major counter argument. Back in the mid 90s a computer would typically have PS2 keyboard, PS2 Mouse, Serial, Parallel, maybe Midi/Game, and possibly an AT Keyboard plug. With the partial exception of PS2; USBs killed all of these on mainstream computers. Firewire has come and mostly gone. eSata never really made the transition from a geek to mass market standard. In both cases USBs success was a major factor in holding the challenger back.TB could potentially eat all the current generation of cables coming out of the back of PCs; although unless costs fall fast I doubt we'll see it anywhere except as a notebook docking connector on higher end models.
jabber - Monday, January 16, 2012 - link
And USB3.0 dominates the world.JonnyDough - Monday, January 16, 2012 - link
I want a single, standardized, powered cable to connect all my devices. Why is this so hard? Why can't I connect my monitor to either a power strip or to a port on my PC? (use cords with the same interface, but two different ends)Why can't I connect an external Blu-ray player on the same port? I want a video card that can power my monitor, or at least have a split cord that supplies power from a port on my PC and also connects to the video card.
DanNeely - Tuesday, January 17, 2012 - link
Way back in the day (think AT era); power supplies with an AC passthrough for your monitor were common. I'm not sure why they never made it to ATX units.The problem with a universal power cable is that there's too much variation in the amount of power a device needs. A universal one would need to be about the size and thickness of a current wall cable to support high end desktops with 1000+W power draws.
Even just dropping down to laptops you've got a huge spread between ultraportables that only need 40W when charging their battery, performance laptops with big batteries that can charge at 100W, and extreme gaming laptops that can suck through 200W while gaming on SLI/xFire GPUs.
I suspect USB charging of small devices is as far as we'll ever see a universal power adapter get (possibly with a bump from 10 to 15 or 20W to allow faster tablet charges); because once you start getting higher power levels your connectors minimum size to handle the load gets larger than needed for stuff like phones.
Also, mini barrel type power connectors are easier to insert blind on the back of devices and because they can freely rotate deliver much lower levels of mechanical stress on devices where use while plugged in isn't unreasonable.