Mac Forum / General / Hardware / October 2006

Check your monitor first, many (particularly larger ones and LCD's)
have two or more video cable inputs. On most many/most large CRT's
these will be two SVGA or (older/European) one SVGA and one 5-BNC
(RGB).  On many LCD's you have S-Video/Digital Component Video, SVGA,
and DVI.  Switching inputs is usually simply pressing a button on your
monitor's front-panel (usually labelled "input").  I've used this for
years, in lieu of buying a (used to be expensive) KVM switch.  Now that
I use USB man-machine input devices for everything, buying a $20 USB
KVM makes sense since it obviates the need for seperate keyboards &
mice & graphires on my desk.  I've ordered odds & ends from geeks.com
for years, but similar devices & prices are widely available.
You can leave the second cable attached to the monitor, with the
necessary Mac adapter attached to it, for when you use your mac and in
case you want to hook up something random (like a laptop with bad LCD).