If you’ve been reading our blogs we have gone through some of the different technologies we offer. The newest edition will be VGA, or Video Graphics Array. VGA is one of the oldest used connections used in the PC world (1987), but is still widely used today; however, VGA has undergone some changes forming it into the better known Super VGA, or SVGA.

The first use of VGA was on the IBM computer, the PS/2, which was seen on the show Doogie Houser M.D., when he wrote blogs at the end of the show. If for any reason you’re still using old technology such as EGA or CGA, VGA is backwards compatible. VGA is a 15 pin connector which has an 640×480 resolution. What does resolution mean?

Resolution is the number of pixels in a certain direction. In this case there is 640 pixels high, and 480 across the screen. Even though this resolution is far outdated in computer monitors, it recently has
become widely used with many common mobile devices (phones, Palm Pilots, Blackberry’s.) The VGA cable allows up to 256 colors to be simultaneously displayed on the screen.

When displaying the bigger the resolution, the less colors you will receive. Such as displaying in 640 x 480 will result in only getting 16 colors, where as 320 x 200 will result in getting all 256 that can be had by VGA.

Whenever a computer boots up, regardless of the operating system and resolution that will be ultimately displayed, the computer will always be booted in a basic VGA operating mode. Many of the lower-cost graphics cards still use a VGA interface (SVGA more than likely). VGA is a 15 pin connector which connects the graphics card VGA port to the actual monitor. Three of the pins are used to carry
the typical red, blue, and green color signals. Two of the pins transmit the vertical and horizontal sync signals. The rest of the pins do tasks such as carry basic color information and provide grounds for the devices.

SVGA is the most commonly used forum of VGA today, and what we carry at FireFold. When SVGA first came into-be it used a resolution of 800 x 600 4-bit pixels, and quickly expanded to 1024 x 768 8-bit pixels. In the progressive years the resolution was expanded even beyond that. The majority of displays that were produced after 1999 have been SVGA, as VGA was being phased out due to its inferiority to SVGA. SVGA provides a better, more consistent good picture. There are
a couple of different newer versions of VGA out now, such as XGA,SXGA, SXGA+, UXGA, QXGA. These later VGA connections will transmit up to 2048 x 1600, but will not transmit as smoothly as DVI (Digital
visual interface), which will be taking the place of all VGA, eventually, but for now VGA remains the building-block for computer monitors.

Here at FireFold we carry a few different types of SVGA cable that serve different function.



Male to Male Connection: This will be an ideal cable to hook a computer monitor up to a a graphics card to receive picture from your monitor. This is the most common, and biggest seller SVGA cable.





Male to Female connection: This is the cable that would be ideal to extend a male to male connection cable, and specialty devices that have male SVGA ports located on them.







Male to Male SVGA with 3.5mm Audio connection: This cable would be needed to connect your PC to a video display system with speakers. The 3.5mm plug is a standard audio plug that is used from everything from MP3 players, to external speakers.







BNC to VGA video: BNC stands for Bayonet Neill-Concelman, it is a very common type of cable which terminates coaxial cables. These are an alternative to an RCA connection.



DVI to SVGA: This cable would be used to connect your computer a monitor or flat screen TV which has a DVI connection. Cable will transmit 720p HD signal, as well as standard signal.