My first experience with real multi monitor was pretty recent in my history with computers, only 6 years ago, it was not simple and in no way resembles the setup I have today. I was running 5 monitors in 2003, one of them being a 15″ touch screen which, was really pretty useless. The other 4 monitors were CRT from 15-19″ and if I had 2 large CRTs I would have traded the rest out. You just can’t replace resolution

Today 2 wide-screen LCD’s occupy my desktop and dropping back to a single monitor is torturous. How am I supposed to play games watch HD Video and monitor my IMs and browse the web on a single monitor UGH

Now all we need is forced seamless windowed mode for “exclusive” applications like games.

I believe that the PC is about to enter an evolutionary surge. Decreasing display cost is creating many, large, potentially immersive digital displays around the home. These displays are like pinky without brain. Blaster without master. The advent of cost effective multi-display technology and a uniform way to move both the visual experience and I/O (e.g. USB) between the screen and the PC are major milestones in unifying devices such that they can have all the sum total of applications and capability availed by a central computer. With a multi-session OS (described in the blog in more detail, but just think of it as one OS that can have multiple user sessions on multiple screens) and a few other changes to the existing computing paradigm, we have it.

You might think of it as a dumb terminal, but its so much like a modern TV (which frankly can do much more than this model requires of it) that I just think of it as a TV with USB ports (or branched Light Peak ports, if you prefer) that are routed through the same data path as the audio/video signal. Today HDMI takes HD audio and multi-channel video into your receiver and/or TV. With displayport 1.1, same thing. With Displayport 1.2, a TV can receive that same HD signal plus USB I/O. So the necessary hardware is essentially a DisplayPort 1.2 chip that decodes DisplayPort and provides the wires for a USB port. In the case of Light Peak, same thing (plus branched Light Peak ports…).

The chip that does something similar for DisplayPort today (decode to HDMI) costs about $3. So its just a video input that happens to be porting the output from your home computer and happens to be associated with physical USB ports (or LightPeak ports) on the front or side of the screen. And that home computer happens to have six outputs, so it can simultaneously drive multiple displays. Today you switch to video 5, and in this model the same thing, you switch to video 5 and you are watching your computer screen or the 10′ interface you employ suitable for that display in a living-room or den-like user position.

Yes, it’s too much bandwidth today and long run is pricey. DisplayPort 1.2 will transit 4×1080P plus USB 2.0 with the ability to daisy chain those four displays. Cable lenghts are 50′ to 100′ passive. Light Peak appears to have the bandwidth to drive multi-HD plus date (ethernet or USB).