Hi Marcy and Others, The most complete answer that I've seen on how to use a Mac mini without a monitor is written up at John Panarese's "Adventures with My Mac Mini" blog article at his Macfortheblind.com pages: http://macfortheblind.com/?p=591
The key piece of information is the link to the Sewell Direct "Sewell TVdeck PC to TV Converter (VGA to Composite)": http://sewelldirect.com/pc-to-tv.asp Sewell Part #: SW-23000 Mfg Part #: SW-23000 Price: $29.95 John used that in combination with an Apple Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adaptor (I think the current product model number is MB572Z/B but you should check that out for yourself -- the Apple Knowledge Base document on video adapters and connectors that was last updated on March 1, 2013 indicates that the MB572Z part number series works world wide for all Mac Minis dating from the Early 2009 model and later, except for machines sold in China,Taiwan, and Korea, which use the MB570FE part number series.) For that solution you need to buy the two adapters -- the Apple connector and the one from Sewell direct. There are also hand-made solutions that involve soldering connector pins on the output adapter, but this is an off-the-shelf solution you can buy for a total price of about $60 that is less cumbersome than carrying around a monitor. Like the others, I do not own a Mac Mini, so I can only summarize the information that I have read several times on various mailing lists. (I can, however, if necessary, link you to the original posts by people who owned Mac Minis and stated what did and did not work for them.) The issue is not that the Mac Mini cannot be used at all without a monitor connected, but that when it is used with VoiceOver without a monitor, it is sluggish, preferences are not remembered, such as automatically starting up VoiceOver at login, and particularly when internet access using Safari, iTunes, etc. is activated there is a noticeable performance hit in terms of busy messages and lack of responsiveness. I've only read of one recent Mac Mini user, not on this list, who claims that his Mac Mini runs perfectly well without a monitor. Since this is someone who ordered a fully loaded system (maxed up on memory, etc.), and is also a new switcher who could not give comparison performance of his system or any other Mac system's performance with a monitor connected, I'm not sure how to evaluate this. To address David's comment, back in 2008 the solution to slow or unresponsive Mac Mini performance without an attached monitor was to use an Apple DVI to Composite/SVGA adapter. This is a legacy connector that no longer works with current products -- you'd have to have a machine that is more than 4 years old, and that used a DVI connector port. The speculation as to why that adapter worked, but not the DVI to VGA adapter (at that time) is that at startup the Mac tries to detect what kind of display is attached at power-up, and that the VGA adapter has bi-directional pins, while an output that ultimately hooks up to Composite (or SVideo or NTSC/PAL) output doesn't allow this information to pass back to the Mac by the nature of the type of connection, although the system will accept that type of output connector as a potentially valid output TV device for the monitor. You don't actually have to have a monitor turned on to get the better performance of the connected Mac Mini. VGA connection is still a standard for connecting to old projection/presentation systems, and works with my MacBook Air, in answer to Sarah's question. Finally, I'm not sure whether Isaac's procedure of starting up the Mac Mini by using target disk mode connection to another machine solves the sluggishness problem, since you'd have to reboot, anyway, and I believe the monitor detection gets implemented at startup. Perhaps you'll get a reply from an actual Mac Mini user who can tell you more. By the way, if you go to the current Macfortheblind.com home page at: http://macfortheblind.com/ and read the item under the heading "Another Interesting Item", which you can also find at: http://macfortheblind.com/?p=1194 you'll find a description of someone who modified his Mac Mini by ripping out the internal power supply and installing a laptop power supply to make this available for portable usage. HTH. Cheers, Esther On May 7, 2013, at 5:08 AM, Sarah k Alawami wrote: > I thought apple made it so that that VBA cit could not be used anymore? > thats what I heard anyways. but I own a laptop. > > Take care. > On May 7, 2013, at 8:03 AM, David Griffith <[email protected]> wrote: > >> >> This may be the answer but I thought a Mac mini could be used effectively >> simply by plugging in a SVGA adaptor. As I understand it the nature of the >> adaptor does not particularly matter, The key is to fool the Mac Mini into >> thinking that a Monitor is attached. Without this Voiceover performance is >> unpredictable. >> >> As I understand it this procedure is necessary with newer Mac Minis but not >> always necessary on older models. >> >> Only my understanding as I do not own a Mac Mini. >> David Griffith >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: [email protected] >> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Isaac Hebert >> Sent: 07 May 2013 14:55 >> To: Mac OSX & iOS Accessibility >> Subject: Re: using a Mac mini without a monitor >> >> 1. Turn off target computer. >> 2. Connect a keyboard to the target computer. >> 3. Connect your host computer and target computer with the firewire transfer >> cable(your host computer can be on). Make sure no other firewire devices are >> connected. >> 4. Start the target computer while holding down the T key on your keyboard. >> This will put the target computer in Firewire Target Disk Mode. >> 5. Restart the host computer using the target computer as the boot disk >> (System Preferences -> Start up Disk) 6. Setup the target computer with >> network access and remote management (Sharing) 7. Reboot the host computer >> with its own disk 8. Disconnect the target computer and reboot. >> >> On 5/7/13, Marcy Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote: >>> Someone has asked me how they can use their Mac mini without a >>> monitor. I do not have a Mac mini, and this is the only mac computer they >> have. >>> >>> I'd appreciate a solution to this issue, as I know there is a way to >>> trick the mini into thinking it has a monitor. >>> >>> Thanks! >>> >>> Marcy >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Marcy weinberg >>> Junior Partner >>> Fedora Outlier, LLC >>> Top down, BETTER THAN EXCELLENT T consulting, teaching and support >>> http://www.fedoraoutlier.com >>> 888-958-6979 ext.3801 >>> [email protected] >>> <--- Mac Access At Mac Access Dot Net ---> To reply to this post, please address your message to [email protected] You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Mac-Access forum at either the list's own dedicated web archive: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/mac-access/index.html> or at the public Mail Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/>. 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