One strategy applied by quite a few consumer electronics and computer manufacturers out there is to stimulate sales by making it impossible for customers to use their older hardware with the latest product releases. To some extent, that's exactly what happened with Apple, whose DisplayPort-enabled 24-inch Apple monitors will not work with computers manufactured prior to 2009.

Plus, going from Mini DisplayPort to DVI is simple, and many products that allow this conversion are already on the market; however, there have been no products that allowed the opposite conversion, until now.

Luckily, though, a company called Atlona Technologies, which specializes in the manufacture of various types of connectivity solutions and adapters (for pretty much any type of interface), has recently announced the development of a DVI to Mini DisplayPort converter, designed to allow the use of new Mini-DisplayPort enabled monitors on DVI machines.

Atlona’s new AT-DP200 (the converter in question) inputs DVI and outputs Mini DisplayPort signal while passing along all EDID and HDCP information. This device converts while allowing one's computer to scale to the optimal resolution offered by the display, including here 1920 by 1200 or 1280 by 800.

Furthermore, Atlona claims that the AT-DP200 was put through extensive testing in Apple’s compatibility lab, going up against every single Apple computer with a DVI port, and every monitor featuring Mini DisplayPort. Atlona Technologies also put this product through PC interoperability testing with all standard DVI video cards, all the tests being successful, of course.

According to the manufacturer, its new AT-DP200 will start shipping mid of September with an MSRP of $179.00, which is, indeed, a pretty hefty price point for a converter, but one that probably quite a few owners of older DVI machines will be willing to cough up, if they want to enjoy a wider desktop space, that is.


We are just a few, but there are many of you, Softpedia users, out there. That's why we thought it would be a good idea to create an email address for you to help us a little in finding gadgets we missed. Interesting links are bound to be posted with recognition going mainly to those who submit. The address is .