The Diary Game: studying electronics for the exams. Old VGA cable (04 13 2026)

I'm preparing for IT practicals test and I'm studying the VGA cables. Because the school wants us to understand from history, they want us to learn about the old ones not the modern ones.

This is a fairly old VGA cable and VGA as a technology are not modern things, they first came into the tech scene in 1987, and technically speaking, you can see them as relics from the past.

These VGA cables are thick because they have more wiring, which will allow for signals to be sent to the monitors from the source.

VGA is an abbreviation that stands for Video Graphics Array, and in its name you know they are cables designed just for video. If your source has audio and you'd like to carry that sound to your monitor, you would need to wire that separately. This is a little caution for anyone that's new to using these devices, the VGA does not digitalize sound or video. That causes many limitations for VGA cables like a lack of meaningful resolutions and video quality. VGA caps at a 1920x1080 resolution which is really worse compared to how an HDMI or a displayport could run. VGA cables are still being used today because of the older technology we still depend on. Any company or school, that has a projector or a more older computer is going to have to be using a VGA cable.

The cables are very simple. If you have a source and monitor connected by a VGA cable, everything is plugged in. You don't need drivers or special setups or pairings. You screw in the cables and power the monitor and then you're done. I know that simplicity is the reason VGA is still used today.

I would prefer to use HDMI or DisplayPort if it's available because they give me a sharper image. It's clear that the digital signals are better than analog so VGA connections shouldn’t be your first choice unless you're using an old device that needs it, then it's really your only choice.