Harmonic Inversion Technology has announced that it’s distributing the VTBook PC Card video card for Apple PowerBooks. The card is made by German manufacturer VillageTronic and retails for US$249.
Left to their own devices Apple PowerBooks can support external displays — recent models feature DVI interfaces, and before then S-Video connectors and analog d-sub connectors were the norm. But the VTBook card offers PowerBook users further expansion capabilities with another DVI interface and 32MB of 266MHz DDR memory, according to the manufacturer.
The card can drive external video displays from 512 x 349 to 1920 x 1200 pixel resolutions at millions of colors. What’s more, the card supports a “virtual desktop” that can double the size of the display by letting users “autoscroll” when they reach the edge of the screen.
Compatible with Mac OS X (and its Quartz 2D graphics acceleration) and Mac OS 9, the card is hot-swappable and supports PowerBook features like deep sleep and hibernation. The card features a DVI connector and includes a VGA adapter as well.
Initially the VTBook is for Macintosh only, but a Windows version of the card is planned for retail delivery in November. The card can be ordered through retailers listed on Harmonic Inversion’s Web site.