The (almost) 10-year old 27" Thunderbolt display finally died.
Well, it didn't really die.
The Thunderbolt connector had gotten impossibly flaky. If I looked at it wrong, the monitor glitched or disonnected.
It was dead enough that I wasn't going to deal with it.
It involved this morass of adapters:
(Try to ignore the dust. That's been fixed, too.)
The top one is a USB-C to Thunderbolt adapter. You can't quite make out the wrap of tape where the wiring insulation started falling apart.
The bottom one (with the blue tape) adapts the monitor's ancient MagSafe charging to a modern USB-C port.
These two merge into a single, heavy cable.
I bought a repair kit with a whole new wiring harness.
It's not impossible to do. Indeed, it looks like it might be fun.
I took an old iMac (same physical case) apart to retrieve the internal hard drive. It wasn't impossible to get at the various pieces.
The problem is that I'd still be looking at a stack of adapters. And the resulting reliability issue of bumping the MagSafe connection.
A Better Choice
Instead of limping along, I replaced it with the 24" LG TV. (Check Apple's on-line store for specifics)
Brighter. Better sound. Adjustable height.
One connector from TV to Mac (instead of two.) No Adapters.
There are three USB-C ports on the back of the moitor. Places to plug chargers for keyboards or trackpads or whatever.
This means I can leave a backup drive hanging off the back of the monitor. Backs up whenever I'm using this desk.
No camera, though. Experimenting with iPhone as Zoom camera. May need a bracket to position the camera up at face level.
Final Disposition
The next step is to put some notices out on local services web sites (i.e. https://www.craigslist.org) to see who might want this "works, but..." monitor.
I'm not happy taking to the landfill, because it works. It will include with the unused repair kit and the adapters. It just needs a hair more attention to detail than I can manage.
Much happier meeting someone by the library to hand it off.
Back to writing. Making good progress on the new book.