How to find out what display is connected to your Mac…

How can you find out what display is connected to your macintosh?  Well, on the desktop’s you can examine the monitor, probably…  But what about your laptop?

Open a terminal window, and type this in:

ioreg -lw0 | grep IODisplayEDID | sed "/[^<]*</s///" | xxd -p -r | strings -6

For example:

[nerv:~] benjamin% ioreg -lw0 | grep IODisplayEDID | sed “/[^<]*</s///” | xxd -p -r | strings -6
SMBXAJ0806727
VO22L HDTV10A
q8-@X,%
@1
@U
[nerv:~] benjamin%
[nerv:~] abcdefg% ioreg -lw0 | grep IODisplayEDID | sed "/[^<]*</s///" | xxd -p -r | strings -6
SMBXAJ0806727
VO22L HDTV10A
q8-@X,%
@1
@U 

What does this mean?

  • I don’t have any information on what the “SMBXAJ0806727” is, I thought it was the serial number, but it doesn’t match the display’s serial number…
  • The VO22L, in my case, is the model of the monitor, and I assume the HDTV10A is the class of display.
  • The rest of the output appear to be gibberish…
[nerv:~] benjamin% ioreg -lw0 | grep IODisplayEDID | sed “/[^<]*</s///” | xxd -p -r | strings -6
SMBXAJ0806727
VO22L HDTV10A
q8-@X,%
@1
@U
[nerv:~] benjamin%