It's not what you could call "cheap", but the tiny monitor tester
which is sold by Anatek Corp works very well and eliminates the need
to connect a monitor to a PC to see how it's performing. It's at
http://www.anatekcorp.com/testequipment/vgaplus.htm

Bob


On Mon, 19 Dec 2005 13:59:28 -0000, "N Cook"
wrote:

I'm thinking back to basic testing of dumb terminals and conecting pin 2 and
3 together would echo keyboard to screen.

Google doesn't like the word exerciser.
Is it possible to connect 5V to a pin on the monitor lead to get a blue
screen or something even if not synced to save powering up a pc just to see
if you get any sort of display on the screen?