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Brightness control for vintage Cinema displays connected to modern Macs

Posted by: minimum on 2026-09-25 16:07:01 GitHub - minimum91/acdcontrol: Apple Cinema Display Control Utility for Linux -- clone of upstream with some minor updates Apple Cinema Display Control Utility for Linux -- clone of upstream with some minor updates - minimum91/acdcontrol github.com I have a design project coming up next week and a colleague is coming over with his M1 MacBook Pro. I don't have fancy new gear and I use a 30" Apple Cinema Display as my main display, but I do also have a few old acrylic Studio and Cinema displays, including a new old stock 23" Apple Cinema HD Display (acrylic) in the box that want to set up for our work session so the colleague can use it. One thing that bugged me for the longest time is that there is no way to control the brightness of these vintage displays when connected to a modern Mac, but I remember seeing projects both for Windows and Linux to achieve this. So I found one these projects and vibe-coded a fork, wrapped in a very simple menu bar UI. So far tested with a 15" Apple Studio Display connected via the ADC to DVI converter and plugged to my 2010 Mac Pro running Monterey and it works like a charm. Should also work with the other displays of this era. Enjoy! Here's a video showing the Studio Display brightness being changed, but without the UI.

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