Sod’s law says that, a few hours after I handed in all of Fujitsu’s kit in preparation for leaving the company, my own monitor would stop working…

I had spares, but only old 15″ 4×3 flat panels with VGA connections – this was the only monitor I have that will take an HDMI/DVI signal from my Mac Mini, or my Raspberry Pi so VGA was no good to me here.

As it happened, further investigation showed it wasn’t the monitor itself (although it is 9 years old now) but the power “brick”. I’m sure there are websites that specialise in selling universal power supplies for laptops but I haven’t found one yet for LCD monitors (I needed a 60W/12V/5A supply with a 2.5mm centre-positive tip).

Thankfully, my local Maplin store had something that would do the trick – a little expensive at £37.99 but far cheaper than a new monitor…

It does beg the question though – all mobile phones (except Apple iPhones) come with a standard USB charging cable. Why don’t all TVs/monitors/laptops have similarly standardised power supplies?