Can anyone tell me how I can connect my old 27-inch Apple Thunderbolt Display as a second display for my 2-1/2 year-old M1 iMac?
The input for the Thunderbolt Display is what was called an Octopus cable with both a MagSafe end (which I used with my old MacBook Air) and a Thunderbolt 2 end. The M1 iMac has only Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports.
A couple months after purchasing my iMac I tried connecting the Thunderbolt end of the display’s cable to one of the Thunderbolt 3 ports on the back of the iMac using Apple’s Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter. But… no signal. I gave up on the Thunderbolt Display and have been using a 23-inch Dell I had lying around with an HDMI port cabled to the iMac as a second display ever since.
Because of a new use case (where the larger the canvas, the better) I would like to try again with the Thunderbolt Display. ZDnet published an article in August 2022 on adding a second Thunderbolt monitor to an M1 Mini and used an HDMI to Thunderbolt 3 adapter. That adapter is powered, whereas the Apple Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 is not. Could that be the problem?
I can find no Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 converter that is powered. But there are docking stations that are powered and have a Thunderbolt 2 port, such as this 14-Port Thunderbolt Dock from OWC. Would that work?