“An upcoming version of the 1394 specification–which everyone in the world except for Microsoft refers to as Firewire–will provide for transfer rates between PCs and devices at speeds of up to 3.2 GB per second, far faster than the current speeds of 400 and 800 Mbps that today’s Firewire devices obtain. But while Microsoft plans to support the new spec, dubbed 1394b, it will not do so until after Windows Vista ships. Microsoft says it may add 1394b support to Windows via a Vista service pack or in a future version of Windows,” Paul Thurrott reports for WinInfo.
Full article (short takes weekly review) here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple debuted FireWire 800 (1394b) on January 7, 2003 in the 17-inch PowerBook. January 7, 2003. Proposed slogan for massive Windows Vista campaign that’s sure to pollute the world – maybe even in this decade: Microsoft. Innovating yesterday’s technology in the far distant future.
MacDailyNews Note: The 1394 digital link standard was conceived in 1986 by technologists at Apple Computer, who chose the trademark “FireWire,” in reference to its speeds of operation. The first specification for this link was completed in 1987. It was adopted in 1995 as the IEEE 1394 standard (1394a or FireWire 400). 1394b delivers speeds starting at 800 megabits/second, scalable to 1.6 Gigabits/second, then to 3.2 Gigabits/second. More info here. By our estimate, manufacturers should have hit the 1.6 Gigabits/second mark at least two years ago. We have no idea if that will ever come to pass. We won’t even bother discussing when 3.2 Gigabits/second will become a reality.
[UPDATE: 10:37am EDT: Modified MDN Take and Note with additional info.]
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“which everyone in the world except for Microsoft refers to as Firewire”
Not necessarily true. I went to China and was trying to buy a Firewire cable (cheaper over there, but not the reason I was visiting) and no one understood what I was talking about when I said Firewire. I spent about 10 minues asking a lot of people in an electronics market. I finally asked for 1394 and they immediately knew what I was looking for.
I’m just looking for hard drives that can actually deliver 3.2GB a second – I just bought a new hard drive that can only get a sustained transfer rate of 35MB from my internal SATA hard drive. I could do raid, but hard drive speed is one area that has not progressed as quickly as other computer components.
Paul says “far faster than the current speeds of 400 and 800 Mbps that today’s Firewire devices obtain.”
MDN’s take says “1394b delivers speeds starting at 800 megabits/second, scalable to 1.6 Gigabits/second, then to 3.2 Gigabits/second.”
So we are talking about existing FireWire 800, right? And if they do scale it in the future, it’s still going to be called 1394 “b”?
MDN _ You edited your take between when I composed my post and when I posted it. No fair!
This is good news, I think. M$ not warming up to
Firewire was another example of them trying to
bully the industry into USB 2 adoption, but it
just wouldn’t do the trick for some devices
(digital camcorders), so they finally had to
concede. Of course Apple kind of did the same
when they put USB 2.0 on iPods instead of
Firewire. My machine is a dual 867 PM G4, it
does not have USB 2. My wife’s Nano is SLOW.
Do the latest Apple computers (macmini, laptops) even have Firewire anymore? And if they do how fast is the Firewire on them?
And Sony has called the 1394 connection “i.Link” with some of their products that use it, so not “everyone but M$” calls it FireWire, to Apple’s chagrin… another Thurrott lapse in research…
Just as long as they keep floppy drive and parallel printer support in Vista. That’s all I care about.
Bill:
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Just picking, have a good day.
Magic word: felt
I felt like being a smart-ass
“Just as long as they keep floppy drive and parallel printer support in Vista. That’s all I care about.”
OK, someone is more sarcastic than me.
Bill: yes they do. Check the Apple store. I know it takes a few seconds!
Bill: Yup, the new systems do indeed have firewire. The MacBook Pro 17″ includes FW800, and the 15″/iMac/MacMini has FW400.
The new Mac mini does [have one FireWire 400 port*], you could have checked that by simply going to the apple website, clicking on the store link and looking at the minis.
I’ve heard that FireWire is faster than USB 2.0 as well. Since the listed transfer speed on USB 2.0 is a “burst speed” and not a sustained throughput. Also, USB shares it’s bandwidth with all devices equally, not based on need like Firewire does, so if you have something you want to gain full transfer speed on (say iPod) have it the only device plugged into a given USB port.
[* portion in brackets edited by MDN for accuracy, replacing the word “not.”]
Thorin how about
http://www.google.com
Love it when people know nothing.
Operatile 895
WTF are you talking about? You obviously had some profound point to make, but it didn’t get across.
Sony calls it ‘i-link’
Bill, if Macs didn’t have firewire, how would anyone use iMovie?
Hey Bill, welcome back, How was the cave? Are your eyes having difficulty adjusting to the light?
Yes they do.
800 on the 17″ Macbook Pro
400 on the rest.
Thorin, perhaps the point Operatile 895 was trying to make (just guessing here) is that you can always add a USB2 port to a desktop with a PCI card, or a laptop with a PCM (for those laptops with PCM slots, like PowerBooks and the new “Pro” MacBooks).
they do have their petty ways
“Thorin, perhaps the point Operatile 895 was trying to make (just guessing here) is that you can always add a USB2 port to a desktop with a PCI card, or a laptop with a PCM (for those laptops with PCM slots, like PowerBooks and the new “Pro” MacBooks).”
Perhaps that is the case, but that defies what the whole Mac experience stands for. Why would Apple WANT to put out a device (Nano) that I would have to go get a third party solution for my MAC to get the full potential out of it? So Windows weenies would have a better “out of the box” experience, since they probably already have USB 2? Firewire is Apple’s baby, I’m sure if they had thier way, iPods would still be exclusively Firewire. In addition, Apple gets a $1 royalty for every Firewire card sold.
Now who knows nothing?
The origianl Firewire spec way back when was for 50 Mbps. About the same speed as SCSI back then (which was the equivalent of 40 Mbps for the first generation of SCSI). The original spec was not envisioned to reach speeds beyond 400 Mbps. Thus the hardware interface was designed with that speed range in mind.
The issue with the change to the higher speeds was the change in connector. Unfortunately, it was not possible to reliably do 800+ Mbps with the original connector. Thus they came up with a connector which will theoretically handle speeds up through 3.2 Gbps (NOT GB per second as the article states — as far as I know the only external spec which will handle that data rate is the very latest rev to PCI-e and that only allows cables to be one meter or less in length). The requirement for new connectors slowed the adoption of higher speed Firewire. (USB was able to keep the same physical connector from 1.0 to 1.1 to 2.0 and thus the adoption of 1.1 and 2.0 was transparent to the average user.)
Right now most people think that USB 2.0 High Speed (the 480 Mbps version) is fast enough for even external hard drives. It isn’t in some cases, but in most cases it is for the average consumer. When drives get a bit faster (possibly brought about by the next generation utilizing perpendicular recording methods) this will no longer be true. I suspect within the next couple years the average consumer drives will have sustained read/write rates faster than 480 Mbps USB can handle.
Then the battle will be between Serial ATA (SATA) and Firewire. SATA has higher speed now: up through 3.0 Gbps. However, while SATA is great for hard drives (and maybe even flash drives) SATA was not designed for general pupose connections (like connecting your video camera to your computer).
Firewire had a chance with video interconnects. Sony even used it for a while but called it iLink rather than 1394 or Firewire. However, virtually all the cutting edge video systems today are focussed on HDMI rather than Firewire.
IMNSHO, what Apple needs to do is come out with 1.6 Gbps Firewire for the 6th generation iPod. I expect the top of the line next generation iPod will have a 80 or 100 GB hard drive in it. Filling that with USB (even at 480 Mbps) or Firewire 400 will take seemingly forever. (While 1.6 Gbps Firewire will take about 8 minutes, USB will take about a half hour or so.)
If the mythical video iPod (versus the iPod with video Apple ships now) ever shows up, both USB and Firewire 400 are going to be painful to use.
Just as a factual FYI, it wasn’t just Apple on firewire development. I designed Sony’s comdex 94 booth, which contained a functioning demo of a totally integrated home & media setup (amps, Tee Vee, home control, etc) that was connected and communicated through firewire.
Oh, and just as ancient tech, the display also had a functioning plasma screen that required its own room of gear and 20,000 BTU of cooling power: how things change.
Dave
So, I guess Apple hasn’t kept up, either, huh?
I mean, we “only” see FireWire 800 (or more commonly IEE 1394b) right now. Where’s the multi-gigabit version from Apple?
More importantly – where are the devices that would use it?
Oh, so where’s the Apple news in this?
Bill’s taking a repeated, redundant beating here.
What’s worse – not using a website for info before asking a question or piling on someone for not doing so?
Yoiks.