IEEE has approved IEEE 1394, “Standard for High Performance Serial Bus.” The revised specification combines and incorporates all previous IEEE 1394 standards developed since 1994.
Commercially known under the brand names of FireWire and i.LINK, the IEEE 1394 standard provides specifications for a high-speed serial bus which supports both asynchronous and isochronous communication and integrates well with most IEEE standard 32-bit and 64-bit parallel buses. More than 500 million IEEE 1394 ports have been produced since the standard was first published in 1995.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple’s Macs with FireWire 400 ports that support IEEE 1394a can operate at up to 400 megabits per second and Macs that include FireWire 800 ports that support IEEE 1394b operate at up to 800 megabits per second.
“The new standard includes all of the amendments, enhancements and more than 100 errata which have been added to the base standard over the last 12 years,” said Les Baxter, chair of the working group which developed the standard, in the press release. “This update provides developers with a single document they can rely upon for all of their application needs.”
The 1394-2008 standard updates and revises all prior 1394 standards, including 1394a, 1394b, 1394c, enhanced UTP, and the 1394 beta plus PHY-Link interface. It also incorporates the complete specifications for S1600 (1.6 Gigabit/second bandwidth) and for S3200, which provides 3.2 Gigabit/second speeds.
The standard is expected to be available this October.
Source: IEEE Standards Association
Apple’s FireWire information is here.
[Attribution 9 to 5 Mac. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Judge Bork” for the heads up.]
now THAT’S snappy!!!
hmmm, will apple use this or stick with USelessB?
“will apple use this”
Will anyone use this? When even Apple started dumping Firewire from products, that was the indication it was all over for Firewire.
My new iMac came with both 400/800 so I don’t know WTF Obsolete is talking about.
Damnit Apple! When the iPod was firewire based it was awesome. My first rev iPod was unique and the speed at which it uploaded and downloaded music was much snappier than old stupid USB.
Good can we allow FireWire on the “iProducts” again? USB is crap and slow. My iPhone won’t even accept a FireWire connection.
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“Obsolete” is referring to the loss of the FireWire connector on iPods, which switched to USB because it was significantly cheaper and “good enough” for a portable device such as an iPod. All their Macs continue to have FireWire built-in.
Apple switched to USB for the iPods because they wanted the Windows users. Most PCs don’t have FireWire.
It dumped USB from iPods certainly. But that’s probably because the PC market in general still swears by USB. Considering how long it took Windows to get decent USB support and actually start putting USB into their computers (although many still are stuck with PS2 ports and such) who can blame them?
USB 3.0 is supposed to be faster than FireWire 3200.
“A Super-Speed (3.0) rate of 4.8 Gbit/s (600 MB/s). The USB 3.0 specification will be released by Intel and its partners in mid-2008, according to early reports from CNET news. According to Intel, bus speeds will be 10 times faster than USB 2.0 due to the inclusion of a fiber-optic link that works with traditional copper connectors. Products using the 3.0 specification are likely to arrive in 2009 or 2010.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus
Normally FireWire works better and faster since it is self contained, where as USB has to rely on the CPU for help, thus slowing performance.
The problem, at least from a marketing point of view (because I’m no expert on the technical merits of either), is that USB 3.0 will clock in at 4.8Gbps.
So it’ll be interesting to see if the manufacturers bother supporting FireWire.
Now all Apple have to do is change the name to something like FireWire Extreme…
amyhre,
Intel is really bad about this. They include all the old legacy crap, even on motherboards that are geared towards gaming.
It seems like only Apple has the balls to advance, no matter what the consequences.
It didn’t help that FireWire 400 and 800 have different connectors. That was the nice thing about USB; version 1.0 and 2.0 were compatible.
FireWire is such a tragedy. It’s a much better standard than USB (faster data rates, more power through the bus), but industry adoption never caught on much (probably because it’s an Apple-championed product).
@ obsolete:
You really have no idea what you are talking about, do you?
Apple dropped FW support for iPods, it’s true; but it did this only as it was trying to cross over to Windows users, whose computers only come standard with USB.
All Apple Desktops and Laptops still come with Firewire, with the one exception being the MBA.
As to the question ‘Will anyone use this” the answer is a resounding YES! All of us who do video work will. FW 800 was a godsend when it came, and this new spec is very exciting.
Firewire is superior to USB in every way, but Apple shot itself in the foot in 1999 when it tried charging others $1 for every Firewire port manufacturers put into their devices.
http://www.macobserver.com/news/99/may/990512/newfirewirelincensing.html
By the time they lowered it to $0.25 per device, it was too late–manufacturers had balked at the cost and started looking elsewhere, and USB2 R&D;got a massive boost, with the specs released in mid-2000.
One of Apple’s serious mis-steps after Jobs came back–it tried throwing its weight around long before they were in a position to do so. It would be some years before Apple had the clout to make titans like the recording industry and cell phone providers bow to Jobs’ demands.
Amen! I did a full backup using time machine last night on my new iMac (after migrating from my old one). Backed up 180GB in under an hour and a half using FW800!! I can’t imagine how long it would have taken using USB… (although I could probably just calculate it)
@ Sir Gill Bates
Intel is really bad about this. They include all the old legacy crap, even on motherboards that are geared towards gaming.
It seems like only Apple has the balls to advance, no matter what the consequences.
Apple dumping the floppy drive is another instance that comes to mind. They dumped the floppy drive with the iMac some 11 years ago. PCs kept them for years and years after. I forgot how many.
Apple only charged for the use of the FireWire name, which they own the rights to. They later dropped the charge to use the name to $0.00, Apple gave away the FireWire technology and is now being managed by the standards board called IEEE. Sony uses the same standard but they gave it their own name: iLink.
Obsolete Interfaces;
My brand new iMac has FW800.
You really ought to read up on the topic before embarrassing yourself.
Apple went USB on iPods/iPhone to support Windoze FeeCee losers.
How many FeeCees come with FireWire? Damn few.
The original iPod was essentially Mac only. To make it work with FeeCees, they had to go to USB
My trusted Pismo came with twin FireWire ports.
This MacBook has only one.
I used to have one external disk.
Now I have four.
One other reason Firewire isn’t as widespread is that it is useless to put these plugs on mice keyboards and a few other low power low speed divices that they want to make a cheep as possible. Firewire flash drives would be much appreciated though 😀 Especially as they are getting larger capacity.
I can’t wait till FW3200 becomes standard on my iTele. This will allow me to teleport at unheard of speeds.
Of course this probably means yet *another* new cable with a new shape end on it, I’ll bet.
@Brau
Nope its the same cable and connector just different controller.
Most camcorders use Firewire.
I Want My iTele,
Dude, you gotta lay off the Dust Off.
@smyhre
Just wondering how you know that? Is there another source? I couldn’t find any reference to cable specs in the press release.
amyhre,
And you know, most PC motherboards STILL have a FDD port. Pathetic.
“…most cameras use Firewire”
No, the new HD cameras use USB.
Too bad, this is why I’ll stick to movie camera that does Firewire 400…however, with the new HD cameras, one advantage of USB is the stick sticks into computer with flash card (up to 16 GB) and needs no wires at all.
1.6 Gbps and 3.2 Gbps have been part of the standard for quite a while. The issue has been that these, data rates as specified in the earlier variants of the standard, were only over fiber, not copper. This new iteration of the standard defines how to do 1.6 & 3.2 Gbps over copper. The benefit is that it defines the use of the same connector as was used for 800 Mbps. As has been mentioned already, one of the drawbacks to the adoption of 800 Mbps Firewire has been the switch to a different, more expensive connector than was used for 50 – 400 Mbps Firewire (and yes, Firewire started out at 50 Mbps back about 1990).
Being able to do backups to an external drive (which can then be taken off site to provide a REAL backup in case of a facility disaster) over a 3.2 Gbps link will be a significant enhancement.
The issue with Firewire’s competitor, USB, has been the processor overhead and the need for a single controller orchestrating everything. This adds overhead to the data stream and significantly lowers the effective information rate. Additionally you cannot just plug a camera into a TV with USB and expect it to work (no processor controlling everything), while you can with Firewire (assuming, of course, they both have Firewire connections!).
I’ve heard rumors that USB 3.0 at 4.8 Gbps will correct these issues (the greater overhead and the need for a central processor). *IF* USB 3.0 does correct these things that will be a great plus to USB. HOWEVER, I’ve also heard that USB 3.0 will require a new connector for any speeds beyond 480 Mbps. This may be a significant drawback to adoption (as was seen with Firewire needing a new connector for 800 Mbps).
Brau,
“Just wondering how you know that? Is there another source? I couldn’t find any reference to cable specs in the press release.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394_interface
“FireWire S1600 and S3200
In December 2007, the 1394 Trade Association announced that products will be available before the end of 2008 using the S1600 and S3200 modes which were already (mostly) defined in 1394b. The 1.6 Gbit/s and 3.2 Gbit/s devices will use the same 9-pin connectors as the existing FireWire 800 and will be fully compatible with existing S400 and S800 devices. The future products are intended to compete with the forthcoming USB 3.0.”
“All their Macs continue to have FireWire built-in.”
Firstly my comment wasn’t Mac specific, but looking at Apple’s overall strategy for Firewire. The low end Macs have stagnated at the 400Mbps version of the spec and the Air drops it. All consumer devices and phones have dropped it. So it’s not being enhanced in Mac hardware, the chances of seeing faster versions widely implemented by anyone are small. It’s slowly disappearing from Apple devices as a built in port. You can bet that trend will continue.
With camcorders migrating to USB and/or solid state memory, the last consumer use of firewire is going away. The disk market was the most recent other usage to fall, USB already rules the low end disk market, and esata the high end leaving no space for firewire which has neither the cost advantages of USB nor the performance of esata.
I can not for the life of me understand why Apple droped the “Firewire” for USB what ever… here’s hope’in some one come out with a PCI card with this new “Firewire” standard on it… cause if they do I’ll buy one for my Quicksilver and the hell with what Apple thinks!
I’m not one to differ from Apple all that much but on this one I do!
Another 2 types of Firewire plugs for a total of 4 different types?
The Firewire group should have picked two designs and stuck with them. One for desktop/stationary use and one for portable use (digicams, card readers, portable HDD).
If the FW800 plug was the same as the 400 plug, it would have become more accepted. Virtually no one outside of video/photography pros use FW800. FW1600/3200 may suffer the same fate.
—> Stick with one or two cable types!
MPC Guy,
The 400 and 800 are not interchangeable, but I believe the new speeds are supposed to be backward compatible. But, I wouldn’t bet money on it till they are released.
“I can not for the life of me understand why Apple droped the “Firewire” for USB”
Because the iPod primarily is a PC peripheral owned by PC owners. Therefore it needed USB to make it in the mainstream. Continuing firewire on the iPod just didn’t make any sense. As form factors shrank Steve probably chose a slightly smaller and cheaper to manufacturer iPods over having a second port that 97% of people would never use to sync it.
>Sir Gill Bates wrote: The 400 and 800 are not interchangeable
You’re just not pushing hard enough.
MPC Guy,
“You’re just not pushing hard enough.”
I’ve been told that before.
“I’ve been told that before.”
I’ll bet not to your face.
Ha Ha,
“I’ll bet not to your face.”
Actually, yes. Talk about ruining the moment.