A friend of mine showed me his Windows PC the other day. It had a port on the front with the FireWire logo, but it was a lot smaller than the one on my Mac. Is this a mini-FireWire or something?
Nermal said:A friend of mine showed me his Windows PC the other day. It had a port on the front with the FireWire logo, but it was a lot smaller than the one on my Mac. Is this a mini-FireWire or something?
wide said:No, it's just a different form of a firewire port. Same transfer speed, but a less efficient design--hardly anyone uses the smaller version.
Nermal said:Ah, OK, it's a dumb version of FireWire then
JFreak said:it'd be better to have a 6pin connector in the computer side and use a 6pin-4pin cable to connect the cam.
brap said:Actually, I find that 90% of PC cases, and PC laptops ship with 4-pin FW. It's damn annoying, I can't upgrade my shuttle without losing the 6-pin connection, and both my partner's, and parent's laptops ship solely with the 4-pin derivative.
It just ain't cricket, seriously.
LethalWolfe said:It's not dumb because not all devices can be powered by FW. So why make everything use the much larger 6-pin plug if two of the 6 pins are not needed?
Example, FW cannot power a MiniDV camera so why waste precious space (both internally and externally) w/the big 6-pin plug when the much smaller 4-pin plug will perform the same task?
Lethal
übergeek said:apple doesnt have ANYTHING to do with the IEEE 1394 standard, except maybe the name "FireWire".
ibookin' said:Since when? Apple engineers developed the standard in the mid-80s and submitted it to the IEEE in 1995. Its original name was actually FireWire.
Blackheart said:Having a 6-pin allows you to use things that are BOTH powered and unpowered. It's more convenient than having only a 4-pin and not having any choice in the topic. I don't quite understand why PC laptop makers choose to have the 4-pin (maybe something with licensing Apple's 1394 ? I have no idea), it isn't that much smaller, and has less ability. As to it being smaller...why is it that Apple laptops are able to fit the large one easily, yet the PC laptops (which are generally larger) can't seem to "fit" it in?
LethalWolfe said:Having 4-pin on the computer is crappy, IMO. But there are plenty of reasons to have 4-pin on devices that cannot be powered by FW.
Lethal
Blackheart said:Right, I can understand why they would have 4-pin on the device (because of the size constraints) but why not make the connection to the computer, universally 6-pin. It would make the laptops, sporting the 6-pin, more versatile by being able to use the 4-pin and take advantage of the power-fed 6-pin.
übergeek said:aw crap.
/me sighs
does apple still charge the $1 per port thing?
Apple did charge companies to use the name FireWire. Thats why everyone came up with their own name (sony=iLink, Dell=FireWave), but Apple managed to get it into their thick brain that charging companies to use the name is a bad idea!übergeek said:aw crap.
/me sighs
does apple still charge the $1 per port thing?