Firewire wanna be

[GSMiller]

Using it, a person could plug a handheld or digital camera straight into a printer to produce a photo. PDAs also could swap documents directly or back up data by connecting directly to a portable hard drive. The technology is also expected to be used in cell phones and MP3 players.

Can't we already do all of that, but in different ways? Printers come with memory card slots, so you can print pictures without a computer and can't PDAs swap documents via Bluetooth? The same goes for cell phones, although I do not know of any MP3 players that can/will sync through Bluetooth.

 

[LethalWolfe]

What's next -- a debate about the Ford Model T being a better car than the Model A?

Trying citing something regarding Firewire "problems" from this century if you want a meaningful debate.

We had a spree of 3 or 4 Mac towers getting their FW400 ports friend by hot plugging decks about 8 months ago. We hot plug all the time so I can only assume a rented deck w/a fouled port, or a bad cable, made the rounds and caused all the damage. Hot plugging can definitely fry a port w/o warning. That's why I always plug into a FW hub or the back of my cinema display. The last thing I want to do is fry the ports on my mobo and have to send the whole machine away to get fixed.

A problem FW has, from what I've read, is that there are varying degrees of adherence to the FW specs so if you plug a 'janky' FW device into a chain of devices it can cause havoc for everything. I'd still rather have a port-powered FW HDD than one of those lame-@ss USB 2 HDDs that take up two USB ports to be powered. Compete PITA.


Lethal

 

[ezekielvictor]

What's next -- a debate about the Ford Model T being a better car than the Model A?

Trying citing something regarding Firewire "problems" from this century if you want a meaningful debate.

You completely missed my point that when FireWire was invented these problems existed, and the fact of the matter is the problems still exist and are as ever present today after 13 years of FireWire's life. That's unacceptable for technology.

So would you like for Apple to drop the Ethernet port on its computers and eliminate that "redundant" port? After all you could just plug in a USB ethernet adapter if you needed to use "old fashioned" wired networking....

Who said anything was redundant? Whom are you quoting? You're completely and repeatedly missing the point. Ethernet and USB are two technologies which are complete by modern standards: They are user-friendly, reliable, and predictable. FireWire is not. That's the point. It's frustrating, and I'm not sure I can spell out the details in simpler terms.

 

[BittenApple]

So would you like for Apple to drop the Ethernet port on its computers and eliminate that "redundant" port? After all you could just plug in a USB ethernet adapter if you needed to use "old fashioned" wired networking....

You're getting a tad defensive there; my point was that in my experiences the firewire bus has been prone to failure more than the usb bus. I prefer firewire, im just simply stating my experiences. -.-