macOS Tahoe Beta Drops FireWire Support

[grrrz]

You can install a PCIe firewire card in a Apple Silicon Mac Pro.

Or in a thunderbolt enclosure, anyway fw adapter uses pcie, not usb, as fw can't work through usb

 

[grrrz]

Honestly I don’t believe Apple silicon even had sections that recognise FireWire or had channels reserved for such a legacy port. But besides that, unless the adaptor translates signal in a way that Mac would see the device as a USB one, then it should be ok. Otherwise, if macOS is still needed to recognise that device as a “FireWire” device, things can get tricky. Think of it as VGA to HDMI adapter: analog signal translated to digital one.

With all that being said, I’m just brainstorming and I’m not well versed into this field. So I’m happy to be corrected if what I think is totally wrong and void of reality.

No, firewire needs a specific system driver to work, and it can't go through usb. It's a thunderbolt device (so pcie basically). This driver has been present forever until sequoia. There's a firewire tab in the system report dedicated to it.

 

[grrrz]

FireWire-to-USB cables are available and work well, from own experience with older music equipment.

Again, no, that's not a thing, read my previous comments.

 

[grrrz]

Help an ignorant person to understand. I'm assuming you access those firewire devices via a thunderbolt or usb adapter? When doing so, does the Mac rely on firewire drivers or strictly the thunderbolt or usb drivers?

It relies on a firewire driver. Like when you plug a pcie card in your pc with a fw port it will have a generic driver for it. There's no usb involved and there can never be, it's like wanting a pcie card over usb.

 

[grrrz]

Don't upgrade then. You've got like 2-3 years from today to sort out your migration plan.

'Migration plan' lol, yeah it's just dumping 1000 bucks in new hardware for nothing

 

[grrrz]

If you're fine with producing audio with a pretty old firewire device, you can probably also do perfectly fine with an OS and a Mac that's older than 2025.
If anybody had firewire devices AND bought a Mac recently to use them and can't upgrade the OS, that's kinda bad but I don't think it's a very common scenario. Most times I see people with a lot of old audio gear, they also have a G5 PowerMac or something similar because they never felt the need to upgrade.

That's incredibly stupid. We need decently fast computers to work but it has nothing to do with the functionality of a sound interface which provides inputs and outputs whether it's from 2006 or 2025.

 

[grrrz]

Even modern best in class interfaces ($2000+) use USB 2.0, as the bandwidth is more than what is necessary even for 24/768kHz audio, which is FAR more than most studios are using.

This whole thing would make me think twice about buying any piece of equipment that uses Thunderbolt, though. Same thing, would be so easy for someone to simply disable support many years down the line. USB isn’t going anywhere though.

Exactly. Thunderbolt already went through a complete overhaul when going from 2 to 3.

 

[grrrz]

So I’m also working, how difficult would it be for someone to write third party drivers for FireWire? Let’s say, someone made a DV importer app that contains a driver specifically for the FireWire to Thunderbolt adapter rather than relying on native FireWire support.

The driver exist, it's a kext file, the question is how would you plug it back to the system and given apple security policy it seems like quite a nightmare to achieve.

 

[840quadra]

As a collector, using a new Mac for my old iPods usually is more problematic than it is good so just something I avoid.

FireWire devices, I only use on a Mac that has it natively, so the newest device I connect my 3rd gen iPod to is my 2008 Unibody MacBook Pro, or, my Mac Pro 5,1. Nothing newer with adapters as Apple Music seems to hate old iPods.

 

[grrrz]

I kept my MOTU 828mkII FW audio interface around long past the time I pulled it out of my rack. It made a great test unit and I was able to help a number of people with installation issues etc.

Once I verified that FW was gone for good in Tahoe, I sold it on eBay with the clear caveat that Sequoia was the end of the line for that beast and the various issues facing Windows users (best with Texas Instruments FW card etc.). It sold faster than I expected for more than my opening price.

Can't it work as a standalone adat interface?

 

[cicalinarrot]

That's incredibly stupid. We need decently fast computers to work but it has nothing to do with the functionality of a sound interface which provides inputs and outputs whether it's from 2006 or 2025.

I'll skeep why I think you're very wrong and couldn't properly read and understand my point and get to the most important part: you're a very rude person.
I don't think you call what people say "incredibly stupid" in real life. I hope you'd feel very ashamed to do that and/or you'd fear consequences.
Go to your room and feel ashamed of the horrible person you are for a couple hours, please.

 

[FoxyKaye]

The kext that make firewire work had literally one update in ten years, it's been the same. It cost them nothing to maintain.

I am a bit hesitant to re-engage with this thread, because, WOW, there has been some flame wars while I haven't been watching. But I do want to ask: Is there no way this could be turned into an Open Source project, similar to what has been done with OpenCore Legacy Patcher, or potentially even through this existing tool?