Powermacs do have USB 2.0!?

[iJon]

well xlr8yourmac has some reporting from some guy or something that the usb chipsets on the powermacs do have usb 2.0 chipsets, i guess the os has just been made not to enable it. if this is all true that would be pretty cool.
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/

iJon

 

[Sun Baked]

Took you guys long enough to find it.

Hopefully it gets enabled via an OS upgrade.

Like I said in March, I hope this doesn't mean one more speedbump/upgrade to enable USB2 on the PowerMac motherboard.

Of course they left FW800 PHY on the DDR PowerMac implementations even though the chipset could handle FW800. And they did the same with the DDR iMac/PB 12.

NOTE: this is for the FW800 MDD PowerMac -- it's the only one that we know has a USB2 capable PCI to USB chip.

[Edit - the old G4 PowerMacs used the KeyLargo chip's USB ports]

 

[bbarnhart]

It could be the case that USB 2.0 chips are cheaper that USB 1.0 chips and Apple does not have plans to release a driver for USB 2.0.

 

[NavyIntel007]

I think I read somewhere that the Firewire800 chips are also USB2 capable. Maybe it's just the USB2 coming off that chip.

 

[patrick0brien]

-Gents

It seems a very shrewd thing to do to include the chipset for USB 2 even if they're only managing a USB 1.1 bus. Because If Apple sees erosion of any sales due to USB 2, all they have to do is "pull the trigger" on an update and bingo!

 

[xj9000]

USB 2.0 @ wwdc?

on of the seminars at wwdc is about USB

USB Update
Learn about the latest USB APIs, tools and debugging techniques. We'll show you how to get maximum performance from the IOUSBFamily, and how to make your drivers work across the widest range of Mac OS X releases.

http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/descriptions.html

 

[iJon]

Re: USB 2.0 @ wwdc?

Originally posted by xj9000
on of the seminars at wwdc is about USB

USB Update
Learn about the latest USB APIs, tools and debugging techniques. We'll show you how to get maximum performance from the IOUSBFamily, and how to make your drivers work across the widest range of Mac OS X releases.

http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/descriptions.html

very interesting, thanks for the heads up.

iJon

 

[hvfsl]

Lots of companies artifically make their hardware go slower so it does not compete with other products in their range. ATI used to do the same with the Radeon 9500, it was a lot slower than the pro version, but with a crack, it could easily be brought up to the same speed. I am not talking about over clocking, but enabling features than have been disabled.

 

[sparkleytone]

anyone out there have a USB2 peripheral that is willing to try the drivers for the chipset??

 

[G4scott]

Is this only on the new PowerMacs, or is it on other computers too, such as the first gen MDD Powermacs, and the new PowerBooks. I'd be interested to know...

 

[iJon]

Originally posted by G4scott
Is this only on the new PowerMacs, or is it on other computers too, such as the first gen MDD Powermacs, and the new PowerBooks. I'd be interested to know...

well they said dual 1.25 and dual 1.42, so that would make them mdd rev b.

iJon

 

[Sun Baked]

Have to look here for some of the tech specs...

Originally posted by G4scott
Is this only on the new PowerMacs, or is it on other computers too, such as the first gen MDD Powermacs, and the new PowerBooks. I'd be interested to know...

The OLD MDD PowerMac was using KeyLargo, as does the old XServe, eMac, and TiBook 15.

Sept '02 MDD PowerMac

The PCI to USB controller is only on the new FW800 PowerMac...

'03 FW800 MDD PowerMac

...you can also see the new FW800 PHY, the moved Airport (to PCI from IDE), and Bluetooth (USB).

However the new DDR iMac, PB 12, and PB 17 use the USB on the Intrepid controller...

DDR PowerBook 17

... but the tech specs on the Intrepid controller say nothing about USB2.

Note ALL Macs -- http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/hardware/hardware2.html

 

[evoluzione]

"I've said it before, and I'll say it again..." Apple can make use of USB2 now that FW800 is out, before then, they would have been silly to do so as USB2 is a direct competitor to FW400.

Also, I believe it was OrangeMicro who released a USB2 pci card a couple of years back, and you could only use it with OS X, therefore, it should work on these new motherboards right? maybe the drivers are out there? or easy enough to write perhaps. (I wouldn't know, I have the first idea about writing sw)