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posted by CoolHand on Thursday June 22 2017, @06:37PM   Printer-friendly
from the collaboration-what-collaboration? dept.

The rise and fall of FireWire—IEEE 1394, an interface standard boasting high-speed communications and isochronous real-time data transfer—is one of the most tragic tales in the history of computer technology. The standard was forged in the fires of collaboration. A joint effort from several competitors including Apple, IBM, and Sony, it was a triumph of design for the greater good. FireWire represented a unified standard across the whole industry, one serial bus to rule them all. Realized to the fullest, FireWire could replace SCSI and the unwieldy mess of ports and cables at the back of a desktop computer.

Yet FireWire's principal creator, Apple, nearly killed it before it could appear in a single device. And eventually the Cupertino company effectively did kill FireWire, just as it seemed poised to dominate the industry.

The story of how FireWire came to market and ultimately fell out of favor serves today as a fine reminder that no technology, however promising, well-engineered, or well-liked, is immune to inter- and intra-company politics or to our reluctance to step outside our comfort zone.


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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 22 2017, @08:33PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 22 2017, @08:33PM (#529654)

    Steve Jobs was at Apple's helm at the time. Assholes will be assholes.

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  • (Score: 2) by meustrus on Thursday June 22 2017, @09:29PM (3 children)

    by meustrus (4961) on Thursday June 22 2017, @09:29PM (#529671)

    Actually, no. From 1985 to 1997, Jobs was kicked out of the company and it was run by more typical corporate CEOs [wikipedia.org]. Those are the guys that didn't want to take risks on innovation and couldn't decide what direction to take the company.

    Not that Jobs gets a free pass for screwing up FireWire licensing. But by that point it had already failed to become a standard.

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 23 2017, @04:48AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 23 2017, @04:48AM (#529837)

      I think on the apple side it was G3 or G4 era that they started including it. And except for apple, only Firewire 400 caught on (My 2009 era system has Firewire 400 on it. 800 never made it into the PC space, except as discreet cards AFAIK.)

      Having said that, you could safely use firewire for networking, *OR* peripheral devices, but using the same port for both was just asking for trouble. And most firewire devices had a HUGE warning about corruption if you tried to access them from multiple systems simultaneously (since most/all didn't have a method of locking access to the currently in use device.)

      • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday June 23 2017, @08:27AM (1 child)

        by TheRaven (270) on Friday June 23 2017, @08:27AM (#529901) Journal

        Having said that, you could safely use firewire for networking, *OR* peripheral devices, but using the same port for both was just asking for trouble.

        Really? I had a little chain of two external disks using FireWire 800 and connected a Mac at each end. The disks were both mounted on one of the machines and the two used IP over FireWire for networking. I never saw problems with this config and I ran it for several months.

        And most firewire devices had a HUGE warning about corruption if you tried to access them from multiple systems simultaneously (since most/all didn't have a method of locking access to the currently in use device.)

        Well, yes. Most filesystems are not designed for concurrent access by multiple systems. Don't do that.

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        • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday June 23 2017, @04:19PM

          by kaszz (4211) on Friday June 23 2017, @04:19PM (#530065) Journal

          Adding to the insult.. SCSI had this multiple computers one disc feature too. And people could handle it. Nanny computers sucks.