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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.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by TheGratefulNet on Thursday June 22 2017, @06:48PM (7 children)
I liked the cables and connectors. angled keyed connector that made it obvious which way to insert it; cable had a STRONG 2 wires for power, and shielded pairs for clock/data. I reused the cables and connectors to 'export' i2c from arduino systems, box to box (i2s is usually inside a box but with good cabling you can go outside the box for shortish runs).
there were some good firewire audio boxes on the market, too (high end dacs that came before UAC2 on usb audio).
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 5, Informative) by LoRdTAW on Thursday June 22 2017, @08:06PM (2 children)
There was an article I read a while back from one of the original 1394 engineers. One thing that he talked about was the design of the connector. The retention tabs were on the cable plug, not in the socket like USB. Whereas the USB team bungled the design and put the tabs in the USB socket housing. This means that over time as the tabs wear out, the socket couldn't properly retain a USB plug. Now that usb socket is mechanically damaged. Good luck replacing it. The 1394 plug has the tabs which means that if the plug wears and gets loose, you replace the cable, not the motherboard.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday June 23 2017, @05:30AM
Great! planned obsolescence. Go-buy-new.
It may simple be a intended "feature"..
(Score: 3, Informative) by mojo chan on Friday June 23 2017, @07:35AM
That's now how USB sockets work. The metal shield that provides retention is designed to be stronger than the cable, so that the cable is the part that wears out. In fact, with decades of data we have found that it's the plastic part that holds the contacts which tends to wear out with repeated use, not the metal housing and tabs.
USB-C fixes all of that. Apple went with a simpler design but with the flaw that the contacts are used to guide the cable in when being inserted, wearing them. USB-C has the robust metal housing for guiding and retention.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 2) by black6host on Friday June 23 2017, @01:38AM (1 child)
I still like it. My last two audio interfaces have been firewire and those have been on wintel boxes. Very low latency, great for recording. When my current one goes I don't know what I'm going to replace it with. One of the things I can do now is to intercept any audio and direct it to record on tracks in my DAW. Very handy when you want to record something that others don't want you to have a copy of. (Interface is a Saffire Pro 24, the USB version, to my knowledge, does not let you capture the audio stream.) I don't use the feature often but when needed it was quite handy.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday June 23 2017, @05:33AM
Build DIY ?
Perhaps there are ready to use chips? or just go the FPGA route otherwise.
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Friday June 23 2017, @07:38AM (1 child)
Power was one of the reasons that Firewire failed.
For a start it was variable voltage. If you were building a Firewire device you had to accept a variety of voltages, which added cost to your design, and regulate them to something useful. The USB version of any device was always going to be cheaper and "fast enough".
On the host end (the computer) you had to provide at least 12V with significant current, or you could just be cheap and provide no power but then half the Firewire devices wouldn't work... It was a mess.
The cables were more expensive for little gain too. The extra shielding was just additional cost that USB didn't need, because it uses a more robust signalling system.
And the security insanity of having an external DMA port on your computer...
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday June 23 2017, @04:12PM
USB uses single ended shielding for some out of band messaging.