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FireWire For Windows XP, But No USB 2.0
Lizard_King writes: "In this ZDNet story, Microsoft has announced that they will support Apple's Firewire technology in Windows XP and not USB 2.0. Looks like USB 2.0 hardware manufacturers will have to supply their own drivers for the initial release of XP." I sure hope this isn't a death knell for USB 2.0, but the argument that there just aren't that many USB devices seems valid, if circular. (And Firewire is good stuff.)
AFAIK firewire is an open standard, that's why is called sometimes IEEE1394.
A firewire keyboard would be just as inane as an Ultra SCSI Doublewide 56k modem.
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How does this play for the USB/FireWire debate? USB is a PC spec. It's existence was mid-wifed by Intel, and its adoption made possible mainly by Intel shipping chipsets and motherboards with USB built-in. USB has been a central part of the 3 successive "legacy free" PC specs that Intel sponsored. Intel does not have, nor do they plan to ever offer the same integration for FireWire/IEEE1394. Why is this? Because USB is a "dumb" bus. It needs a PC (or a Mac, or a PlayStation) functioning as a "root hub" to manage the device I/O. FireWire is a "smart" bus, which has devices that operate as peers, including PCs.
Because of this, a FireWire Camcorder can dump an MPEG file, over a simple cable, straight onto a FireWire hard-disk - no PC in the middle! No fun for Intel, who would love to sell more CPUs in the middle. They'll only support FireWire if forced to by the market. Also, Apple charges a dollar-per-port licensing fee to FireWire manufacturers. I don't see Intel volunteering $2 to Apple on every motherboard they make, not when they can produce a competitive specification, which also reinforces their own market.
MS loved the idea of breaking away from Intel, almost as much as Intel relishes the idea of shedding MS. MS has plenty of specs for embedded and set top machines based on WinCE - using Hitachi, ARM and MIPS processors. Talk of Embedded NT almost never occurs here. If MS supports FireWire instead of USB, they can make plays with Sony and Panasonic and Phillips for getting CE into camcorders, DVD players, and even Microwave ovens... The Camera/DVD world is already FireWire (called iLink in this space).
That techno-fantasy world that everyone is envisioning- the one with intelligent cell-phones and PDA's on the Internet, interacting as meta-computer- MS wants to own this space. They want this world to be created as .NET, with MS software running on the endpoints. They
don't need Intel for this vision as much as they need the Sony's and Nokia's. Picking FireWire over USB is one of a number of small, defining positions they are taking here.
Bluetooth is stillborn after 2 years in the making. Vendors were unable to demonstrate the simplest interoperability at last month's CeBit show in Europe. MS will go for 802.11 (which is already entering its 3rd iteration) and possibly support the nascent Wireless IEEE1394.
I had gut feelings about USB/FireWire at the beginning of the year, and started buying FireWire devices and interfaces, not USB. We'll see how this ends up playing out, but I am happily using FireWire as my backup transport, and am using FireWire dongles attached to SCSI devices with 3 different OS's. I have very little of the driver issues that USB put me through, with non-compliant mass-storage devices, etc.
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As far as I'm concerned they can provide support, or no support, for isa, pci, vme, usb, 1394, sbus, qbus, xbus, nubus, scsi, or the fucking school bus. What Microsoft and the peecee makers do has no impact on my life. The isolation is lovely, I'd encourage all of you to try it some time. Life is short - use a workstation.
"If it had been Apple's, then you know it would've done better. Sure, Intel has a vested interest in promoting USB, and sure, Intel is a pretty big company. But as big as Apple? Not by a long shot."
Intel is much, much bigger than Apple is. Intel's marketcap is 185.81 billion USD while Apple's is 7.7 billion USD as of 7.52 am PDT today.
I agree though that Firewire is much better than USB 2.0. As for those that wonder why Firewire isn't on more motherboards...well...thank Intel for that.
There are Epson scanners and printers that have Firewire, as well as some Canons and Agfas...but the Firewire for Printers and Scanners are only on the high end machines.
Now I like USB for keyboards and mice and PDAs, but bo does it suck compared to Firewire for things like CD burners.
USB 2.0 just seemed like a half-assed attempt to overthrow Firewire using Intel's might.
I think (FWIW) USB 2 will do just as well, or better, than USB 1.1, for the same reason USB 1 beat out FireWire originally (cheaper, easier, and industry supported). If you build USB 2 devices they will come, Windows XP support in place or not, never stopped anyone before.
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
MS does not _currently_ support USB 2, mainly because, wait for it, it's not ready yet! That's right, (to the best of my knowledge) USB 2 spec is not finalized yet. Which means building USB 2 devices is pointless right now, as is writing low level code to support them. Rest assured, USB 2 support will be ready when the spec is ready, and I'm betting MS has code in development right now just waiting for final tweaks and testing.
Saying we don't support USB 2 right now because it's not ready is not nearly the same thing as saying we will never do USB 2 because we think FireWire is just oh so wonderful, like most posts here would have you believe.
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
You've posted this troll twice already, but you don't seem to understand. It's not about USB. It's about USB 2.0, which was Intel's "firewire killer" with faster bandwidth than present (but probably not 6 months from now) firewire, with the penalty (compared to firewire) of having much higher processor loading per data transfer. Intel's in the processor business; they need your peripherals to be using as much of your processor as possible while transferring data, so you'll have a reason to buy a faster one.
(currently testing something about signatures here)
I think it's pretty clear that he means there are not many USB 2.0 devices. Everybody knows there are piles of USB 1.0 devices.
iMacs these days are based around USB 1 and Firewire (although I believe the cheapest model lacks Firewire). It's quite a nice paradigm: both interfaces are very simple to use, USB provides enough speed for keyboards/mice/scanners etc, and Firewire is great for DV cameras, and even does a creditable job of running external hard drives, CD burners and so on. This means that Joe Consumer can use a practically unlimited range of devices without ever getting involved in jumper switches, terminators, or sacrificing young goats to the SCSI gods. The maximum level of competence required is being able to distinguish between a long flat connector (USB) and a small square connector (Firewire).
:-)
That's interesting, because for me moving to Windows 2000 eliminated a lot of the things which annoy the hell out of me with NT 4.
One of the things that annoys me in NT4 is how apps can grab focus from me when I'm trying to do something else. Win2k prevents this, if an app wants attention the icon blinks down on the start bar.
That's not the only thing, there are a number of other improvements that just make the whole environment smoother.
I'm not sure about Win XP. I haven't tried the beta. What I see of the user interface it looks much improved.
The anti-piracy system annoys me. But I also can subvert it by making a copy of the CD at work which won't have that system on it.
I think the consumers will very likely revolt against the new system. We'll see.
You mean like preemptive multitasking?
Oh wait, Apple just released that last weekend.
You mean that Apple was shitting product using Microsoft Xenix!?
:)
Ok, about that protected memory. Did Apple release that last weekend as well?
Linux already supports Firewire (IEEE 1394):
http://linux1394.sourceforge.net/
If you can remember Windows 95, this had an awesomely buggy USB stack causing misery for everyone involved. It was improved in 95 Release 2, then in 98, again in 98 SE and there is a different stack in Windows 2000. Different USB devices react differently across those different operating systems causing support nightmares.
Since there are no volume USB 2 peripherals out there yet this is no loss to anyone. USB 2 is backward compatible with all the USB 1.1 peripehrals out there, so it will not stop Intel getting USB 2 on to motherboards. Maybe by the end of the year or the beginning of next year there will be support for USB 2 in the OS and then we will see the peripherals in volume.
In the meanwhile, I shall be using Firewire hard drives and USB for lower bandwidth applications.
yet they are paying you to read slashdot? ;)
Why is it that every windows troll blames every single crash on "bad drivers". Why can't you just admit that windows is buggy? Never mind that it took 3 service packs just to make NT4 semi-stable. Never mind that the entire windows 95 line is just a big hack. It's always the drivers' fault.
Though I'm sure drivers are _sometimes_ responsible, it is by far not always the case. For the record, I own an ATI card. Windows crashes daily, Linux doesn't.
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USB 2.0 will deliver throughput of up to 480 megabits per second vs. FireWire's 400mbps or 12mbps for USB 1.1. That's up to 40 times faster than USB 1.1. This is really misleading, due to either A) the first version of USB 2.0, which isn't even done yet is only supposed to do 120 Mbps. or B) The firewire standard is supposed to be able to do 1600 Mbps in future hardware, although we have been promised that for quite some time. I wish the writer of that article had compared either initial versions, or expected versions, not one of each.
firewire also has a clear upgrade path to 1600 Mbps
These are 2 different busses with 2 different uses. First of all firewire doesn't require the cpu to do its work (why do you think intel hates it.) Firewire chips are just as cheap as USB chips. If not cheaper because they will be in all consumer electronic devices, not just computers and accessories. USB 1.1 had a place, USB 2.0 is no more useful than USB 1.1. Are you kidding about show me a desktop that can deal with 1600 Mb/s? we are talking about the future here, but either way my desktop has no problem reading that sorts of speed from an untra wide scsi drive, so why would any other device be any different? USB will have a problem with higher speeds because it is very processor intensive. maybe you only connect keyboards and mice to your machine.
however USB's bus sharing is terrible. So if you have 2 devices, a 1.1 and 2.0 the 2.0 device will only get half of the available 480 Mb/s.
What Are you? An idiot! Yes Apple, sony, and others get paid for people to license the use of Firewire (A whole $.25 that would be 2 bits, or a quarter per device). Intel gets paid to use USB. Inventors of technology deserve to get paid to develop new technology.
It does make you wonder.
And when will Linux get FireWire, I know Solaris his it.
I'm still holding out for my ATA100 5.25" floppy drive.
Have any USB 2 devices been introduced yet? USB 2 add-on cards for current PCs? I'd say that until it's clear that the drivers won't run into the same interoperabilitry nonsense Bluetooth has right now, this is a safe and sensible decision.
Meanwhile, IEEE-1394/Firewire/iLink works just fine, is scheduled to get a speed boost of its own soon, and is already a well-established standard for all sorts of scanners, storage devices.
The whole brouhaha over the per-device royalty Apple and the other partners demanded is a lousy argument for USB 2.0; It simply offers vendors a choice between paying an extra buck to Apple or paying an extra buck to Intel.
t.
First off, it's not "built-in." The copy-control you are talking about is the DTCP (Digital Tranmission Content Protection) and was created by a consortium of five companies, Intel, Sony, Matsushita, Hitachi and Toshiba. Notice how Apple's not there (sidenote: Apple voted AGAINST the CRMP ATA spec while Intel voted for it).
A company (for example, DVD-CCA) could create a way to transmit digital data over fireware while having it protected. There is nothing stopping anybody from doing the same thing with USB. It's all encryption and proprietary drivers.
On a positive note, it will only be through a technology such as this that will EVER allow us to have firewire-enabled DVD players. The most important thing is to get the stupid port on it. We can hack it later. The MPAA has said 'NO' to DVDs with digital outputs. It will be a sad, sad day if DVDs come with USB2.0 over FireWire.
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That's not what I meant.
I think the reason why Microsoft will support IEEE-1394 connections in Windows XP out of the box is the fact that IEEE-1394 connections has finally found some widespread use, notably in the field of connections to Mini DV format camcorders and high-resolution scanners. Also, we're starting to see high-speed CD-RW external drives connected through IEEE-1394 bus, which allows the CD-RW drive to run at full speed (e.g., at least 12X recording speed).
I think Microsoft may make USB 2.0 support available late this year, either by redirecting to a motherboard chipset software download site from either Intel, VIA Technologies or Acer Labs, or will provide the updated support through the Windows Update page.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
I think it is probably wise that they are waiting for it to shake out, as there will are currently disagreements as to what the specification means in some places. It is probably better to have vendor-supplied support that works with the devices that are important to you, instead of a half-baked implementation that is stuck in the OS and works with nothing.
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Ooops -- meant to say "true", as in Firewire has copyprotection.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
His claim is false -- copy protection was added to 1394 as part of the HDTV politicing.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/990528-000013.html and check google.
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Windows 2000 and ME do in fact already have some support for Firewire. I think XP just adds built-in drivers for some more host controllers.
Which is why this is kinda non-news. "PCI for Windows XP, but no Infiniband!"
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OK that was a crappy link:
m l indicates it's being added to the protocol spec.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/17845.ht
I also believe that the FCC's DTV committee has approved something like this, and Sony is apparently intent at getting 1394 standardized as the digital TV/theater connector of the future.
Considering that Apple is talking about being "the digital hub", they will pretty much have to support the copy-control mechinisms, or your iMac-DV won't be able to talk to your new Sony TV.
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And how many printers or scanners or graphics tables support firewire?
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Great, now tell me what applications can actually use that much bandwidth. For that matter, show me a desktop computer that can process that much raw data. Also, for the low speed components like mice and keyboards, will the cost of FireWire interface circuitry ever be as cheap as USB 1.1 circuitry?
The biggest advantage I can see for FireWire is it's use of P2P verses S/M interfacing. Devices like PDAs and non-computer connected devices such as A/V equipment have a clear use for FireWire. I just don't know if that will be enough to overcome the momentum USB is likely to have on the desktop.
World Beach List, my latest project.
There is 3rd party silicon for USB 1.1 and I don't see any reason why this would change with 2.0. You will probably see USB 2.0 on Intel silicon first, but I'm sure we'll see it from other's soon. As an example, a few weeks ago I bought a 2-port USB 1.1 PCI card for $20. It was some no-name clone card company. Certainly not Intel silicon here.
World Beach List, my latest project.
Ah, this is the kind of logic I like to hear. If the price is competitive with USB, the motherboard manufacturers will be more likely to include it.
This is a very good argument. If USB 2.0 bogs the machine down at 480Mbps, there will be more reason to look towards FireWire for high-speed components.
I would love to see both interfaces on motherboards. My original statement was that the motherboard manufacturers are more than likely only going to include one. USB is more entrenched which makes it more likely to be the one to win out. If a strong merit is shown why both should be present, then our odds of seeing both are that much higher.
World Beach List, my latest project.
First, learn a little more about USB 2.0 here:
I really feel that USB 2.0 will be the dominant player in a few years. This won't be because of technical superiority as much as entrenchment and having a clear upgrade path.
As long as the cost of USB 2.0 PC interfaces comes down to close to that of USB 1.1, there will be no reason for motherboard manufacturers to not put the interface out there. The 2.0 ports can still talk to 1.1 hubs and peripherals, so in the beginning the end user will not see a difference.
Once enough machines are out there with USB 2.0 interfaces you will see some peripheral manufacturers start to migrate over as well. People will always have a mix of 1.1 and 2.0 components being that they will coexist on the system using the same string of cables. However, in time, 2.0 ports will be the only thing you find on new PC motherboards.
Now, think in terms of a motherboard manufacturer. This is a commodity market and cutting costs is essential. These motherboards already support USB 1.1. They know they will be replacing the 1.1 ports with 2.0 ports. These manufacturers are going to ask themselves, "why should I put two incompatable high speed interfaces on the board?" To take it to a further extreme, in a few years I expect to see many motherboards coming out without old fashioned serial and parallel ports. Even the keyboard and mouse ports could be endangered if the cost of the USB keyboard and mice come down.
Firewire is likely to be out there for a long time to come. It will probably dominate the A/V world being that USB was never targeted to that market. However, except in high-end situtations, I don't think we will ever see a lot of motherboards including direct FireWire support. It will remain an add-in card for most people.
Microsoft will eventually support USB 2.0. They are just going to wait until real hardware shows up. This is the same scenario they are taking with Bluetooth support. Intel or other hardware manufacturers will release add-on software for Windows to handle USB 2.0 until Microsoft integrates it into the OS. It has been done before and it will be done again.
World Beach List, my latest project.
Looks like those NBCi bastards TOS'd the guy.
I just pray that I have the flash bit in my cache at home...it was truly godlike.
C-X C-S
Glad I'm not the only one that sees it that way.
C-X C-S
Chalk up one more neat idea that Apple had 10 years before MS thought to copy it. Like the bunny says, good things come to those who wait.
Apple's been selling OS X Server for quite a while. (Is it one year or two?) IIRC, the Apple Lisa had preemptive multitasking in 1982. Both Apple and Microsoft sold versions of Unix (A/UX and Xenix, respectively) in the late '80s. Apple was well known to be developing a preemptive multitasking system from about 1989 onward, and we all know how well that worked out. Pink became Taligent, which went bust. (Rumor has it, Pink was actually in pretty good shape before IBM fscked it all up.) Then came Copland, which was good enough to release as a developer beta before it was deep-sixed for reasons I don't understand. Only after they barfed on all of these did they buy NeXT and start all over again.
But of course, all this is beside the point. You know as well as I do that preemptive multitasking is totally overrated. It's worth 100 times as much as a checkbox feature than as a practical device. Here's a perfect case in point: My MacOS 7, 8, or 9 machine has a much more responsive interface on a 75-MHz machine than Gnome on a 500-MHz Linux box. I am not making this up. Cooperative multitasking can work very well. On the Mac, it almost always does. Multithreaded, even. Another case in point: a batch process started up on my UltraSPARC today that rendered the box unusable by me until it completed. Preemptive multitasking is obviously not a panacea. Why don't you pick a useful feature, like protected memory.
I think that this is missing the point, though. Unless you plan on running Windows XP on your iMac, you should be more than safe. I have no doubt that USB will continue to be supported, though not necessarily embraced by Apple's future OS releases...
Viva la OS X!
Jethro
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
Now I *know* they are out to get us. It is a conspiracy to make you buy new hardware. The *day* after I bought my first USB keyboard, this story comes out... Consider:
- AT to ATX (Legit upgrade, no consipracy there)
- Socket to Slot back to Socket (definitely a conspiracy)
- USB to Firewire (then back to USB after 2.0)
Grrr...
Must upgrade... Must upgrade...
Maybe I am just insane...
Also, on a related note, did anyone else notice the GREAT USB support of Linux? RH setup detects my Microsoft optical mouse during setup, and Windows ME doesn't... Now *that* is weird...
Jethro
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
The complete opposite of the truth. The Firewire group voted against putting the copy control into the specs.
i think i remember reading that even though 2.0 is backwards-compatible, it'll slow down to v1.x speeds if a v1.x device is plugged in. so plug in your keyboard into the same controller, and your hard drive slows to a crawl, etc. anybody know if this is true? how about for 800 and 1600 Mbit firewire?
Just raise the taxes on crack.
MS is clearly using its power as a monopoly to force some technology out of the market. First bluetooth and now USB 2.0. MS is very much aware that their support can make or break these technologies.
How much more proof do we need?
Jilles
Actually, iMacs all have Firewire now too. And other Apple machines have been shipping with Firewire on board for years, as have some PCs from Sony and Compaq. There's quite a bit of Firewire stuff out there already, and absolutely no USB 2.0 stuff.
Original USB has it's place; a Firewire keyboard or mouse is clearly absurd. But you've got to understand USB 2.0. It's an inferior standard cooked up by Intel because Firewire's peer-to-peer design makes Intel nervous; it means you'll be able to hook lots of 'smart' devices together without a computer. Intel clearly doesn't like that idea.
Because USB 2.0 isn't peer-to-peer, it's next to useless in the consumer electronics industry. That means that even if computers start showing up with USB 2.0, they'll still need Firewire to talk to all your other devices. And because USB 2.0 chipsets will never be made in anywhere near the same volume as Firewire chipsets (which will eventually be in every camcorder, TV, DVD player, stereo, etc.), it will probably cost more.
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Like every new chipset enhancement, Intel always made the drivers. USB2 will be the same. They will just release them when XP gold comes out, like they have when all the other windows flavors came out, abiet a little later.
Just being pedantic.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Good point. I had forgotten about that. I wonder if the Slashdot editors knew that or not.
Otherwise, this article could qualify as a troll to stir up USB 2.0/Firewire zealots, like myself. <g>
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Oh, really. I've got 3 Firewire connectors on my motherboard -- two external 6-pin connectors and one internal 6-pin connector. They cost less than $1 to include on a motherboard, after all. Most PC manufacturers just don't do it right now, but it's getting more common. Compaq has had computers with Firewire built-in for years.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
It's not that much. I believe it's less than a dollar, so it's probably already figured into that "roughly a dollar" estimate I read somewhere during the whole licensing flak. Plus, most of the most energetic supporters of Firewire, like Sony, get the license fee waved anyway. It's really a nonissue.
The real price issue is that the device controllers for Firewire are a bit more complex than USB device controllers because the protocol is more advanced and because the devices should be able to act on their own on the network. Also, a device can talk to multiple devices on a Firewire network, not just the main computer. For your computer or a video camera, it's not that big of a deal. For a hard drive, though, it requires a bit of additional logic to handle transfers which are abnormal for a hard disk. I mean, how many hard drives talk to multiple machines normally without some mediating agent handling the communication?
This is where the costs add up. USB 2.0 saves a good bit of that by making the CPU do a good bit of the work and by not allowing device-to-device communications without the CPU involved. USB 2.0 is like a Winmodem. It's cheap and gets the job done, but it taxes resources better spent doing other work.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
First of all, they don't use the same connector at all, so there's no use trying to make them compatible. Second, a system with good Firewire support is makes it just as easy to plugin a Firewire device and go as it is for a USB device.
This has nothing to do with politicking, for once, and everything to do with superior, mature technical standards. Despite all the touting of USB by Intel, MS is actually going with the better standard. USB 2.0 is not as ready to go as Firewire, which MS has had *years* to get running. I'm not surprised that MS has Firewire support first. It's been around since 1986 with the latest revision to the standard happening in 1993. USB 2.0 hadn't even been started on until Apple started pushing Firewire in their own products and it gained media attention. This is why Windows XP has support for Firewire and not USB 2.0. It has nothing to do with moneyed interests. If it did, then you can be sure it would've been Intel's standard going in instead.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
'd like to point out that our systems are already fairly dependent on the processor... seeing as how THAT'S WHAT MAKES OUR SYSTEMS WORK!
Then, are you opposed to the use of graphics cards? They allow you to farm out computation of 3D rendering to keep the load off the processor. Are you opposed to sound cards which keep sound processing off of the CPU? You must also be in favor of Winmodems, too, if this is your stance.
The fact is that the more needless tasks you take off of your CPU, the more your CPU is free to do real work. USB requires the CPU to be involved when it doesn't have to be. Firewire frees a device from dependency on the CPU. There doesn't even have to be a computer running for two Firewire devices to talk to each other. Try saying the same thing about USB.
USB works on multiple platforms, including PPC. Please explain how USB locks us into Intel, as you imply?
Well, this is a straw man argument as I never said that you get locked into Intel processors with this. USB 2.0 just makes you more dependent on a faster CPU for performance. Slower machines will perform more poorly when using high bandwidth USB 2.0 devices. When you need to take in a DV stream over the USB 2.0 port and do some video rendering on it, the contention for CPU resources makes have a faster (more expensive) CPU necessary. It's all very simple.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Actually, I hope it is the death knell. The original USB standard was not intended to be extended like this. It was meant for simple, low bandwidth devices, and the protocol specs show it. While USB 2.0 defeats some of the problems, such as evenly slicing your bandwidth among devices no matter what they need, it's still a processor arbitrated bus. It's just an attempt by Intel for further system dependency on the processor at the expense of performance. It helps their bottom line to make us more dependent on their hardware at our own expense.
Plus, the FUD marketing plan that they used just when Firewire started to get some public interest turned me off instantly. "Oh, no, don't use Firewire! We'll have this standard up and running in a few years, and then Firewire will be dead because ours is slightly faster than their current standard. Never mind that speed bump Firewire has planned. Listen to our vaporware instead!"
Firewire is elegant. It doesn't suffer from the star topology bottlenecks of USB 2.0. It's not processor arbitrated and does not require and active computer to be useful. It supports isochronous transfers. It makes a good networking protocol. It is in every way superior, and Intel and, apparently, Microsoft both know it. I hope that this is the knife in USB 2.0 that kills it. Bring on the Firewire devices, I say.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
The annoying thing though is that, although firewire might be better, most motherboards don't have them on-board. So USB 2.0 would be nice for those of us (ahem, all of us) that have USB ports on our computers.
While the connectors are the same, the circuitry needed to recognize USB 2.0 isn't there. Surely, you don't expect to plug an UltraATA/100 drive into an EIDE controller and expect to get full UltraATA/100 speeds out of it? This isn't just a matter of updating software. The hardware controller device has to recognize the protocol, which it won't magically do. Since the purpose of these controllers is to be cheap, don't expect them to be firmware-upgradeable either.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Actually, in the class sense of the word, it is a troll. However, no one really uses troll to mean a good intellectual post meant to trick people into a flamewar. Nowdays, it just means some 14 year old posting a bunch of profanity laced racist slurs or an inane, worn-out joke over and over again, like the old grits routine and the recent revival of the Beowulf cluster nonsense.
I guess no one remembers to good old days, when newsgroup discussions were filled with people from academia, who actually put some thought into baiting people. Race baiting and name calling is easy. Making people honestly believe you think something really stupid or irritating is a lot harder. No one remembers when a troll was a thing of art instead of the infantile behavior it is today.
I mourn for the loss of the intellectual troll. They were the court jesters of the Internet. Nowdays, trolls are just a bunch of immature vandals who go about urinating all over message boards because they have no respect for the sense of community that the long-time members of that site once enjoyed.
In a way, I feel like a herald for the aliens in Independence Day. You move into a new community on the Internet, and you find a rich variety of well-meaning individuals who are interested in little more than discussing their ideas. In this small preserve of civility, you can feel free to express yourself. Then, the ravagers come and destroy the community you once loved. They don't read old discussions for topics well hashed-out. They don't obey the rules of behavior. In fact, they spurn them openly. You then have no choice but to move on, saddened by the loss of another haven on the Internet. You find a new place to enjoy, and then the cycle repeats.
I guess I've rambled long enough. It just makes me nostalgic to see a post like this. To see what intellectual provocation looks like once again. I doubt I'll see it again on Slashdot in a long time.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
This has nothing to do with USB 1.0. It's still being supported as the hot-pluggable low-bandwidth device interface it was intended to be.
This is about USB 2.0, the hacked extended version that support devices at 480 Mb/s. It was intended to be a Firewire killer, but doesn't have the same technical merits. Intel started crowing about coming up with it soon about the time Firewire started to get some momentum going. It effectively killed the momentum for Firewire for awhile. I say let USB 2.0 die. It's an inferior protocol that's intended to further slave your computer to the processor instead of farm that functionality out.
USB 1.0 isn't going anywhere. It's still good for what it was intended for.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Are the moderators blind? Only one moderator had the sense to mod this as overrated. Do the rest just see a long post and instantly think it's informative or interesting? Don't any of the moderators understand what a troll is?!? I'm just surprised that this guy isn't a Major troll.
Check out this SourceForge page for more information.
I have a Belkin 3-port i1394 card in my Linux box (2.4.3 kernel) and can pull in video from my Sony camcorder.
--
Charles E. Hill
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Yes, there are more peripherals for USB 1.1 than firewire -- but that is because most of them are low-bandwidth devices (mice, keyboards, etc.)
These probably won't go away any time soon (good thing) and can continued to be used for low-bandwith devices while i1394 can handle the big stuff like video connection, replacing SCSI/IDE and Ethernet.
--
Charles E. Hill
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
more points:
Apple likes fire wire and has based their marketing on fire wire devices. AND
M$ has decided to use fire wire over usb 2.0 AND
M$ likes to "embrace and extend" THEREFORE
Apple is doomed
----------------------
Opportunities multiply as they are seized. --Sun-Tzu
you're right, i just like saying "doomed"
----------------------
Opportunities multiply as they are seized. --Sun-Tzu
Actully, the ps2 has both USB and 1394
God Fucking Damnit
Lack of WinXP support is exactly what Microsoft promised last year ... see the
May (?) WinHEC slides on the topic, where they
described their ship criteria.
Basically, no OS support till host controllers
and devices have been available for a while,
and drivers are proven. This isn't news.
It's only this month that USB 2.0 host controllers have begun to be available from vendors, as PCI addin cards. (Belkin, Orange.) I've yet to see USB 2.0 devices of any kind be advertised for walk-in cash purchases. Wait till the summer before you expect to see these devices ... like IDE-speed
disk access. (480 Mbit/sec ~= 60 MByte/sec,
in the same range as ATA/66.)
Firewire advocacy aside, USB 2.0 clearly has a future. It's faster, and when you buy a system with USB 2.0 support built in, it'll have the same connector you know about. Devices are forward and backward compatible. And finally having conformance testing is a good thing, too.
And let's not forget the next generation of PCMCIA devices, "CardBay" ... the first
generation was ISA-on-a-Stick, then came
PCI-on-a-Stick, next time it's USB 2.0 going
out those familiar connectors. Cheaper than
PCI/Cardbus support. See
http://www.pcmcia.org/cardbay.htm
--
Re: your post
+1, Insightful
+1, Funny
Actually, as long as I get my work done, they don't care what I do on my lunch hour. Or whenever.
--
Reading through the comments, I see a lot of people trying to slant this in an anti-MS way. Just thought that I would point out that USB was jointly developed by several companies including MS.
3 ,s id9_gci214166,00.html
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,28989
Remember it, write it down, take a picture, I dont give a fsck!
Crap, that's a good reason. And I just love that Intel's euphonism for destroying fair use rights is "Keeping Honest People Honest" (http://developer.intel.com/technology/1394/). Unfortunately given the current state of affairs if USB 2.0 were to take Firewire's place, I'm sure the MPAA thugs would insist on similar access controls, which would result in much inferior technology with the same consumer-hostile "features".
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
I think the next revision of the IEEE 1394 (IEEE 1394b I think... The Register has some articles on Microsoft, 1394b and CPRM) which is supposed to be faster than the current version of 1394, but includes CPRM and some other additions that we may not know about.
> Most readers don't care if Windows supports XYZ 1.7 functionality,
> just as long as their favorite distro of Linux does.
Hardware makers listen to Microsoft, since they have the lions share of the desktop market. That means everyone who uses hardware cares.
All opinions expressed herein are not my own; I haven't had free will since last year when aliens ate my brain.
Microsoft will also be dropping for Bluetooth and the TCP/IP protocol. Microsoft is throwing it's support behind LanMan and carrier pidgeons.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
"... most motherboards don't have [FireWire] on-board. So USB 2.0 would be nice for those of us (ahem, all of us) that have USB ports on our computers.
Surely you jest. Most motherboards don't have USB 2.0 hardware either. In fact I am not aware of a single one that does (a few do in fact have FireWire). USB 2.0 entails new hardware.
But hardly any USB _2.0_ devices. There are lots of FireWire devices - and not just video devices, either. Hard drives, CDRs, DVD-RAMs, etc, etc.
-----------------------
Nicotine free Amish .sig.
-----------------------
Nicotine free Amish .sig.
Sony is a special case, really, because it is big into the digial movie camera market. This is a market that firewire pretty much rules, so it should be no surprise that Sony wants Firewire to succeed.
USB 2.0 versus FireWire (MacCentral Online) -- Solid article. Check it out.
Face-off between USB and FireWire Flash Card readers -- "Translation: Do NOT expect the gap between FireWire and USB readers to close when USB 2.0 readers start shipping. Do expect FireWire to be updated soon to achieve 800Mbit/sec... possibly 1600Mbit/sec, Moral: Use FireWire any time the device can handle the speed." (Somewhat useful.)
Will USB or FireWire connect with consumers (CNET) -- "In the end, FireWire may take the lead for storage devices, scanners, video cameras and consumer electronic devices, while USB continues to dominate mice, keyboards and other peripherals." (Comments: Some fluff, but useful.)
USB 2.0 versus 1394 (Japanese) -- I don't read Japanese, but this is an article comparing USB 2.0 and 1394 . . .
Tom's Hardware Comparison (via Google) -- "In the FireWire versus USB debate, currently it is no contest. USB is cheap and well suited for inexpensive devices like keyboards and mice, while IEEE1394 is far, far faster, more user friendly and a bit more robust, but is also a little more expensive to implement."
SCSI versus IDE, FireWire, USB, etc. (Mac Buyer's Guide) -- "Indeed, Apple specifically recommends against FireWire drives, for use with its high-end video editor, Final Cut Pro." (Comments: Other interesting stuff is in this article. Check it out.)
How to Download YouTube Videos
I use Win2K daily and have very solid uptimes. I think it's pretty solid, and I would expect XP to be another step in the right direction as far as stability goes. (Other aspects of XP trouble me, such as the kiosk-oriented gui and the copy control features.)
It's fairly well known that the biggest issue for Win9x/WinNT/Win2K's stability is crappy third-party device drivers. The fault lies in the OS architecture, to be sure, but the reality is that device drivers can crash your Windows since they run in a less restrictive processing environment.
Microsoft tests their own drivers a lot more than they can exercise ATI's drivers, so guess what happens when you install an ATI video card that's not on the HCL? Boom.
Do you think this'll be any better when someone installs some generic $25 USB2 hub? How about new devices that have been in development for a while, assuming USB2 support for XP would save them, who are now reading resumes for some code jockey to learn how to make a USB2 driver for their first assignment?
Even if Microsoft wants to snub Intel for whatever bedfellow business reason, it's in their best interest to make sure consumer-level cheapo devices can't rip down the platform. Boom.
[
If you've got Microsoft's track record when it comes to releasing products, you probably have to make some choices to make come release time. MS is certainly under no obligation to support USB 2.0. In fact, they're completely free not to, though stupid.
This is really quite an unnewsworthy article as far as Slashdot is concerned. Most readers don't care if Windows supports XYZ 1.7 functionality, just as long as their favorite distro of Linux does.
This is a manual virus. Copy it to your sig and help me spread!
Look at it this way: You probably follow the "SP1 rule of thumb" with all MS products, right? I'm sure if 2.0 is going to catch on, they'll stick it in with SP1 anyway.
;)
It's probably best to see if this whole licensing thing blows over, too. I imagine there are lots of purely fictional people who are a lot like me, the only difference being that they wouldn't want to go legit on all their software.
This is a manual virus. Copy it to your sig and help me spread!
There is a subtlety here: Sony has added copyright protection to its implementation of 1394. Nowhere does it say that copy protection has been added to the protocol. This is an important distinction, because it means we will still be able to get CP-free implementations of 1394 from other vendors (i.e. Apple - at least until they get zombified by the MPAA)
Now if Iomega will remove their thumbs from their rectums and get Firewire Jazz drives out...
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
So, every box gets a SCSI card and a damned Jaz drive while the built in firewire ports do nothing. If it were up to me I'd ban the shitty things, I've already put the kibitz on sending any Jaz disks out. Hopefully with CDRs becoming more prevelant I can ditch them all soon (like they won't break soon anyhow ;).
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
Yeah and there aren't that many devices that use Parallel or ISA either, but their still supported. Why can't windows support both Firewire and USB 2.0?
I wonder if what happend when the showed of windows 98's support for USB will happen when they show of windows XP's support for FireWire. "Oh no not again!!!!"
BSOD
It's annoying that Apple didn't go that route. Apple is still using the "little boxes all over the desktop" approach to expansion, which they've foisted on users since the Apple II.
The Device Bay consortium's site seems to have died.
Incidentally, can you boot Windows XP from an IEEE-1394 drive? Do mainstream boot roms support this?
FireWire Jaz Drives? You're kidding, right? All IEEE 1394 drives are hot swappable. For the same money as a Jaz drive you can get a 10 gig Pocket drive. If you want something you can just give away, burn a CD (and it's less fragile than a Jaz drive). I got a 20 gig FireWire portable the size of 2 packs of cigarettes. I put 12 gigs of MP3's on it so I never have to haul around my CD's anymore to freelance jobs, and I still have room for 7 gigs of Photoshop files. FireWire is RIP iomega. Good riddance.
They are not supporting a new standard that doesn't have hardware released yet. USB 2.0 is still being worked on and MS with probably add it later through a service pack or have you buy a XP Second Edition. There will be support for your current USB 1.1 devices.
Like it or not, Windows still has a good chunk of the market and manufactures will make products that will sell for Windows. This can mean the difference in the Widget Corporation in releasing a USB 2.0 or a Firewire device. Maybe you don't want to run Windows but they will have an influence on the hardware that is available.
You don't have USB 2.0 ports on your system because it isn't really out yet. This is a hardware change, not a protocol change. USB is CPU intensive and Firewire is not. It's easy to see why Intel backs USB. There are some hardware kludges in USB that will make you upgrade a lot of current products or suffer with performance degradations. Condsidering USB is soldered to the MB and Firewire cards are $50~, it seems you will have to upgrade a lot more for USB 2.0.
You don't have USB 2.0 though because the hardware is still being worked on. You probably have USB 1.1 or 1.0 if you have an older system. They aren't supporting it because the hardware isn't there yet. This is a change of pace for them.
Is USB in general in danger? It seems pretty good, and a bit of a current de facto standard for devices, despite Win95 and WinNT not really supporting it. I'm a lot happier now that I'm running a machine with '98 on it, with a USB CD-burner, zip disk, REX pda burner, and joysticks, and maybe soon a graphics tablet.
--
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
That would be IEEE1394 you are thinking of. There doesn't seem to be such thing as 1384, accoring to the IEEE web site.
Lets just hope that when people do have to write their own USB 2.0 drivers we don't end up in the situation where they only drive the bit of USB necessary for the product they are designed for; I can just imagine the trouble coming because one driver works with my mouse and a different one with my webcam.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
There is no mention of dropping drivers for the current version of USB (1.0 or 1.1, can't remember which); its just the new USB 2.0 that is a high-bandwidth kludge invented to try to compete with firewire. Anything that wants the extra speed 2.0 gives you over your normal USB should be using firewire instead, as Adaptec have only just released their first USB 2.0 cards, while firewire is available to buy everywhere.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
USB is nice, but it's a relative newcomer. Firewire has been out longer and I've not heard anything but good things about it. Standards for hardware equipment and add-ons is a good thing for the consumer as we've seen with PC clones. Prices fall, more companies in the business etc. As opposed to differing standards, like microchannel expansion bus vs PCI vs ISA vs VLB, it got difficult to figure out which add-on goes on what computer.
I like it.
DanH
Cav Pilot's Reference Page
Cav Pilot's Reference Page
UNIX - Not just for Vestal Virgins anymore
Also, I find it interesting that MS spent plenty of time making sure their anti-piracy system will work for Win XP but they didn't have enough extra programmers to integrate USB 2.0 (which has been highly hyped for well over a year now).
When management on high decrees a RTM date, and when the time/value-add ratio is low enough, it's pushed back to a service pack. I mean, I'd love a 3D shell, integrated VR visualizations, and a Pokemon screensaver, but I'm in the minority, and MS has to target a majority of the OSs current + future users.
USB 2.0 controllers & devices will be supported, just via third-party drivers. This is NOT the same as WinNT4's non-support, which prevented even the possibility of third-party support.
MS simply doesn't have time to fully include well-developed OS-level support for USB 2.0. (I work at a large company researching USB 2.0, and we're just barely getting started.) There's maybe a half-dozen devices to evaluate and test OS-level support with.
Contrast this with FireWire, which does have a reasonalby large number of 400Mb/s devices available for testing & development.
USB 2.0 host cards are available. USB 2.0 devices are coming soon. Intel will be including USB 2.0 on the motherboard starting next year.
USB 2.0 support WILL happen; it IS happening. It's just going to take a little longer than MicroSoft has to put full-blown thoroughly-tested support in XP, and we'll have to use third-party drivers until it does. FireWire's advantage, from MicroSoft's point of view (they don't care about peer-to-peer), is only that it has been around a bit longer. USB 2.0 will be inherently built into Intel-based motherboards soon; it WILL arrive, cheaply, and will be supported.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Your USB *what* wasn't detected?
There's no sense in loading kernel modules if there aren't any devices that use them.
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
I found this article on Planet IT - it says that the new version of Windows CE, due out in later 2001, will have support of both USB 2.0 and Bluetooth. I guess this could be construed as MS's way of attacking the Open Source flavors of competing OS's. It's a short read...
Ok I am with you when you say 98se over ME but office97 over 2000? not a chance.
2000 is fast, 97 is sooooo slooooow.
- Toby
It's all about two words, "copy protection." Take a look at the following page from MS research on the "Secure PC": http://research.microsoft.com/crypto/openbox.asp "Essentially, this would turn the PC into a record player as far as music is concerned, while preserving the other open aspects of the computer. Record companies could release their records in an encrypted, unable to be copied Windows Media Audio format that would only work on the secure version of the Windows Media Player. A similar arrangement could be reached with the movie studios for film distribution..." "He [Microsoft Research cryptographer Paul England] says an agreement between software and hardware makers is near, and "we should see some hardware for content protection within a year." Microsoft is already shipping a secure version of Windows Media Player. England is pretty sure that it will be cracked eventually, but he says it will do for now. The way to slam the door on the pirates lies in a modification of the hardware, he says. "We must make it immune to a software attack, and close the PC in that way." ..."
So the idea is to embed content protection into the PC from the operating system down to the hardware. So how does this relate to USB? Well, there is no copy protection built into the USB specification. But there will be copy protection support built into the 1394 (Fire Wire) standard, as announced by the 1394 Trade Association (of which MS is a member) three weeks ago.
http://www.1394ta.org/Press/2001Press/mar/3.21.a.h tm
"SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 21, 2001-- The leaders of the 1394 Trade Association today urged the consumer electronics and computer industries to adopt the comprehensive digital copy protection system known as Digital Transmission Copy Protection, or ``5C,'' developed by leaders of the electronics industry to prevent unauthorized use of copy-protected content..."
Other members of the 1394 Trade Association include Sony, Philips, Intel, Texas Instruments, Panasonic, Canon, Fujitsu, Compaq and many more.
Six days after the announcement of 1394 support of copy protection, Microsoft confirmed that it would not support USB in Windows XP.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/2/17919.html
1394 will incorporate support for DTCP copy protection designed by the 5C group (Sony, Intel, Toshiba, Matushita, and Hitachi):
http://www.dtcp.com/spec.html
"To allow for protected transmission of copy-protected material between digital devices like PC's, DVD Players, and Digital TV's, five companies -- Hitachi, Intel, Matsushita (MEI), Sony and Toshiba have prepared the "5C" Digital Transmission Content Protection (DTCP) specification..."
"The DTCP specification defines a cryptographic protocol for protecting audio/video entertainment content from illegal copying, intercepting and tampering as it traverses high performance digital buses, such as the IEEE 1394 standard."
Microsoft is acting in cooperation with content providers (the music, movie, and video game industry) and with hardware makers to produce a totally copy-protected ("secure") PC. That way the movie and music people can get a payment each time you play a file, and MS will also get its cut. It is essential that copy protection be put into the hardware, since otherwise consumers would be tempted to operating systems without copy protection such as Linux. You will get a music file, from say, Sony, with built-in copy protection, over MS.NET (with possible built in copy protection filters) downloaded to your (copy protected) hard drive, played by MS Media Player (with built in copy protection) running on Windows XP (with copy protection support) and transmitted via the copy protected 1394 bus. It's multi-layered protection and the bus is the last line of defense.
So USB (no built-in copy protection) has to go, and 1394, with built-in copy protection support, gets Windows support from now on.
[Let's try this again properly formatted.]
p
..."
a .h tm
m l
It's all about two words, "copy protection."
Take a look at the following page from MS research on the "Secure PC":
http://research.microsoft.com/crypto/openbox.as
"Essentially, this would turn the PC into a record player as far as music is concerned, while preserving the other open aspects of the computer. Record companies could release their records in an encrypted, unable to be copied Windows Media Audio format that would only work on the secure version of the Windows Media Player. A similar arrangement could be reached with the movie studios for film distribution..."
"He [Microsoft Research cryptographer Paul England] says an agreement between software and hardware makers is near, and "we should see some hardware for content protection within a year." Microsoft is already shipping a secure version of Windows Media Player. England is pretty sure that it will be cracked eventually, but he says it will do for now. The way to slam the door on the pirates lies in a modification of the hardware, he says. "We must make it immune to a software attack, and close the PC in that way."
So the idea is to embed content protection into the PC from the operating system down to the hardware. So how does this relate to USB? Well, there is no copy protection built into the USB specification. But there will be copy protection support built into the 1394 (Fire Wire) standard, as announced by the 1394 Trade Association (of which MS is a member) three weeks ago.
http://www.1394ta.org/Press/2001Press/mar/3.21.
"SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 21, 2001-- The leaders of the 1394 Trade Association today urged the consumer electronics and computer industries to adopt the comprehensive digital copy protection system known as Digital Transmission Copy Protection, or ``5C,'' developed by leaders of the electronics industry to prevent unauthorized use of copy-protected content..."
Other members of the 1394 Trade Association include Sony, Philips, Intel, Texas Instruments, Panasonic, Canon, Fujitsu, Compaq and many more.
Six days after the announcement of 1394 support of copy protection, Microsoft confirmed that it would not support USB in Windows XP.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/2/17919.ht
1394 will incorporate support for DTCP copy protection designed by the 5C group (Sony, Intel, Toshiba, Matushita, and Hitachi):
http://www.dtcp.com/spec.html
"To allow for protected transmission of copy-protected material between digital devices like PC's, DVD Players, and Digital TV's, five companies -- Hitachi, Intel, Matsushita (MEI), Sony and Toshiba have prepared the "5C" Digital Transmission Content Protection (DTCP) specification..."
"The DTCP specification defines a cryptographic protocol for protecting audio/video entertainment content from illegal copying, intercepting and tampering as it traverses high performance digital buses, such as the IEEE 1394 standard."
Microsoft is acting in cooperation with content providers (the music, movie, and video game industry) and with hardware makers to produce a totally copy-protected ("secure") PC. That way the movie and music people can get a payment each time you play a file, and MS will also get its cut. It is essential that copy protection be put into the hardware, since otherwise consumers would be tempted to operating systems without copy protection such as Linux. You will get a music file, from say, Sony, with built-in copy protection, over MS.NET (with possible built in copy protection filters) downloaded to your (copy protected) hard drive, played by MS Media Player (with built in copy protection) running on Windows XP (with copy protection support) and transmitted via the copy protected 1394 bus. It's multi-layered protection and the bus is the last line of defense.
So USB (no built-in copy protection) has to go, and 1394, with built-in copy protection support, gets Windows support from now on.
Oh yes, I am fully aware of that, but Timpothy said "I sure hope this isn't a death knell for USB 2©0, but the argument that there just aren't that many USB devices seems valid, if circular©"
Which, as I point out, is incorrect these days©
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
Amigori
"The quality of life is determined by its activites."--Aristotle
-MS gives Apple money to stay in the game
-Apple sets up MS Explorer as the default browser, and now ships MS Explorer exclusively in Mac OS X
-MS puts in Firewire support, which Apple primarily developed and has on nearly all their hardware
Given the pattern, Apple probably owes MS something next. Maybe touting Office on their web site?
I'm still waiting for a version of Mac OS X that can run on Intel machines. :) Really pretty system and I sorta like it.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Apple will give M$ the keys to the Firewire standard if they can use some M$ operating system architects on OS X. That would explain SOOOOO much!
Early to bed and early to rise makes a man stupid and tired in the eyes - Roger Zelazny
There are plenty of reasonably current devices out there still on USB. Most devices that once upon a time would have been plain serial/parallel devices are now USB-only or USB-optional. It seems overkill to use Firewire for say, my mouse, or even my Zip Drive (considering the slow access times). Support both. USB has finally matured enough to work right mroe often then not. It's a shame to see it go away so fast.
fatfingered it - sheesh :)
It also creates strange bedfellows: Apple and Microsoft on one side
Not strange bedfellows at all. M$ kept Apple alive by porting software and investing. They work in concert with one another.
Whats worse is that sony loves iee1384, this is a certain sign of its direction.
#1 Reason:
Firewire has Oppressive Copy Control built in.
USB 2.0 does not
No further analysis or insight necessary. Welcome to the future friends.
I'm a bit surprised, though, why MS didn't try to "embrace and extend" USB? Isn't Apple (who isn't in the best of positions with regards to MS, which is to say, it's position is basically that of being over a barrel) and Sony worried that MS is going to take FireWire and make it into something totally oddball, IEEE be damned?
We know that MS can't leave well enough alone, they will want to embrace and extend FireWire. They've already extended a number of protocols to the point where they break when exposed to their "standard" kin (or break said kin) so what will MS do to FireWire should be an important question.
I regularly get the Publishing Perfection catalog, and there's a lot of goodies there for Mac and Windows. One thing I've been very happy to see is hardware -- juicy, high-performance, and extremely expensive hardware -- that can work with both PCs and Macs. A good amount of that bicompatability stuff is USB or FireWire. What will happen when FireWire under Windows XP becomes MS FireWire Plus?
--- Chief and Sole Technician, Helpdesk at the End of the World
"I am an Adept of Tantric VAX."
Is it that hard to pop in a diskette or CD the first time you hook the USB 2.0 device to the machine? You usually have to go to the manufacturer's web site anyway since the ones on the original OS are considered crappy by a minimum of one year later.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
Doesn't supporting Firewire completely miss the point that USB 2.0 is backwards compatible with the HUNDREDS of USB devices out there? And USB is faster than Firewire, albeit not by much. Honestly, this is a blatant and frankly iritating case of Microsoft thinking they can edge out whichever standard they like by supporting one or the other. Where the hell did giving the consumer the choice instead go? First this and then trying to edge out MP3 support through WinXP - yeah right, try and make me convert my 12 odd gigs of the things to a format that only works in windows. At least that's one area where they're doomed to fail. what are they gonna do, rip out the MP3 decoding codec from Windows and only ad a converter or something? Good luck to them, I only use Sonique anyway.
I like a lot of Microsoft's products. I use Windows 2k as my workstation OS. I like Internet Explorer, I like Office, I like Visual Studio, etc. Hell, I've even paid cold hard cash for some of these products (heh). Increasingly though I look at Microsoft's new products I keep hearing that little voice inside my head saying "uhhh, I hate to point this out but the old version was better". I prefer Office 97 to Office 2000, Windows 98 SE to Windows ME, etc. And Windows / Office XP are looking less and less like products I want to upgrade to. There are tons of things that annoy the crap out of me about Windows 2000 right now (for example, the whole ASPI fiasco) but all these new products from Microsoft look like they will simply increase the number of things that annoy me, and not increase one whit the things that please me.
Also, I find it interesting that MS spent plenty of time making sure their anti-piracy system will work for Win XP but they didn't have enough extra programmers to integrate USB 2.0 (which has been highly hyped for well over a year now).
"USB 2.0 support will not be included in the (final) version of Windows XP due to the fact that there is not a sufficient array of production-quality devices to test against," she wrote in an e-mail. "Microsoft will not ship support for a standard that they can't guarantee a great user experience on."
...but we will ship a product that can't guarantee a great user experience.
. . .
Read this story regarding some follow up info related to this. The story is titled Windows XP will support USB 2.0, somehow.
Cheers!
There are many devices that support the old, slow USB interface. Keyboards, mice, low quality web cams and similar devices that don't need high bandwidth. Microsoft already supports this version of USB. USB 2.0 is new. It is high bandwidth, hot swappable, has power in the cable, just like, um, firewire (aka IEEE 1394).
USB 2.0, like firewire, has high enough bandwidth for hard disks and high resolution realtime video capture. But since we already have firewire hard disks, and every digital video camera I've ever seen has a firewire port rather than a USB 2.0 port, I reluctantly have to say that Microsoft is supporting the right one (oh no!).
IEEE-1394 is superior in every way, but requires an expensive adapter. Are these feature sets starting to look familiar to folks? It's IDE vs. SCSI all over again. So it looks like USB X.0 will eventually rule the consumer landscape while Firewire stays expensive. Don't forget the first rule of Wintel boxen: cheaper ALWAYS wins.
I think we may be overlooking the obvious here.
Firewire is a great protocol, runs at high-speed, and is very reliable. It's also a pain in the ass to put into a small, simple little device. How many firewire mice do you see on the market?
XP _has_ to at least support USB 1.1 because there are a friggen TON of little piddly USB devices that people use regularly. These are the same people M$ wants to buy XP, so USB 1.1's gonna be in there. Not to mention the scanners, digital cameras, and Handsprings of the world.
Once you have USB 1.1, it's not too big a stretch to stuff USB 2.0 in there. M$ is notorious for slipping things like this in when you're not looking.
--
All opinions presented here aren't mine.
It's just a feeling on my part, but XP is shaping up to be a bad idea for Microsoft. The 'your papers please' attitude of having to register it every time you reinstall is going to put off a lot of people, myself included. I'm definitely not going to leap off my Aeron chair and rush to install it. Maybe it isn't going to matter much whether XP supports USB 2.0 if people aren't going to want to use it in the first place.
"If I have seen further than other men, it is by stepping on their glasses." - Michael Swaine
Those of us who use Final Cut Pro often use FireWire drives on our G4s or PowerBooks. Not all FW drives DO work properly, however. The bridge hardware between the IDE drive and the firewire interface is the key. Promax and LaCie sell drives that work just fine.
Actually Firewire has much better plug-and-play support. With USB you need a host CPU / OS / driver combination in order to comunicate. Firewire does it all in the controller so it is far less driver dependent. Simpler, generic drivers work for most devices.
Want to see what Tom thinks? Check out the following web address. He also comes to the conclusion that Firewire has better pnp support.
http://www6.tomshardware.com/consumer/00q3/000929/ index.html
Willy
USB 2.0 might be faster on paper but it's really pushing the hardware that the original USB was designed to operate on. I fully expect that it actually operates at a lower speed in real life conditions - much like 802.11. (11Mbit/s - ya right... more like 5.)
Also, for many operations (like copying from HD to HD) that 400MBit will give one much more bandwith then USB would give even if it does operate at spec. WIth USB the data would go from the HD to the PC then back to the other HD. Your 480Mbit/s just dropped to 240. Firewire cuts the PC out of the loop so you get the full 400Mbit/s speed (plus lots of saved CPU time.)
Need I even mention that you can use more then one connection to a device? Gang a couple of 1394 chanels together and there is no way that USB is faster. That and you can pick up a 6 port 1394 card for under $100. In a bit more time, when Linux support if fully tested, 1394 could easily replace external SCSI for even the most demanding tasks.
Willy
beautiful, truely beautiful. your lament was an expression of artistry rarely seen today. i especially favoured your allusions to court jesters and ravaging aliens
trolling is a dying art. but your post far outdid the original post you bemoaned. perhaps you could pen academic trolls under a pseudonym?
i am not being sarcastic. i really appreciated your post. thank you so much for that
the animal doesnt even have opposable thumbs, focker!
Obviously, if N devices with the same priority are communicating at the same time, you have 1/N bandwidth, but what if N-1 are (nearly) idle?
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
Yeah, I've read that article, as well as many other little 'gems' by DKE, like his 'Unix isn't an OS' crap. This is exactly what I would consider heresay, and that's being extremely generous, as 1) there are no supporting links, and 2) he has a clear agenda. His big problem is the speed mixing with lower speed devices, so you should use Firewire, which can vary from 100Mbps and will expand to 1600Mbps in the near future. Same problem. And there is no justification for the 1/N bandwidth sharing, which is actually mostly refuted in the WSJ link with the discussion of isocronous/bulk transfer guarantees. And since the 2.0 standard wasn't set until late last year, it's kinda hard to debunk something that doesn't exist, isn't it?
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
And I'm particularly shocked by the "But FireWire is so much better, it's Intel's FUD that killed it." line a lot of people here seem to be spouting. You want to know what killed FireWire? It was the little detail that a FireWire chip is not too different from a gigabit ethernet controller with a dynamic router built in, and cost at least $80 each when first released. And just like high speed ethernet, the tolerances required were much tighter in all associated components, like the cables, connectors, printed circuit boards, etc... A USB chip in comparison now costs only a few dollars. The market isn't ready to pay hundreds of dollers for a mouse that doesn't need the bandwidth. USB won because it was fast enough at the right price.
Yea, A Better technology is going to be supported, while a weak technology Is having help dying. This is actually good.
This will hopfuly finaly give firewire the boost that it needs to beat the living daylights out of USB2. I'm glad MS is going this way.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
ha.hahaha.hahahahhaaha.
In the end tho, this is probably a good decision. Microsoft supports a viable and tested technology, and also supports a competitor (which is good PR for its current tarnished image). The slight fact is that this isn't going to matter much to anyone anyway at the release date, due to the low number of USB 2.0 devices in circulation. However, this is a great position for WinXP's update feature to get shown off, if and when USB 2.0 begins to take off (plug in a device and your computer automatically updates itself with usb 2.0 support?).
"Moving through the masses like a fish through water." syrup
In the recent controversy we learned that it's already in Firewire. So this decision is consistent with M$'s plan to integrate copy restriction mechanisms into Windows.
Well ... we all have USB 1.1 ports on our computers. Nobody (that I know of, anyway) ships PCs with built-in USB 2 support yet.
... for all intents and purposes, it's a completely new hardware technology (albeit one which is backwards compatible w/ USB 1.1)
USB 2 will require completely new controllers, drivers, and devices
AK
The annoying thing though is that, although firewire might be better, most motherboards don't have them on-board. So USB 2.0 would be nice for those of us (ahem, all of us) that have USB ports on our computers.
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evil adrian
I'll grant you, it's usb and not Firewire, but all technologies can't be lucky enough to have been invented by Apple.
If it had been Apple's, then you know it would've done better. Sure, Intel has a vested interest in promoting USB, and sure, Intel is a pretty big company. But as big as Apple? Not by a long shot.
You see, company size can't just be measured in terms of assets or market cap. It has to be measured in terms of love and caring. It has to be measured in terms of how many partisan zealots are clamoring to fight for the fatherland, and Apple takes the cake by far. There may be fewer mac users than Wintel users, but they're a whole lot more rabid. When you do something wrong (even if it was right and they just think it was wrong), then they'll let you know. Mac users are like that.
How does this bode for USB 2.0?
Well, if they want USB to succeed, then they'll have to bring it in line with Apple's standards, both of technical and cultural means. For one thing, they'll have to make it a lot more expensive. People are sheep and unwilling to invest in a technology that doesn't cost through the nose. (Just look at Microsoft or VA Linux if you want to know what I mean.)
They'll also want to start vending it in twenty shades of pastel. People are sheep and unwilling to invest in a technology that doesn't put their children's Barbie collections to shame in sugary rainbow gawdiness. It's a fact.
But most importantly, they will have to emulate Apple's exceptional and successful marketing techniques. Remember when Apple scortched Intel's bunny ads? That was hilarious. Intel will have to come out with a campaign that really demonstrates why you should use USB. They'll have to use a lot of nudity, and more importantly, they'll have to use celebrity nudity. A pinup photo spread of Albert Einstein covering his delicate genitalia with an assortment of grapes (each painted a different color to represent the different available USB colors as discussed above) with the slogan "USB: Yowzers" would go a long way towards bringing USB in line with Apple's projected growth.
But most importantly of all, USB has to kill all its competition. We can't allow market inefficiencies to set in when multiple redundant technologies are being used across the industry. That's just wasteful. Apple learned this years ago when they killed the more successful Nubus in favor of their own proprietary PCI specification, and they haven't looked back. Unfortunately, the Wintel players haven't yet caught on to Apple's brilliant strategies, so they might be a little slower in turning the tables by killing up ASB. But if our economy is to grow into the next couple decades, we have to trim down our wastrel occupations and allow innovation to flourish.
Only through these means shall USB reign supreme.
USB is good enough as is. I doubt anyone will notice the difference between current USB devices and USB 2.0 devices.
Plus, without Firewire support no one can use their flashy new DV digital camcorder to edit their home movies and will go buy an iMac instead. I mean, the average DV camcorder costs more than the PC needed to edit the footage with: a mid-range Canon DV camera is over $1,000 USD and I wouldn't spend more than that on a new PC (well, maybe that's 'cause I live in Canada and that's about $1,300 CDN, which gets you a lot of PC these days.)
Besides, Windows supports Firewire right now. I've used a Firewire PCMCIA card on my Win 2K laptop without any problems. Maybe this is a non-announcement...
Perhaps part of the reason for adapting for a new technology also comes from the marketing department, i.e. how can we strategically increase sales? Changing supported software requires upgrades of hardware, requires more training courses and of course allows companies to help dictate future directions of emerging standards.
It is odd. For all the finger pointing, the "PC" market seems to be making the same decisions that seemed laughable about 2 years ago. Don't worry, it is not that bad. You will realize that they suck in comparison to the new standards. BTW. firewire is wonderful. My constant use of both of these peripheral connectors tells me that USB 2.0, if any similar to 1.1 is a bit less unreliable than firewire. I am sure that this is partially due to the throughput. A note to those who are wondering about firewire drawbacks, here is one. With USB one is able to actually use a cord longer than 3'. With firewire you have to get a power box to allow for length. I have to have my burner on my instead of where I want it.
I guess that one good thing about microsoft's implicit strongarm abilities is that we will now see a slew of cool firewire devices :)
-shut up
FireWire products are widely available now, FireWire has a number of technical advantages over USB2.0, FireWire products work well, and they are faster now than USB2.0 when it will be released.
This brings into question the USB 2.0 standard. The goal is to create a higher bandwidth connection - but from the specs I've seen, it's not going to be as fast as FireWire (unless this has changed). Why bother? Why not mature the existing standard (USB devices still have tons of bugs - a lot of them aren't at the driver level) and expanding the functionality rather than drop it and move to something else when we already have a solution for heavier work?
Perhaps this is Microsoft's motivation behind not supporting it initially. I know that I'd like to see more support for FireWire rather than a souped up USB 2.0. FireWire is already and industry standard with applications everywhere. Same with USB 1.0. We have a hammer and a screw driver. Why add another hammer to the kit?
Why bother.
while this may seem like a smart move by micosoft im certain they have something dirty up their sleeve, or someone who loves Firewire with a lot of money, has graciously donated something to the redmond boys
-- botsex is {grep;touch;strip;unzip;head;mount}
Anybody know if a 5.25" will work in XP?
Check out Apple's store. There are a lot of firewire hard drives, tape backup systems, DVD authoring systems, non-Sony cameras, scanners, and so on. Furthermore, FireWire is going 800MB/s this summer from what I've read which is still much faster than the as-yet-nonexistant USB 2.0. FireWire is also a standard: IEEE 1394.
It's good to see the rare intellectual trollanalysis every now and then. This post should've only have been marked Fresh, crispy with a hint of cedar (+1) or Aged, dark but sparkling (-1), with maybe a couple of Overrated/Underrated remarks thrown in.
Oh no. Oh, Lard, no. I'm boasting about wine descriptions, something I konsider the kardinal zin of kofftobic kvetchina. Doh, cell. Ki'm will ingntiing brdowno rom be Sdayof bhhe Knicuw Chud.</yadda>
Preserve old classics: copy your collection onto all hard drives.
It's actually a requirement of the hardware standards that Microsoft drives. The response from the hardware vendors tends to lag Microsoft's edict, but Microsoft has been demanding that all 'legacy' hardware (serial ports, parallel ports, ISA slots, keyboard ports) be removed from next generation hardware for a few years now. My joke has been that to upgrade a motherboard to suit Microsoft, we should clip off the header pins for the serial/parallel connectors and fill the ISA slot connectors with epoxy.
However, up until not long ago at all, the only USB device compatible with Linux was a strip of black electrical tape placed over the USB connector, so nobody is perfect.
There are a whole bunch of us out here who don't care squat about 'karma.'
Seriously, folks, do you come here to read meaningful content, or is this a little contest to see who can get the most points?
(offtopic, moderate as necessary)
Apple also invented Firewire. That term is (tm)Apple. Sony calls it iLink(tm). The official standard is IEEE-1394.
As a side note: Sony's implementation, "iLink", is the smaller 4-pin connector that isn't a powered connection. The larger 6-pin connection is powered. It's too bad Sony decided to do this, as it would be neat to charge your camcorder while transfering data.
sweeeeet die USB 2.0, they are talking about USB2.0 compliant devices
Read the article! It doesn't say "instead". MS isn't dropping support for USB 1.x.
How many USB 2.0 ports do you have on your computer? None of my computers have this. I wonder why? Oh yeah, maybe because it doesn't exist yet. Man, I bet you're really going to be mad when you find out that XP doesn't support the 2010 standard for thought-wave interfaces.