Slashdot Mirror
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.)
-A.P.
--
Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
"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 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.
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.
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.
---------------------------
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
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.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
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!"
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
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.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
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.
Glad I'm not the only one that sees it that way.
C-X C-S
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.
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.
--
This space unintentionally left unblank.
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").
No kidding. It's an obvious troll, in the classic sense of a post designed to fool people into a flamewar. It's actually one of the few beautiful, well thought out trolls I've seen on Slashdot. Most people don't even bother to think something out as far as this. It's all goatse.cx this and Beowulf cluster that, with a mix of profanity, racism, and obscene ascii art thrown in.
It's good to see the rare intellectual troll every now and then. This post should've only have been marked Funny (+1) or Troll (-1), with maybe a couple of Overrated/Underrated moderation thrown in.
Oh no. Oh, Lord, no. I'm posting about moderation, something I consider the cardinal sin of offtopic kvetching. Oh, well. I'm still counting down from the Day of the Karma Cap.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
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
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
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.
-----------------------
Nicotine free Amish .sig.
-----------------------
Nicotine free Amish .sig.
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'm sure it has more to do with snubbing Intel, than snubbing Linux.
While Microsoft is watching the revenue losses in the server domain, they don't see Linux (in their mind, a veritable frankenstein of X11, enlightenment, GNOME, KDE, etc. etc.) as a threat to their simplified-for-consumers Windows XP desktop platform.
They also snubbed Intel on the X Box, though they "let" Intel buy their way back into that project late in the game. So now Intel has to pay for the privilege of building stuff that was designed by/for AMD, rather than setting their own specs.
I don't know the specifics of this latest snit that Microsoft has against Intel, but maybe (speculation) it's over a lack of help in getting Windows 2000 to run on IA64.
[
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.
[
And you know if they did implement it before the stuff solidifies, there'd be frothing hordes screaming "incompatibility", and "embrace & extend" in no time.
This is a manual virus. Copy it to your sig and help me spread!
I don't really see it as a real obstacle, though. Another post points out that 2.0 is backward compatible(thank goodness), so it won't be too much of a hinderance as long as MS stays on the ball about getting it out soon.
One of the other replies on this thread also makes the point that with such a pervasive OS, it's probably best to have nothing rather than a half-assed(esp. from Microsoft) implementation in wide deployment. Let's just hope the vendors play nice with their drivers, otherwise it just looks like egg on XP's face.
This is a manual virus. Copy it to your sig and help me spread!
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?
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
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.
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
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?
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.
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 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).
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
Yea, A Better technology is going to be supported, while a weak technology Is having help dying. This is actually good.
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.
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.
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.