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Recent Macs Have Built-in USB 2.0
RalphBNumbers writes "According to a forum thread at CreateMac, a Korean Mac community, the newer MDD 1.25 and 1.42 GHz dual G4s actually use a NEC PD720101 USB 2.0 controller for their built-in USB. Apple's drivers only support USB 1.x, but you can apparently enable USB 2.0 functionality by using the drivers for a USB 2.0 card from Orange Micro that uses the same NEC controller. YMMV." Is there a translation of any of this, somewhere?
Here's a translation..[clicky].
But there isn't really much text anyway....
Rejoice Rejoice ! One time where you don't have to RTFA ! WooHoo!
Moderation: +4. Modded 70% Funny and 30% Overrated. 100% Saturated.
I used BabelFish to translate it and here is how the title came out:
Power in Mac the up-to-date USB 2.0 internal organs?
It's alive!
...wearing a skin-tight topless leather jumpsuit, with cutaway buttocks and transparent crotch panel.
A lot of manufacturers, including Apple, seem pretty pretty close-mouthed on the 1.1/2.0 issue. I don't recall ever seeing an ad for a complete system that specified which version of USB the system supports. I guess everbody has an inventory of motherboards with built-in USB 1.1 that they need to use up. Not that big a deal if you've got an extra PCI slot for a $20 USB 2.0 card. But what if you have an iMac or some other system with no "legacy" ports or slots?
Um. Duh. Take the 200 GB drive out of its case and put it inside the Mac. You've got four internal ATA slots.
And use the DVD-RW in the Power Mac instead of a POS external DVD+RW.
Excuses, excuses.
My guess is apple don't support usb 2 because it would kill firewire 800, a standard that doesn't seem to be adopted by many manufacturer yet.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the device fall back to USB 1 speeds in that case?
I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!
Those prices aren't exactly stellar. That's without any of the fancy user-apps that Apple includes that make life a whole lot easier. That's also without the more durable and attractive construction. Nor does it include a Unix-based operating system that can also run x86 operating systems. Nor does it include FireWire. And the Wi-Fi option would take up the PC Card slot as opposed to being an internal upgrade.
So if you add up all the stuff you'd have to add to the Dell to make it comparable to the Mac, the Mac winds up being a better value, especially over time as Apple's OS updates generally make things FASTER and MORE STABLE as opposed to SLOWER and REPLETE WITH BUGS.
Huh? Ever heard of Microsoft Windows XP? What exactly will I be missing in a Windows XP box that I would get in Apple?
What will you be missing in XP that you get with a mac? iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto... iLife, if you wanna call it that. Four included apps that allow you to do some pretty nifty things with audio, video, and photos. XP ships with Windows Movie Maker and Windows Media Player which would cover video and audio... but they're not designed to work well together, so they don't, and that still leaves out photo and good DVD creation software.
Those Macs do have a USB 2.0 controller, but it doesn't really matter. I read the technical documentation for the NEC uPD7020101, which is the controller used in those Macs. The USB 2.0 portion of the controller is trivial to disable and yet still leave the USB 1.1 portion functional. It is also possible to make the USB 2.0 portion permanently disabled in hardware or disabled in hardware, but possible to enable with a hardware hack. Or for that matter disabled, but possible to enable with a new system BIOS or a new driver. Any of these are possible. Anyone care to guess which one is the case? Knowing Apple any could be the case.
Impersonating Tycho from Penny Arcade since before there was a PA.
My Powerbook's got a DVD-R drive that apparently could be a 2X writer and support DVD-RW, but Apple's drivers only support 1X writing and no RW whatsoever. Now this. Why does Apple deliberately cripple its hardware?
"A witty saying proves nothing." --Voltaire
Thinking back to a year ago, I wish I had bought a firewire ext. hard drive, but it seemed like the PC Cards for USB 2.0 were cheaper. I have a laptop and my options for expansion were fairly limited -- I think I liked the fact that I could just bring my hard drive to work and plug it in to my USB port and pull everything off of it. Now I have an iPod and I have all the firewire ports so a firewire drive would have made sense...
All of my USB 2.0 devices have worked great, though and at a pretty decent speed -- no problems there.
seriouslyexcited.net
I don't think that would work very well for burning DVDs, and moving large files around would be just painful. I actually like the USB 2.0 card I've put in my laptop -- I know moving to firewire would be nice, but I'm just not crazy about the upgrade expense...
seriouslyexcited.net
...the 2.0 chip isn't wired. Apple, like other OEM'simply bought boards with dual capability, since 1.0 only boards are no longer available in the quantities that Apple needs at this time. It takes another step to enable 2.0 circuitry, and that step has not been taken by Apple at this time.
The 2.0 drivers are already in the OS, so anyone that thinks they can buy a new Mac, add drivers, and have 2.0 is a bit of a chump.
Yeah, I should have mentioned that in my comment. I find even firewire hard drives slow, so USB1 must be painful. A USB 1 dvd burner? Forget it. My usb1 cd burner takes 15 min to burn, and that's only for 640MB, not a 4 Gig disc.
But IIRC, the entire USB tree drops down to USB1 speeds if even a single USB1 device is used. So you may not be getting the speed you expect either.
I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!
- 9-pin twisted pair copper (standard for FireWire 800)
Apple also has an interesting and informative FireWire 800/IEEE-1394b tech briefStandard CAT-5
Step-index plastic fiber
Hard polymer-clad plastic fiber
Glass fiber
Also, to the person who responded saying FireWire 800 isn't twice as fast as USB 2 because USB 2 operates at 480 Mbps: you should look at the real life performance of USB - both 1 and 2. It's far short of the theoretical maximum; in the case of USB 2, often well under 400 Mbps. So FireWire 800 is more than twice as fast. Even 400 Mbps FireWire is often faster than USB 2.
However, it's really beside the point if FireWire 800 is faster than USB 2 if the device you wish to connect only has a USB 2 interface. FireWire may be the superior interface and technology for many high-speed tasks, but many consumer devices feature USB 2. It certainly can't hurt to be able to connect to the widest variety of devices possible. FireWire - not only because of speed, but because of features and the flexibility of the standard - will continue to be chosen for high end audio, video, specialty storage and networking, smart home interconnectivity, etc. Look at plasma HDTVs and DVD-A players: you won't see USB 2 on those. But it would be nice for Mac users to pick up a third-party USB 2 scanner, DVD recorder, camera, etc., and be able to take full advantage of the peripheral's connectivity (many of these devices may even have FireWire versions, or versions with both USB 2 and FireWire. But the item in stock and on the shelf at Best Buy always seems to be the USB 2-only version...that's what it really comes down to for some).
Sure, you can't add another drive, but you can replace the one that comes installed. Swap that one for your 200GB, and put the small one in your USB case. It will work if the 200GB drive is bootable. I replaced my iMac's 6GB drive with a 120GB one, and it worked fine.
MacNN's got a story with a link to unofficial drivers that enable the USB 2.0 functionality. Some comments there indicate they really work, though I can't verify this myself (I have neither an MDD G4 nor any USB2 devices)
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Now, mind you, I've seen some pretty bad translations from babelfish, but read this one poster's thoughts: ccep ~ Only one day inquiry possibility 1,000 times it goes over, ni the imagining outside it won and the bedspread which is not the minute when bay anyone it does as a favor the answer writing... Right ing ~ nem it does, the bedspreads ~~~ I honestly had tears in my eyes from laughter for a good five minutes. But maybe that's just me.
"Freedom is letting people do things that you don't like." -Linus Torvalds
At least the drivers didn't work any magic in my hands. I installed the Orange 3.1 drivers for Jaguar, rebooted, and tested the read rate on a dual fireware400/usb2 drive connected to a PM1.42 GHz running 10.2.5. The drive is peppy over firewire (30 MB/sec) but a regular slug over USB (830 KB/sec).