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?

Comments

Translation fun

[yomegaman]

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!

Re:Translation

[xWeston]

Here is a link that works for translation..

Babelfish Korean->English Translation of article

Rejoice Rejoice! One time where you have to CTFP (Check the F Preview). WooHoo!

USB Secrecy

[fm6]

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?

Re:About time...

[myov]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the device fall back to USB 1 speeds in that case?

Re:USB 2 Treat Firewire 800

[Wesley Felter]

Since FireWire 800 is twice as fast as USB 2.0, it's hard to see a threat there.

Re:Who cares?

[thedbp]

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.

Re:Who cares?

[brandonlp]

It's without any of the fancy user-apps that Apple includes that make life a whole lot easier.

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.

USB 2.0 controller and Macs

[Tycho]

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.

Re:USB 2.0 controller and Macs

[Tycho]

Yes, but have never heard of any direct quote from anyone who speaks english that these drivers work. The only links to that I have seen are to a Korean forum that have been translated by babelfish. The accuracy of the translation is not perfect so it cannot be relied on. The only direct quotes from english speakers that I have seen say that these drivers do not work.

I'm getting a bit tired of this

[hprotagonist0]

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?

Re:I'm getting a bit tired of this

[snuffdiddy23]

the powermacs got an update to increase their speed performance to allow for the new higher speed media, and they may follow suit with that with the powerbooks as well.

i would also say that you should not expect much of an optical drive in a laptop. i imagine that it would be pretty system intensive to burn a dvd at 2x on a powerbook and would get mighty hot anyway.

apple really does not cripple their hardware so much as not allow for poor support of it. no dvd support at all until 10.1, so why expect them to have support that they feel is satisfactory on a relatively new concept? apple does a great deal of tech support and i think that they are best to not release anything unstable to save their already busy support people when it can all be avoided by quality products.

Not true

[djupedal]

...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.

1394b is a lot more than "FireWire 800"

[daveschroeder]

IEEE-1394b can support speeds of 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, and 3200 Mbps, and can support the following media (not all speeds supported on all media):

• 9-pin twisted pair copper (standard for FireWire 800)
• 
  Standard CAT-5
  Step-index plastic fiber
  Hard polymer-clad plastic fiber
  Glass fiber

Apple also has an interesting and informative FireWire 800/IEEE-1394b tech brief

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).

Driver available

[Halo1]

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)

The Orange Drivers Do *NOT* Activate USB 2.0

[Anonymous Coward]

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).