Slashdot Mirror
Bill Gates on the 360
Engadget had a sit-down with Bill Gates at CES, and they talk for a good while about the Xbox 360's launch and subsequent issues. From the article: "We played quite a variety. Actually, the Xbox Arcade was a big thing, a lot of the adults wanted to sit down and play for five or ten minutes. It was Hexic or Zuma that were easy for them to learn the rules, get used to the controller. We had some younger kids who were just beating the heck out of me at Project Gotham Racing, Kameo, basketball, Perfect Dark Zero. We have, I think, a dozen titles in total."
It's an interesting spin he's got, but there's a grain of truth to it.
Apple may have invented USB (I don't know the history of it), but today most USB devices are connected to Windows based computers. If Windows hadn't adopted USB, it wouldn't have become the standard that it is. Apple has had it's share of proprietary failures too - I don't see a lot of NuBus systems today for example.
It's an ecosystem, and both companies are part of it.
Apple invented fire wire not USB. It was proposed back in the 80's as an SCSI replacement. It was fully developed in the 90's and made it debut at nearly the same time USB did. I think USB was either first developed by Intel or adopted by Intel, can't say for sure. Fire wire never gained popularity over USB because Apple had a hefty per port license fee along with naming problems (Supposedly no one but Apple could call it Fire Wire). Apple used the name Fire Wire, Sony called it I-link and most others called it 1394. Imagine joe six pack presented with three names for the same thing. The only thin that really saved it was its wide adoption in the video world as the interface for most every DV cam.
USB2 is faster in theory although in practice I doubt theres much difference something like 480mbps versus 400mbps
And you will find mostly commodity PC components now. Let's see:
PCI bus = check
ATA or SATA hard drive = check
ATA CD/DVD/ROM/R drive = check
Standard PC style graphics card or chip = check
USB = check (while Apple was one company in the standards body, so were Microsoft and Intel among many others)
DVI connector for monitor = check
Standard Ethernet using TCP/IP = check
And coming soon... Intel x86 CPU
Interestingly, it seems that Apple is phasing out Firewire (which it did create) in favor of USB (see iPod Shuffle, Nano and Video).
Long gone are Localtalk, ADB, NuBus etc.
One of the big trends in Apple since Steve Jobs came aboard was transitioning the Macintosh to use lower cost commodity components. This approach in addition to reducing the number of different Macintosh models and configurations, allowed for cost cutting and increased margins on Mac sales.
I'm not saying Apple hasn't innovated in the hardware space over the years, obviously it has. Today's Apple however leverages commodity hardware and innovates in overall system design, operating system and software.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Apple wanted $1 per port to use the name FireWire, not for the technology itself, and the extra cost was to recoup co-marketing expenses - the actual technology was licensed as IEEE1394 for the standard rate most people including Intel charge for technologies, something like 25 cents per port. Sony called it iLink because they didn't want to pay Apple's marketing cost, which was perfectly fine with Apple. Incidentally, Intel let manufacturers avoid co-marketing costs if they agreed to exclusively put "Intel Inside" stickers on their machines (outside the computer's brand name), otherwise they were charging rates similar to Apple.
Intel invented USB as a low power small periphrials bus that could be chained together and would eliminating device specific periphrial drivers by including drivers in the device itself. I believe it ultimately targets PS/2 mice and keyboards, which is a licensed IBM technology (Intel has "not invented here" problems as bad as Apple, IMO). USB was originally intended for low power devices only, and therefore items like USB disk drives also need power adapters. USB 2.0 was a quick ploy to steal market share for high speed devices, but it still is underpowered (500mA/5V max), if a slower device is plugged into the bus (a USB 1.0 or 1.1 device) the entire bus runs at the slower speed, and requires a special controller (e.g. a PC). USB 2.0 has a 127 device limit, while firewire is 63, and USB 2.0 has a 5m cable limit, while firewire is 4.5m.
IEEE1394 (firewire) is meant to be a powered bus (up to 1.5A/12V), like ATA or SCSI and can run independently between devices without a specialized controller (e.g. without a PC). A 400Mbps device plugged into an 800Mbps chain will not slow devices earlier in the chain (unlike USB, which slows everything to the slowest device), so it is advantageous to chain firewire devices by speed.