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Intel Releases USB 3.0 Controller Interface Spec

hardsky submitted thrilling news about everyone's favorite interconnect cable by saying "USB 3.0 is set to deliver data-transfer speeds of up to 5Gb/s, initially over tweaked connectors and wiring and, later, over optical links."

72 of 374 comments (clear)

  1. One Question by pandrijeczko · · Score: 5, Funny

    Does USB 3.0 assist in the more rapid delivery of porn to my PC?

    If the answer is "Yes", then please continue with your announcement.

    --
    Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
    1. Re:One Question by cerberusss · · Score: 4, Funny

      Does USB 3.0 assist in the more rapid delivery of porn to my PC?

      Why, yes of course! The internet tubes will be replaced with USB 3.0, which is easily done because USB hubs are very cheap. When this is done, everybody will have 5 Gb/s!

      --
      8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
  2. Sigh by Tyler+Eaves · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Still the same symmetrical plug design....stupid, stupid move. Would have been that hard to add a ridge on one side or something, so you don't have to stare at the end??

    --
    TODO: Something witty here...
    1. Re:Sigh by Seraph787 · · Score: 5, Informative

      yea we know its but here are the reasons its needed 1) Backwards compatible 2) Fit more ports in a smaller area, less wasted space 3) Cheaper for manufactures because the mounts are the same thus making it a cheaper industry upgrade to adopt.

    2. Re:Sigh by heffrey · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Most UBB connectors have a USB symbol on one side which means (this side up). I'd never really thought about this until someone gave me an iPod. I then found that I was forever struggling to get the connector in.

      What I concluded was happening was:

      1. I'd sub-consciously worked out that the connector is inserted USB symbol up.
      2. The Apple USB connector has the USB symbol on, but on the other side it has an Apple symbol.
      3. My sub-conscious was in fact not distinguishing between USB symbol and Apple symbol. Instead the logic was something like, "that side has a symbol on, I'll put it facing upwards".

      I'm quite sure that the "symbol faces up" convention is a part of the USB spec. I never needed to know this because my brain naturally worked it out without it ever entering my consciousness. This is a truly wonderful piece of human interface design and yet those morons from Apple go and break it with an inane piece of branding. Way to go Apple. Anyone who ever thinks that Apple cares about usability should think again.

    3. Re:Sigh by ChrisMP1 · · Score: 5, Funny

      If it takes you more than two tries to put in a USB plug, you probably shouldn't be allowed near a computer anyway.

      --
      <sig>&nbsp;</sig>
    4. Re:Sigh by 91degrees · · Score: 5, Funny

      Never had this:

      Try the correct way.
      Try the other way.
      Try the correct way again.
      Look at plug
      Insert screwdriver to bend plug back into shape
      Try the correct way.

    5. Re:Sigh by MyLongNickName · · Score: 3, Funny

      If you push hard enough, it will go in the wrong way as well.

      --
      See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
    6. Re:Sigh by Tim+C · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I've not had that, though I have managed to ruin a lead and one of the ports on my desktop; I had something plugged in and caught the lead as I walked past. The plug ripped out of the port, leaving that internal bit in the port.

      Oh well, I had plenty of other leads and ports...

    7. Re:Sigh by Intron · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What. You've never had plug rage? The last time was trying to get the power plug off a 10-year old hard drive. It seemed to have been superglued.

      --
      Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
    8. Re:Sigh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      That's what she said.

    9. Re:Sigh by chemisus · · Score: 2, Interesting

      what are you talking about?? you obviously dont have one of these

    10. Re:Sigh by andrewd18 · · Score: 4, Funny

      You've never had plug rage?

      Please stay away from my computers. Thanks.

    11. Re:Sigh by j-cloth · · Score: 2, Informative

      USB hot plugs just fine... you put a device in and it works, you yank it out and it disappears. The "Safely remove hardware" bit is because the OS (and more specifically the file system if it's a disk) needs to do some work before a device goes bye bye.

    12. Re:Sigh by mortonda · · Score: 2, Informative

      You forgot the step where you realized you stuck the USB connector into the ethernet slot. It fits, I kid you not.

    13. Re:Sigh by Big+Boss · · Score: 2, Interesting

      3 things i hope they address:

      * it's not UNIVERSAL serial bus if the other end of the cable is allowed to be proprietary. nightmare when travelling and you've forgotten your cable. it's never in the public interest to create a hidden cost (expensive proprietary cables)

      +1! I HATE proprietary cables. Use the damn standards. THAT MEANS YOU APPLE! I don't care if they ALSO have a non-standard connector, but charging and data should be available via USB Mini-B (or the new micro-B if your device is REALLY small).

    14. Re:Sigh by hey! · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I once worked with a guy who just broke things. We'd have the same laptop, and after about three months his had cracks in the case, missing keys, and half-torn out power connector. Mine would be pristine after over a year and a half, except the paint on the keycaps would be worn off.

      The guy wasn't dumb or irresponsible, or even clumsy. He was just rough with machines.

      Some people have a lighter touch with machines than others. My car is a standard, and when my wife drives it I wince every time she shifts and the transmission makes a "kerr-lunk" noise. When it's time shift she just steps on the clutch and shoves the shifter from one position to another. She doesn't take that tiny fraction of an instant to feel that point where the gears will mesh smoothly and silently or bother to get the engine RPMS just right.

      It's not that our value systems are different or anything like that; we both regard the car as a way to get from point A to point B and other than that just an inconvenience. It's that she doesn't have that kind of unconscious awareness of what the car is up to that most drivers do.

      Connectors of all sorts are sources of trouble in the real world. I've worked on mobile applications, and you wouldn't believe the difference in longevity of PDAs with a cradle and those that have to be plugged into a cable. I've seen tons of problems with proprietary connectors on cell phones. I've seen CF card slots torn off their PCBs by vigorous card insertion. Now I could probably insert a CF card ten times a day for ten years straight and never once do anything like that, but there are plenty of people who will do this, reliably, within a hundred insertions or so.

      Connectors ought to be completely bulletproof and foolproof, simple to connect and disconnect, tolerant of rough or sloppy connection or disconnection, tolerant of accidental disconnection (as when a cable is snagged), but stay securely connected otherwise, and work consistently for thousands and thousands of connections and disconnections. Oh, yes, and if it goes on the end of the cable, a large person should be able to step on it without damaging it. That's a tall order, and no connector is perfect, but many connectors, particularly proprietary connectors, are truly awful.

      Motorola for years on some of their phones had a connector that had teeny tiny little spring clips that were supposed to mate with teeny tiny little holes (if I recall) on the receptacle. This was,I suppose, supposed to give the connectors a positive lock. That was a stupid idea unless the receptacle is built like a piece of climbing equipment, but what was worse was that it was mushy and didn't give any tactile or auditory feedback. So people just shoved the cables in and yanked them out. Most of the cables I saw had the little spring clips broken off or bent after a month or two. Many of the phones had damaged receptacles and seriously bent or even ripped out connectors weren't unheard of -- from one of those rare occasions when the connectors did lock together.

      The six pin firewire and full size USB "B" (device end) connectors are pretty good. The four pin Firewire and full size USB "A" (master end) connectors are middling-lousy. The mini-USB connectors on some PDAs and phone are reasonable, and a huge improvement over some of the proprietary connectors they often replace. I don't know about the USB EMU type connectors.

      Barrel type power connectors are usually pretty good, although in some cases they are susceptible to causing equipment damage during accidental disconnect (the classic foot tangled in the power cord scenario). Some of them are fine, others tend to take a bit of the device with them when they go. There really ought to be a break away plug design where you plug a small flexible extension into things like laptops, unless the cord and connectors are designed to survive a strong sideways tug.

      In any case, it's too damned bad that the type A connector is being kept. It's not the worst connector in common use. It's probably OK to plug your printer into your PC once and leave it there. But it's too fragile (both the male and female) for field use where connections are made frequently.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  3. Great! by iminplaya · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Will we ever see a storage medium that can move data that fast?

    --
    What?
    1. Re:Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Doesn't matter. It is a universal serial BUS.

      This means that traffic to and from many slower storage devices can share the path so any speed increase is still a good thing, right?

    2. Re:Great! by ChrisMP1 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Not without a connector for it first.

      --
      <sig>&nbsp;</sig>
    3. Re:Great! by Seraph787 · · Score: 5, Informative

      simple answer: yes

      Complicated answer:
      Progress is inevitable and we definitely need that kind of speed. Its not only about hard drives but also about Audio visual components. Such as an USB HDTV Dongle which is a bit slow for USB 2.0. It is also one of the reasons why webcams currently max out at 2.0 megapixels. anything more than that the current USB 2.0 cannot handle. It is quite easy to eat through those 600MB/s, Just think of the USB 3.0 replacing 1000mbit ethernet.

  4. My god by Centurix · · Score: 5, Funny

    My humping USB dog will be a blur!

    --
    Task Mangler
  5. Will it run Linux? by Enderandrew · · Score: 2, Funny

    I for one, welcome our new dongle overlords.

    I just like to say dongle.

    --
    http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
  6. Embossing by tepples · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes, the USB connector is blind accessible. The "top" of the A plug's plastic part is supposed to be embossed with a USB logo, and the "bottom" isn't supposed to be embossed. So if you know which way is "up" on your PC's connector, or if you are using a hub (in which case up is more obvious), you can more easily plug them in blind.

    1. Re:Embossing by Mattsson · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The problem is that the host-connector has no markings, and sometimes "up" might be either left, right, up or down relative the up of the device itself.

      What they should have done, from the beginning of USB, was to have the connector truly symmetric, so that you could plug it in either way.

      --
      /.Mattsson - My native language is not English, so please don't whine over linguistic errors. (That's lame anyway...)
    2. Re:Embossing by saider · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What they should have done, from the beginning of USB, was to have the connector truly symmetric, so that you could plug it in either way.

      Connecting +5V to ground with a wire is inadvisable. The magic smoke is let out of the chip, which then ceases to work.

      Seriously, how many connectors out there do you know of that let you plug it in any way you feel like? All connectors have to be oriented so that the signals and power goes to the right place.

      Please do not come if I ask for someone to jump my car.

      --


      Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
    3. Re:Embossing by josecanuc · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Maybe not symmetric, but "genderless". See Anderson PowerPole connectors:
      http://www.powerwerx.com/assembly.asp

      No male/female parts, and there's only one way it will fit. Doesn't solve the problem of needing to line up the "tops" of each half of the connection.

      It is possible, however, to have a plug/socket set that allows you to plug it in "up" or "down". You just need double the number of contacts as signals and put all your signals on one half of the plug and wire each signal wire in the socket to two contacts on the socket, in a mirrored configuration. Waste of space, but orientation is irrelevant.

    4. Re:Embossing by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 2, Informative

      Seriously, how many connectors out there do you know of that let you plug it in any way you feel like?

      Oh, I don't know... Ever used headphones?

      How about at least some power connectors?

      I can't even imagine it being easier to manufacture this little square thing than to manufacture something, you know, round like that.

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    5. Re:Embossing by rcw-home · · Score: 2, Informative

      Seriously, how many connectors out there do you know of that let you plug it in any way you feel like?

      For starters, my car keys.

      It can be done, but it requires duplicating contacts in an axially-symmetric way.

      I would have been happy with a trapezoidal or semicircular connector.

    6. Re:Embossing by Ruie · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What they should have done, from the beginning of USB, was to have the connector truly symmetric, so that you could plug it in either way.

      Connecting +5V to ground with a wire is inadvisable. The magic smoke is let out of the chip, which then ceases to work.

      Seriously, how many connectors out there do you know of that let you plug it in any way you feel like? All connectors have to be oriented so that the signals and power goes to the right place.

      Please do not come if I ask for someone to jump my car.

      Trivial, my dear Watson - just have two sets of contacts on the male connector
      that are centrally symmetric. This way regardless of orientation you have proper polarity.

      If you are worried about EM properties of the connector make the host have two sets as well - this way you will not have dangling ends.

    7. Re:Embossing by Tihstae · · Score: 5, Funny

      Seriously, how many connectors out there do you know of that let you plug it in any way you feel like?

      Vagina is the first one that comes to my mind.

    8. Re:Embossing by rwiggers · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You don't even need two sets of contacts, as it can be done electronically. Anyway, the biggest objective on usb development was to make is very cheap on the device side, so anything that adds cost would be dumped very fast. Remember it had some very cheap competitors for the same functionality that the initial proposal had: RS-232, PS/2... And the initial proposal was really for simplistic things like keyboard, mice and joysticks plus some other things. When it came to more complex applications, it was competing with IEEE1394 (firewire), which is a much better protocol for this. But then, the USB spec was free, the IEEE1394 costs a bunch of money. USB is dead simple at the device end, in IEEE1394 everyone can be a host and it's somewhat complicated. And the list goes on.

    9. Re:Embossing by krazytekn0 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Anyone with a macbook look at your magsafe plug for an illustration of this.

      --
      Not all life is cyber. Extra Income
    10. Re:Embossing by Mhtsos · · Score: 3, Funny

      For starters, my car keys.

      Yes, they're for starters.

      *ducks* sorry, couldn't help it.

  7. Everyone's Favorite? by vjmurphy · · Score: 5, Funny

    "hardsky submitted thrilling news about everyone's favorite interconnect cable..."

    Don't know about anyone else, but my favorite interconnect cable is something very, very, different.

    --
    Vincent J. Murphy
    Spandex Justice
    1. Re:Everyone's Favorite? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yeah! Mini-USB!

    2. Re:Everyone's Favorite? by pandrijeczko · · Score: 4, Funny

      At my age, mine's suffering from increased attenuation due to conductor degradation, high signal to noise ratio & the image goes all fuzzy when I wiggle it.

      --
      Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
  8. Re:Come On by Hal_Porter · · Score: 5, Funny

    Damn it.

    Three edits later, and it still makes no sense. I obviously meant to say "If not even the editor posting a stroy is interested".

    [Goes to hide in a corner until he's able to type again.]

    Hvae you seen taht rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy taht syas it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

    http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/~mattd/Cmabrigde/

    --
    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  9. Re:Come On by jgtg32a · · Score: 5, Interesting

    While that is true, I showed that to my GF who is from Hong Kong and knows English as a second language, cannot do it at all, but she can read perfectly and a bit faster than me

  10. But the USB socket is not by Brit_in_the_USA · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And how are you supposed to work out which way is "up" with a socket that is on a tower case or PCI bracket?

  11. Is this really faster? by Sleen · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Will this really be faster or will it just be bigger chunks? Also, will this spec require more cpu overhead? My interest is not for SLR and video cams, but for live audio and instruments where speed, or latency is an issue. USB usually requires more cpu, is prone to more contention and overall offers lower quality for realtime audio processing. And why do people say its faster or higher speed? Maybe your transfers don't take as long, but I am willing to bet that small chunks won't see any benefit.

  12. Where is the "standars" body by bogaboga · · Score: 3, Insightful
    From the actual body of the story...

    Intel has provided chipset makers with a draft specification for a USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller Interface (XHCI), making good a promise it made a couple of months ago.

    I thought we had a standards body that would release such a spec to developers. This development in my opinion, might have other chip makers release a "renegade USB 4.0" promising new features and the like.

    Question is; is it up to manufacturers to think of ideas, name them and release these to the general public? What's up with IEEE Standards group, whose global standards include Biomedical and Healthcare, Nanotechnology, Information Technology and Information Assurance among others?

    1. Re:Where is the "standars" body by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Informative

      I think you are confusing USB with FireWire. FireWire is the IEEE 1394 family of standards (letter suffixes indicating later versions with higher speeds). USB is an interface developed by Intel to help them sell faster CPUs.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    2. Re:Where is the "standars" body by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 5, Interesting

      There is a USB standards group, of which Intel has historically been the driving force. The various USB logos are trademarks of that group, so any "renegade" claiming to have USB 4.0 would be committing a trademark infringement if they tried to decorate it using recognized symbols and logos.

      USB remains one of the great industry success stories, designed by Intel and then licensed out at extremely low prices with a very inclusive policy. USB gained as much traction as it did because Apple used to insist on upwards of $1 in royalties per chip implementing Firewire, on top of the difficulty of implementing Firewire in the first place. The margins on peripheral chipsets are so low that there was no way to manufacture cheap Firewire devices at those prices. They still want too much in royalties even today, which is why budget motherboards never include Firewire, and no low-end devices connect using Firewire. Ever seen a Firewire flash drive?

      Meanwhile Intel understands the concept of a truly mass market, and designed a simpler standard that uses less silicon to implement and less money for permission to implement. The price is higher CPU usage, since USB chips don't do very much work. Then Intel was clever enough to grab a golden opportunity and create a higher speed extension to the standard that suddenly brought it squarely in contention with Firewire, while being totally backwards compatible. Firewire answered, with Firewire 400, but without USB pushing them, they probably wouldn't have bothered to create a higher speed Firewire. Now Firewire 800 is on its way out, but going up against USB 3 at up to 5X the speed, while still having liberal licensing terms. Is it any wonder that camcorder manufacturers are jumping ship and abandoning Firewire?

  13. What real world throughput? by Brit_in_the_USA · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's all well and good to quote the new speed but what will be get int the real world? USB2 never meets expectations due ot the huge (compared to fire wire) host CPU requirements.

    Will Intel be integrating the Larabee core into it's USB 3 host chips?

  14. Not ready. by tikram · · Score: 5, Funny

    I am personally waiting for USB 3.11 for Workgroups to come out before upgrading.

    1. Re:Not ready. by neokushan · · Score: 2, Funny

      No no no, that's Firewire, it's a completely different product.

      --
      +1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
  15. Re:Where is FireWire going? by Tim+C · · Score: 2, Informative

    I believe that firewire is peer to peer, while USB is master/slave. In theory that means that you can connect any two firewire-capable devices and have them talk to each other, which is not possible with USB (you need a hub). I've never actually tried that though, and so cannot personally confirm it.

  16. Re:Come On by PIBM · · Score: 5, Interesting

    it might be because the characters aren't normal for her, since english is my second language and it's not a problem at all, but I use the same set of letters.

  17. Re:So 3.0 is not going to be wireless. by strabes · · Score: 2, Funny

    I think it's a well-known law of the universe that one cannot simultaneously read digg and Slashdot. Maybe it's just me.

    --
    Its = possessive. It's = "it is"
  18. Re:Come On by neokushan · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's a lie and you know it. Nobody on slashdot has a girlfriend.

    --
    +1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
  19. Re:USB? Bah. by MacColossus · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It will be interesting to see if USB 3.0 relies on the processor as much as the USB 2.0. This has led to firewire (400mbps) outperforming USB 2.0 (480mbps) in real world tests. In todays multicore world this may be non-issue on most machines by the time it ships. In a way I hope USB 3.0 does perform well. I would be OK with firewire going away if Firewire 3200 is outperformed by USB 3.0 without hogging to many clock cycles.

  20. eSATA? by amcdiarmid · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm certain that USB3 will be "supposed to be" backward with USB 1; 1.1; 2, but will likely only be backwards compatible with 2. Right now, a Hard disk cannot keep up with eSATA at 1.5 Gb/s, nevermind eSATA at 3Gb/s. For the past year or so, many of us have been buying $15 eSATA cards for our old computers, and new computers with eSATA built in. Considering that external HD cases with eSATA connectors cost only about $16 (something with 4 eggs, at Newegg) what is the benefit?

    Possible benefits would be increased transfer speed to peripheral devices, but can we reasonably expect devices that fast by then? Personally, I would hope that 10Gb/s ethernet would come down in price by then. The only real benefit I see with the proposed USB3 is something for a processor core to do....

    $.02

    PS: I will give a possible something to do mention to Hard Disk (Solid-State) video recorders... but they could use eSATA as well & still be saturated..

  21. Re:Come On by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    You know firefox has a build in spell check these days, you might want to look into that.

    Oh the irony...

  22. Re:Come On by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    *sigh*. mod parent up.

  23. Re:Come On by Jellybob · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yup. I have seen the research, and I clearly needed to step away from the keyboard.

    Although I think my point stands, when the entire discussion on this article is on my crappy spelling and grammar, rather then the oh-so-exciting USB 3.0

  24. Re:Come On by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    I am a girlfriend, you insensitive clod!

  25. SATA 3GB in a software raid by davidwr · · Score: 2, Insightful

    In theory, you could take two SATA 3GB drives and put them in a dedicated box that treated them as a software-driven RAID-0. That would give you peak theoretical data transfer of 6Gb/sec, but that's likely to happen only if you hit the drives' on-board caches. Connect that to your box using USB 3.0.

    Of course, I'd probably prefer 1Gb/sec Ethernet, so I could see the data from my network not just one machine.

    Seriously though, widespread use of the full bandwidth will probably not show up until 6-12 months after this hits the market. But it will come. It will be a competitor to eSATA.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  26. Why? by thatskinnyguy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why do we need USB 3? The reason for my question is e-SATA. Why not pump more into development of devices that run on that interface instead of USB?

    --
    The game.
  27. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  28. Plug rage by davidwr · · Score: 2, Informative

    Don't laugh. I've seen power plugs glued to drives.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  29. Re:Come On by Kristoph · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yes but the point is, no one on Slashdot HAS a girlfriend ...

    Or ... err ... are you a girlfriend with a girlfriend on slashdot ... because that would be like ... whoa!

    ;-)

  30. Re:Where is FireWire going? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's not a huge limitation for USB since devices just include a USB host controller as well. This allows, for example, a USB camera to print to a USB printer. The main win for FireWire is the lower protocol overhead (meaning that it gets closer to the rated wire speed) and the lower CPU usage.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  31. Re:Come On by Hal_Porter · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The problem is that build and built are both words and so a computer spell checker can't tell if you get them mixed up.

    Actually, I can't tell if someone else gets them mixed up unless I force myself - the bizarre thing about reading is that if you're reading for meaning rather than spelling, errors like this get 'error corrected' away at some level beneath the conscious one, particularly if you're reading stuff on the internet where most people are pretty sloppy.

    I suppose 'Grammar Nazis' just never learn this skill.

    --
    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  32. Re:USB? Bah. by larkost · · Score: 2, Informative

    It is not just the dependance on the processor that makes the "slower" FireWire 400 beat out USB 2.0 (the fast one... whatever they are calling that today). A rough outline:

    1) FireWire allows devices to allocate a specific slice of time to their needs for a period of time. This slice of time can then be used exclusivly by the device to transmit that round of data. This keeps devices from interupting the flow durring those periods. USB has a part-way analog to this, but it is not nearly as efficent.

    2) FireWire allows any device to talk to any other without requiring a CPU's intervention. So if you are transfering from on HD to another connected via FireWire the data never has to flow thorugh the CPU (unlike on USB).

    3) FireWire has explicit support for DMA (direct memory access), so when transfering data to and from an internal HD the CPU only has to grant access to the bits on disk and the FireWire support chips can handle streaming the data from one storage device to the other (like #2, but lightly different).

    4) Latency can be gaurenteeded through a mechanism in the time-slice arbitration system. So audio devices can have the guaranteed chanels. On USB it is a constant fight... that does not work for music devices if you start loading up the USB system. This works well with the DMA thing, so even if your CPU is busy at the moment it does not have to make the context switch before accepting the data.

    Most of these differences are inherint in the basic design of the two protocols. And they cause the FireWire bridge chips to be significaly more expensive (still we are talking a mater of a dollar or two). I have not heard any good analasis of USB 3 yet (since the spec just came out), but I suspect that USB 3.0 will still be saddled with the legacy of USB 1.0 (which was designed with mice an keyboards in mind... everything else seems to have been showhorned in).

  33. Re:Come On by Hal_Porter · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I once dated a Chinese girl in the UK who'd arrived from China and learned English very quickly, in two years. I found out that just after she woke up she had great difficulty speaking English. But once she was awake she spoke it very fluently, though it was clear that it wasn't her native language because she never used chavisms like slightly thuggish English people I knew then would pepper their sentences with. It's like her English translator software was an application rather than part of her 'OS' and thus booted a bit late.

    I've read that there's some strange process where you go from thinking in your native language and translating it to thinking in a foreign language. Personally, I've never got past the stage where I can buy stuff in shops in (Swedish, used to be able to do it in French at school). I doubt I'll ever get to the point where I'm properly bilingual. Let alone in a language like Chinese.

    Mind you if your native language is not English you're exposed to English from a very early age, so I think non English speakers have an advantage. Certainly if I were Swedish or Chinese I would have made sure I learned English.

    --
    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  34. Symmetric USB connector *IS* possible. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Picture this, 8 pins in a row.

    1 VCC
    2 GND
    3 D-
    4 D+
    5 D+
    6 D-
    7 GND
    8 VCC

    No matter which way you plug it in, the pinout would've worked fine. The additional cost to manufacture an 8-pin USB cabling system versus the current 4-pin scheme would've been negligible.

  35. Re:Where is FireWire going? by dontmakemethink · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I believe that firewire is peer to peer, while USB is master/slave. In theory that means that you can connect any two firewire-capable devices and have them talk to each other, which is not possible with USB (you need a hub). I've never actually tried that though, and so cannot personally confirm it.

    The iPod was originally designed to be able to share files by simply connecting two iPods. Once the iTunes possibility presented itself, it was one of the first things to be disabled to satisfy record label interests, along with the ability to record audio.

    --

    War as we knew it was obsolete
    Nothing could beat complete denial
    - Emily Haines
  36. Re:Come On by warsql · · Score: 2, Funny

    You only speak 1 language? That's embarrassing.

    --
    878659 - yep its prime.
  37. Re:Come On by Dolda2000 · · Score: 4, Funny

    You know firefox has a build in spell check these days, you might want to look into that

    Eye halve a spelling chequer
    It came with my pea sea
    It plainly marques four my revue
    Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

    Eye strike a key and type a word
    And weight four it two say
    Weather eye am wrong oar write
    It shows me strait a weigh.

    As soon as a mist ache is maid
    It nose bee fore two long
    And eye can put the error rite
    Its rare lea ever wrong.

    Eye have run this poem threw it
    I am shore your pleased two no
    Its letter perfect awl the weigh
    My chequer tolled me sew.

  38. Re:Come On by Thomasje · · Score: 2, Interesting

    English is my third language, and I can read it with no problem. My first two languages are Dutch and German, FWIW.
    I think this is pretty interesting. I'm going to write a little program to randomize text in this manner, and then I'll feed some ebooks through it. I wonder how readable chemistry texts will be after this kind of treatment. :-)

  39. Re:Come On by TheLink · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "you're reading for meaning" ... "where most people are pretty sloppy"

    That's fine if people are trying to express "standard" or "normal" aka boring stuff.

    If you are trying to communicate unusual meanings to somebody else, it doesn't work so well if you are sloppy.

    On Slashdot I'm expecting the discourse to be on a higher level than "Me hungry. Want food", and that at least some people here will post stuff that is out of the ordinary and hopefully interesting.

    In such a case, in addition to figuring out whether the writer made a mistake in spelling, grammer, you also have to figure out whether the writer made a mistake in reasoning, or is trying to be funny, or is saying something really _different_, or is saying multiple things at the same time, or is just plain crazy, or whatever.

    It's all very easy to parse if you only have to expect people to say boring stuff.

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