What would be the resale value on a recently purchased PowerBook G4 667Mhz DVI with 256MB SDRAM, 30GB HD, AirPort Card (or not)? It retails for $2,600 or $100 less without the AirPort card.
They're probably holding off because if they implement USB 2 without FW 2 (which, on top of everything else, is cheaper to implement than FW) USB 2 will drive FW peripherals out of the consumer market and into a professional niche. That's what Intel wants, and that's what they'll try to do.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Actually, from what I have seen so far, Intel in fact has played a major part in developing 1394b - at least that's what the guy in the WWDC FireWire Overview session said. Guess they finally have come to the conclusion that it would be rather difficult to push USB to similar levels (3.2Gbps).
On the subject of USB2.. should the new PB have a USB 2, FW 1 and a FW 2 ? At least the current USB can just be replaced. I fear that once Apple switches to FW 2, they will stop supporting the original FW and only have FW 2 ports. We will need to buy a convertor of some sort to keep using our original FW devices.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Actually, there will be no real converters as such. New 1394b-capable devices will have 9-pin 1394b-style connectors exclusively, but as with the current 6-pin and 4-pin (DV) connectors, all you need to conect an older device to a new port is a simple, inexpensive 9-to-6 or 9-to-4 cable.
<strong>PS how hard would it be for someone to market a nice inline USB2 to firewire bridge for mac users?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yeah, came to my mind too. Nobody seems to be interested in building such a device, though - not sure if they just don't see enough demand, or if there are in fact technical difficulties prventing it.
Actually, there will be no real converters as such. New 1394b-capable devices will have 9-pin 1394b-style connectors exclusively, but as with the current 6-pin and 4-pin (DV) connectors, all you need to conect an older device to a new port is a simple, inexpensive 9-to-6 or 9-to-4 cable.
Bye,
RazzFazz</strong><hr></blockquote>
From other threads I was under the impression that FW 2 protocals are not backwardly compatible with the current FW devices. Thus requiring a convertor/bridge device.
I just spent last weekend building an 8 bay Firewire enclosure filled with 120 GB IDE harddrives.
I would be disappointed(AGAIN) by aPple if I had to spend another $300 for a new enclosure once they started using FW 2.
From other threads I was under the impression that FW 2 protocals are not backwardly compatible with the current FW devices. Thus requiring a convertor/bridge device.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
That's definitely not the case. You would need a media converter or something in order to use the new media types (POF, GOF, CAT5), but the standard 1394b interfaces are completely backwards-compatible with current devices.
[quote]<strong>I just spent last weekend building an 8 bay Firewire enclosure filled with 120 GB IDE harddrives.
I would be disappointed(AGAIN) by aPple if I had to spend another $300 for a new enclosure once they started using FW 2.
There are an awful lot of wierd posts on this thread. How about common sense. Not too much and not too little. The PowerMacs went up a minimum of 25% and in some cases more than 100%. So I HOPE from Apple:
iBooks: When they go to G4 their sales will go up radically. In the meantime I don't know what to think of them. I love their form factor but hate their G3ness.
This is pure speculation based on various readings of various rumors.
Anything less will be lame compared to what's happening in the Windows portable scene.
IEEE 1394b comes in two flavors: beta and bilingual.
Beta doesn't support first generation FireWire. Bilingual does. The connectors look very similar but are keyed slightly differently so that beta connectors can fit into bilingual ports but not vice-versa.
Basically, your existing FireWire products will work with a bilingual IEEE 1394b port with a new cable, but will never work with a beta port. 3 new types of cables will exist.
4-pin to bilingual 9-pin
6-pin to bilingual 9-pin
beta 9-pin to beta 9-pin (works with bilingual<->bilingual, bilingual<->beta, beta<->beta)
<strong>IEEE 1394b comes in two flavors: beta and bilingual.
Beta doesn't support first generation FireWire. Bilingual does. The connectors look very similar but are keyed slightly differently so that beta connectors can fit into bilingual ports but not vice-versa.
Basically, your existing FireWire products will work with a bilingual IEEE 1394b port with a new cable, but will never work with a beta port.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Hmm, unless my memory fails me, the beta-only vs. bilingual issue wasn't even mentioned in the FireWire session, so I guess it's a pretty safe bet that Apple will have bilingual ports on their machines.
I understand your dislike of the G3 for multimedia, but 6 of my 8 co-workers have iBooks for tech support and interoperability reasons. The G3 is more than enough and the form factor and OS are the true selling points.
I do not believe that the iBook will ever have a G4, it will probably skip to another low power chip instead (unless they can manufacture the G4 on a really samll process). And that is fine for the iBook's target audience.
<strong>Only 4 days left until the Apple Expo in Paris and no rumors about new hardware.</strong><hr></blockquote>
It's interesting that Steve Jobs will give the keynote in Paris and then, about 9 hours later, Phil Schiller will give the keynote at Seybold in California. I wonder whether Jobs will have big announcements regarding iBooks and PowerBooks (the academic discounts for 'Books ending 9/25 raise my hopes) and whether Schiller will then rehash Jobs' announcements in his keynote.
Some readers seem to be under the impression that there is a "lag" and/or diminishing interest in Firewire with the advent of USB-2. Not so.
It just goes to show just how *conditioned* people can be. Load the shelves with meaningless, shoddy items and tons of bargain-bin junk and right away people think that that's the extent of available products -- not to mention they actually believe that most of that stuff is "quality". Anyway, the point is that people have a habit of taking something and only relating it in terms that they are familiar with; often ignoring the actual facts (i.e. other applications and solutions). In this case Firewire peripherals taking a dive. Hell, with FireWire-2 we can now see native FW hard drives.
As far as Firewire goes, it will definitely end up being more ubiquitous than USB-2 will ever be.
The industries where Firewire implementation are spreading like wildfire are:
- aerospace
- commercial airline
- medical
- automotive
- consumer electronics
These industries, as well as others have taken a very strong interest in the original IEEE-1394 spec and all of them have embraced the
<strong>when is MW Paris?? i was under the impression that it was on the 25...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Personally, I don't give rats booty, but some people here get real up set when Apple Expo Paris gets called MW paris. So I thought I'd tell you nicely before someone decides to bitch slap you
It's next week, starting the ninth or tenth I think.
I would normally expect SJ to announce something. I know the current policy is not to release new hardware at public events because of the detrimental effect it has on sales in the run up. Given that Apple wre not here last year, he might want to make up for it, but the promo suggests an non event in two weeks time
My neice is looking to buy a lap-top before starting university in two weeks and I have an awful feeling she will get the current model, and then hae the new machines come out only a week or two later. This is what happend with the last Powermac updates no announcement was made, just released.
<strong>Yeah, the flaking paint issue is pretty lame. Apple should go unpainted or used anodized colors. Anodized metal will still scratch, but at least it won't flake off, heh.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yeah, Titanium anodizing is actually very hard, but it is not tough. It will marr and scratch. Of course the anodized finish could be clear coated just like cars. That could be really cool, would add lots of depth to the color.
BTW A gold anodized PB is a trashy idea (some previous poster). Kindof like a Mercedes with the gold package. Blecchh!
Comments
<strong>
I've observed it a) in the 745x; b) with the two voltages that Mot uses (1.8v and 1.3v); c) approximately.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
I was just wondering, mainly because it seemed a little strange to me given that power output increases with Vcc squared rather than linearly.
Bye,
RazzFazz
<strong>
They're probably holding off because if they implement USB 2 without FW 2 (which, on top of everything else, is cheaper to implement than FW) USB 2 will drive FW peripherals out of the consumer market and into a professional niche. That's what Intel wants, and that's what they'll try to do.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Actually, from what I have seen so far, Intel in fact has played a major part in developing 1394b - at least that's what the guy in the WWDC FireWire Overview session said. Guess they finally have come to the conclusion that it would be rather difficult to push USB to similar levels (3.2Gbps).
Bye,
RazzFazz
<strong>
On the subject of USB2.. should the new PB have a USB 2, FW 1 and a FW 2 ? At least the current USB can just be replaced. I fear that once Apple switches to FW 2, they will stop supporting the original FW and only have FW 2 ports. We will need to buy a convertor of some sort to keep using our original FW devices.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Actually, there will be no real converters as such. New 1394b-capable devices will have 9-pin 1394b-style connectors exclusively, but as with the current 6-pin and 4-pin (DV) connectors, all you need to conect an older device to a new port is a simple, inexpensive 9-to-6 or 9-to-4 cable.
Bye,
RazzFazz
<strong>PS how hard would it be for someone to market a nice inline USB2 to firewire bridge for mac users?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yeah, came to my mind too. Nobody seems to be interested in building such a device, though - not sure if they just don't see enough demand, or if there are in fact technical difficulties prventing it.
Bye,
RazzFazz
<strong>
Actually, there will be no real converters as such. New 1394b-capable devices will have 9-pin 1394b-style connectors exclusively, but as with the current 6-pin and 4-pin (DV) connectors, all you need to conect an older device to a new port is a simple, inexpensive 9-to-6 or 9-to-4 cable.
Bye,
RazzFazz</strong><hr></blockquote>
From other threads I was under the impression that FW 2 protocals are not backwardly compatible with the current FW devices. Thus requiring a convertor/bridge device.
I just spent last weekend building an 8 bay Firewire enclosure filled with 120 GB IDE harddrives.
I would be disappointed(AGAIN) by aPple if I had to spend another $300 for a new enclosure once they started using FW 2.
Thanks for the explanation.
<strong>
From other threads I was under the impression that FW 2 protocals are not backwardly compatible with the current FW devices. Thus requiring a convertor/bridge device.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
That's definitely not the case. You would need a media converter or something in order to use the new media types (POF, GOF, CAT5), but the standard 1394b interfaces are completely backwards-compatible with current devices.
[quote]<strong>I just spent last weekend building an 8 bay Firewire enclosure filled with 120 GB IDE harddrives.
I would be disappointed(AGAIN) by aPple if I had to spend another $300 for a new enclosure once they started using FW 2.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
No need to worry.
Bye,
RazzFazz
PowerBooks:
1GHz/2MB L3 cache, 167MHz FSB Bus, 2700 DDR RAM max 2x1GB sticks, ATI Mobility 9000 32 MB Video, Bluetooth, USB2 $2995
800 MHz/1MB L3 cache, 133MHz FSB Bus, 2100 DDR RAM max 2x1GB sticks, ATI Mobility 9000 32 MB Video, Bluetooth, USB2 $2395
iBooks: When they go to G4 their sales will go up radically. In the meantime I don't know what to think of them. I love their form factor but hate their G3ness.
This is pure speculation based on various readings of various rumors.
Anything less will be lame compared to what's happening in the Windows portable scene.
[ 09-04-2002: Message edited by: Multimedia ]</p>
IEEE 1394b comes in two flavors: beta and bilingual.
Beta doesn't support first generation FireWire. Bilingual does. The connectors look very similar but are keyed slightly differently so that beta connectors can fit into bilingual ports but not vice-versa.
Basically, your existing FireWire products will work with a bilingual IEEE 1394b port with a new cable, but will never work with a beta port. 3 new types of cables will exist.
4-pin to bilingual 9-pin
6-pin to bilingual 9-pin
beta 9-pin to beta 9-pin (works with bilingual<->bilingual, bilingual<->beta, beta<->beta)
<strong>IEEE 1394b comes in two flavors: beta and bilingual.
Beta doesn't support first generation FireWire. Bilingual does. The connectors look very similar but are keyed slightly differently so that beta connectors can fit into bilingual ports but not vice-versa.
Basically, your existing FireWire products will work with a bilingual IEEE 1394b port with a new cable, but will never work with a beta port.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Hmm, unless my memory fails me, the beta-only vs. bilingual issue wasn't even mentioned in the FireWire session, so I guess it's a pretty safe bet that Apple will have bilingual ports on their machines.
Bye,
RazzFazz
[ 09-05-2002: Message edited by: RazzFazz ]</p>
I understand your dislike of the G3 for multimedia, but 6 of my 8 co-workers have iBooks for tech support and interoperability reasons. The G3 is more than enough and the form factor and OS are the true selling points.
I do not believe that the iBook will ever have a G4, it will probably skip to another low power chip instead (unless they can manufacture the G4 on a really samll process). And that is fine for the iBook's target audience.
This Expo is gonna be remembered as the iApp-Expo... <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
<strong>Only 4 days left until the Apple Expo in Paris and no rumors about new hardware.</strong><hr></blockquote>
It's interesting that Steve Jobs will give the keynote in Paris and then, about 9 hours later, Phil Schiller will give the keynote at Seybold in California. I wonder whether Jobs will have big announcements regarding iBooks and PowerBooks (the academic discounts for 'Books ending 9/25 raise my hopes) and whether Schiller will then rehash Jobs' announcements in his keynote.
Escher
<a href="http://www.1394ta.org/"; target="_blank">http://www.1394ta.org/</a>;
There is also a nice article explaining the new IEEE-1394b (FireWire-2) in simpler text here:
<a href="http://it-enquirer.com/storage/ieee1394b-2.html"; target="_blank">http://it-enquirer.com/storage/ieee1394b-2.html</a>;
Some readers seem to be under the impression that there is a "lag" and/or diminishing interest in Firewire with the advent of USB-2. Not so.
It just goes to show just how *conditioned* people can be. Load the shelves with meaningless, shoddy items and tons of bargain-bin junk and right away people think that that's the extent of available products -- not to mention they actually believe that most of that stuff is "quality". Anyway, the point is that people have a habit of taking something and only relating it in terms that they are familiar with; often ignoring the actual facts (i.e. other applications and solutions). In this case Firewire peripherals taking a dive. Hell, with FireWire-2 we can now see native FW hard drives.
As far as Firewire goes, it will definitely end up being more ubiquitous than USB-2 will ever be.
The industries where Firewire implementation are spreading like wildfire are:
- aerospace
- commercial airline
- medical
- automotive
- consumer electronics
These industries, as well as others have taken a very strong interest in the original IEEE-1394 spec and all of them have embraced the
1394b spec.
Best
--
Ed M.
<strong>when is MW Paris?? i was under the impression that it was on the 25...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Personally, I don't give rats booty, but some people here get real up set when Apple Expo Paris gets called MW paris. So I thought I'd tell you nicely before someone decides to bitch slap you
It's next week, starting the ninth or tenth I think.
<strong>when is MW Paris?? i was under the impression that it was on the 25...</strong><hr></blockquote>
The 25th is when the current Powerbook promotion runs out, the 10th is when the Expo starts.
My neice is looking to buy a lap-top before starting university in two weeks and I have an awful feeling she will get the current model, and then hae the new machines come out only a week or two later. This is what happend with the last Powermac updates no announcement was made, just released.
<strong>Yeah, the flaking paint issue is pretty lame. Apple should go unpainted or used anodized colors. Anodized metal will still scratch, but at least it won't flake off, heh.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yeah, Titanium anodizing is actually very hard, but it is not tough. It will marr and scratch. Of course the anodized finish could be clear coated just like cars. That could be really cool, would add lots of depth to the color.
BTW A gold anodized PB is a trashy idea (some previous poster). Kindof like a Mercedes with the gold package. Blecchh!