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Microsoft

FireWire For Windows XP, But No USB 2.0 214

Posted by timothy from the duck-duck-duck-goooooose dept.
Lizard_King writes: "In this ZDNet story, Microsoft has announced that they will support Apple's Firewire technology in Windows XP and not USB 2.0. Looks like USB 2.0 hardware manufacturers will have to supply their own drivers for the initial release of XP." I sure hope this isn't a death knell for USB 2.0, but the argument that there just aren't that many USB devices seems valid, if circular. (And Firewire is good stuff.)
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FireWire For Windows XP, But Not USB 2.0 More

FireWire For Windows XP, But Not USB 2.0

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  • Apple's Firewire? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    AFAIK firewire is an open standard, that's why is called sometimes IEEE1394.

  • Re:Out to get us/Linux Support (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    A firewire keyboard would be just as inane as an Ultra SCSI Doublewide 56k modem.
  • Moderation Totals:Insightful=1, Interesting=3, Informative=1, Overrated=1, Total=6.

    s/\w+=/Funny=/g

    I'm scared. Hold me.
  • MS wants desperately to untie themselves from the PC market, and extend themselves into the network on one end, and into the "appliance/device" space on the other. This is where the growth for them is, if they want to maintain expanding revenues. You can probably find lots of related analysis to this on the 'net.

    How does this play for the USB/FireWire debate? USB is a PC spec. It's existence was mid-wifed by Intel, and its adoption made possible mainly by Intel shipping chipsets and motherboards with USB built-in. USB has been a central part of the 3 successive "legacy free" PC specs that Intel sponsored. Intel does not have, nor do they plan to ever offer the same integration for FireWire/IEEE1394. Why is this? Because USB is a "dumb" bus. It needs a PC (or a Mac, or a PlayStation) functioning as a "root hub" to manage the device I/O. FireWire is a "smart" bus, which has devices that operate as peers, including PCs.

    Because of this, a FireWire Camcorder can dump an MPEG file, over a simple cable, straight onto a FireWire hard-disk - no PC in the middle! No fun for Intel, who would love to sell more CPUs in the middle. They'll only support FireWire if forced to by the market. Also, Apple charges a dollar-per-port licensing fee to FireWire manufacturers. I don't see Intel volunteering $2 to Apple on every motherboard they make, not when they can produce a competitive specification, which also reinforces their own market.

    MS loved the idea of breaking away from Intel, almost as much as Intel relishes the idea of shedding MS. MS has plenty of specs for embedded and set top machines based on WinCE - using Hitachi, ARM and MIPS processors. Talk of Embedded NT almost never occurs here. If MS supports FireWire instead of USB, they can make plays with Sony and Panasonic and Phillips for getting CE into camcorders, DVD players, and even Microwave ovens... The Camera/DVD world is already FireWire (called iLink in this space).

    That techno-fantasy world that everyone is envisioning- the one with intelligent cell-phones and PDA's on the Internet, interacting as meta-computer- MS wants to own this space. They want this world to be created as .NET, with MS software running on the endpoints. They don't need Intel for this vision as much as they need the Sony's and Nokia's. Picking FireWire over USB is one of a number of small, defining positions they are taking here.

    Bluetooth is stillborn after 2 years in the making. Vendors were unable to demonstrate the simplest interoperability at last month's CeBit show in Europe. MS will go for 802.11 (which is already entering its 3rd iteration) and possibly support the nascent Wireless IEEE1394.

    I had gut feelings about USB/FireWire at the beginning of the year, and started buying FireWire devices and interfaces, not USB. We'll see how this ends up playing out, but I am happily using FireWire as my backup transport, and am using FireWire dongles attached to SCSI devices with 3 different OS's. I have very little of the driver issues that USB put me through, with non-compliant mass-storage devices, etc.

    --Jeremiah

    The key words "MUST", "SHALL", "REQUIRED",

    "SHOULD", "RECOMMENDED", and "MAY"

    in this document are to be interpreted

    as described in [RFC-2119].

  • Can't you say the same thing about IEEE 1394 devices? I'd say there's actually *a lot* more stuff available for USB than FireWire.

    - A.P.

    --
    Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?

  • Well, okay, they do. For *one* device: Sun's own, proprietary videoconferencing camera. Sun will steer you toward their high-priced SCSI cards if you want to add external storage to your Blade 100 workstation, though, and no other Sun hardware has Firewire ports.

    -A.P.

    --
    Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?

  • As far as I'm concerned they can provide support, or no support, for isa, pci, vme, usb, 1394, sbus, qbus, xbus, nubus, scsi, or the fucking school bus. What Microsoft and the peecee makers do has no impact on my life. The isolation is lovely, I'd encourage all of you to try it some time. Life is short - use a workstation.
  • "If it had been Apple's, then you know it would've done better. Sure, Intel has a vested interest in promoting USB, and sure, Intel is a pretty big company. But as big as Apple? Not by a long shot."

    Intel is much, much bigger than Apple is. Intel's marketcap is 185.81 billion USD while Apple's is 7.7 billion USD as of 7.52 am PDT today.

    I agree though that Firewire is much better than USB 2.0. As for those that wonder why Firewire isn't on more motherboards...well...thank Intel for that.

  • Re:Not many USB devices? (Score:4)

    by Wyatt Earp ( 1029 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2001 @05:38AM (#299111)
    There are Epson scanners and printers that have Firewire, as well as some Canons and Agfas...but the Firewire for Printers and Scanners are only on the high end machines.

    Now I like USB for keyboards and mice and PDAs, but bo does it suck compared to Firewire for things like CD burners.

    USB 2.0 just seemed like a half-assed attempt to overthrow Firewire using Intel's might.
  • Look, who cares if FireWire has been out longer than USB 2? Whatever happened to the 'may the technically superior solution win' mentality here on /.? Is it just a convinient excuse to bash Microsoft with whenever one of their obviously technically inferior products does well in the marketplace, but when the shoe's on the other foot (we all know here Apple can do no wrong) it's suddenly incumbent's advantage regardless of merit? What's that I smell here? Could it be... hypocrisy?

    I think (FWIW) USB 2 will do just as well, or better, than USB 1.1, for the same reason USB 1 beat out FireWire originally (cheaper, easier, and industry supported). If you build USB 2 devices they will come, Windows XP support in place or not, never stopped anyone before.

  • This whole thing has been blown way out of proportion and out of context. MS will not support USB 2 in the same was Linus dislikes OS X because of some quip he made about Mach kernels. That is to say, neither statement is accurate.

    MS does not _currently_ support USB 2, mainly because, wait for it, it's not ready yet! That's right, (to the best of my knowledge) USB 2 spec is not finalized yet. Which means building USB 2 devices is pointless right now, as is writing low level code to support them. Rest assured, USB 2 support will be ready when the spec is ready, and I'm betting MS has code in development right now just waiting for final tweaks and testing.

    Saying we don't support USB 2 right now because it's not ready is not nearly the same thing as saying we will never do USB 2 because we think FireWire is just oh so wonderful, like most posts here would have you believe.

  • You've posted this troll twice already, but you don't seem to understand. It's not about USB. It's about USB 2.0, which was Intel's "firewire killer" with faster bandwidth than present (but probably not 6 months from now) firewire, with the penalty (compared to firewire) of having much higher processor loading per data transfer. Intel's in the processor business; they need your peripherals to be using as much of your processor as possible while transferring data, so you'll have a reason to buy a faster one.

  • I think it's pretty clear that he means there are not many USB 2.0 devices. Everybody knows there are piles of USB 1.0 devices.

    iMacs these days are based around USB 1 and Firewire (although I believe the cheapest model lacks Firewire). It's quite a nice paradigm: both interfaces are very simple to use, USB provides enough speed for keyboards/mice/scanners etc, and Firewire is great for DV cameras, and even does a creditable job of running external hard drives, CD burners and so on. This means that Joe Consumer can use a practically unlimited range of devices without ever getting involved in jumper switches, terminators, or sacrificing young goats to the SCSI gods. The maximum level of competence required is being able to distinguish between a long flat connector (USB) and a small square connector (Firewire).

  • :-)

    That's interesting, because for me moving to Windows 2000 eliminated a lot of the things which annoy the hell out of me with NT 4.

    One of the things that annoys me in NT4 is how apps can grab focus from me when I'm trying to do something else. Win2k prevents this, if an app wants attention the icon blinks down on the start bar.

    That's not the only thing, there are a number of other improvements that just make the whole environment smoother.

    I'm not sure about Win XP. I haven't tried the beta. What I see of the user interface it looks much improved.

    The anti-piracy system annoys me. But I also can subvert it by making a copy of the CD at work which won't have that system on it.

    I think the consumers will very likely revolt against the new system. We'll see.

  • You mean like preemptive multitasking?

    Oh wait, Apple just released that last weekend.
  • You mean that Apple was shitting product using Microsoft Xenix!?

    Ok, about that protected memory. Did Apple release that last weekend as well? :)
  • Linux already supports Firewire (IEEE 1394):

    http://linux1394.sourceforge.net/
  • If you can remember Windows 95, this had an awesomely buggy USB stack causing misery for everyone involved. It was improved in 95 Release 2, then in 98, again in 98 SE and there is a different stack in Windows 2000. Different USB devices react differently across those different operating systems causing support nightmares.

    Since there are no volume USB 2 peripherals out there yet this is no loss to anyone. USB 2 is backward compatible with all the USB 1.1 peripehrals out there, so it will not stop Intel getting USB 2 on to motherboards. Maybe by the end of the year or the beginning of next year there will be support for USB 2 in the OS and then we will see the peripherals in volume.

    In the meanwhile, I shall be using Firewire hard drives and USB for lower bandwidth applications.
  • yet they are paying you to read slashdot? ;)
  • Why is it that every windows troll blames every single crash on "bad drivers". Why can't you just admit that windows is buggy? Never mind that it took 3 service packs just to make NT4 semi-stable. Never mind that the entire windows 95 line is just a big hack. It's always the drivers' fault.

    Though I'm sure drivers are _sometimes_ responsible, it is by far not always the case. For the record, I own an ATI card. Windows crashes daily, Linux doesn't.

    ___
  • USB 2.0 will deliver throughput of up to 480 megabits per second vs. FireWire's 400mbps or 12mbps for USB 1.1. That's up to 40 times faster than USB 1.1. This is really misleading, due to either A) the first version of USB 2.0, which isn't even done yet is only supposed to do 120 Mbps. or B) The firewire standard is supposed to be able to do 1600 Mbps in future hardware, although we have been promised that for quite some time. I wish the writer of that article had compared either initial versions, or expected versions, not one of each.
  • firewire also has a clear upgrade path to 1600 Mbps
  • These are 2 different busses with 2 different uses. First of all firewire doesn't require the cpu to do its work (why do you think intel hates it.) Firewire chips are just as cheap as USB chips. If not cheaper because they will be in all consumer electronic devices, not just computers and accessories. USB 1.1 had a place, USB 2.0 is no more useful than USB 1.1. Are you kidding about show me a desktop that can deal with 1600 Mb/s? we are talking about the future here, but either way my desktop has no problem reading that sorts of speed from an untra wide scsi drive, so why would any other device be any different? USB will have a problem with higher speeds because it is very processor intensive. maybe you only connect keyboards and mice to your machine.
  • however USB's bus sharing is terrible. So if you have 2 devices, a 1.1 and 2.0 the 2.0 device will only get half of the available 480 Mb/s.
  • What Are you? An idiot! Yes Apple, sony, and others get paid for people to license the use of Firewire (A whole $.25 that would be 2 bits, or a quarter per device). Intel gets paid to use USB. Inventors of technology deserve to get paid to develop new technology.
  • It does make you wonder.

    And when will Linux get FireWire, I know Solaris his it.
  • I'm still holding out for my ATA100 5.25" floppy drive.
  • Have any USB 2 devices been introduced yet? USB 2 add-on cards for current PCs? I'd say that until it's clear that the drivers won't run into the same interoperabilitry nonsense Bluetooth has right now, this is a safe and sensible decision.

    Meanwhile, IEEE-1394/Firewire/iLink works just fine, is scheduled to get a speed boost of its own soon, and is already a well-established standard for all sorts of scanners, storage devices.

    The whole brouhaha over the per-device royalty Apple and the other partners demanded is a lousy argument for USB 2.0; It simply offers vendors a choice between paying an extra buck to Apple or paying an extra buck to Intel.
  • But no one is noticing that, probably cause it's not juicy enough. The reason is that all DV video cameras have firewire(TM). Consumers want DV support. Therefore MS must support it otherwise Apple will keep shoving their DV/firewire support in everyones face. No vast conspiracies. Not because of copy protection. Not because MS invested in Apple. Not because MS is having a miff with Intel. DV cameras are the shit.

    t.

  • First off, it's not "built-in." The copy-control you are talking about is the DTCP (Digital Tranmission Content Protection) and was created by a consortium of five companies, Intel, Sony, Matsushita, Hitachi and Toshiba. Notice how Apple's not there (sidenote: Apple voted AGAINST the CRMP ATA spec while Intel voted for it).

    A company (for example, DVD-CCA) could create a way to transmit digital data over fireware while having it protected. There is nothing stopping anybody from doing the same thing with USB. It's all encryption and proprietary drivers.

    On a positive note, it will only be through a technology such as this that will EVER allow us to have firewire-enabled DVD players. The most important thing is to get the stupid port on it. We can hack it later. The MPAA has said 'NO' to DVDs with digital outputs. It will be a sad, sad day if DVDs come with USB2.0 over FireWire.
    ---------------------------
  • I think the reason why Microsoft will support IEEE-1394 connections in Windows XP out of the box is the fact that IEEE-1394 connections has finally found some widespread use, notably in the field of connections to Mini DV format camcorders and high-resolution scanners. Also, we're starting to see high-speed CD-RW external drives connected through IEEE-1394 bus, which allows the CD-RW drive to run at full speed (e.g., at least 12X recording speed).

    I think Microsoft may make USB 2.0 support available late this year, either by redirecting to a motherboard chipset software download site from either Intel, VIA Technologies or Acer Labs, or will provide the updated support through the Windows Update page.
  • This is the second announcement of Microsoft's intention to not support a "hot" peripheral connection mechanism. They announced the same thing with BlueTooth earlier this month (in this [slashdot.org] article).

    I think it is probably wise that they are waiting for it to shake out, as there will are currently disagreements as to what the specification means in some places. It is probably better to have vendor-supplied support that works with the devices that are important to you, instead of a half-baked implementation that is stuck in the OS and works with nothing.

  • Ooops -- meant to say "true", as in Firewire has copyprotection.
    --
  • His claim is false -- copy protection was added to 1394 as part of the HDTV politicing.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/990528-000013.html and check google.
    --
  • Windows 2000 and ME do in fact already have some support for Firewire. I think XP just adds built-in drivers for some more host controllers.

    Which is why this is kinda non-news. "PCI for Windows XP, but no Infiniband!"


    --
  • OK that was a crappy link:

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/17845.htm l indicates it's being added to the protocol spec.

    I also believe that the FCC's DTV committee has approved something like this, and Sony is apparently intent at getting 1394 standardized as the digital TV/theater connector of the future.

    Considering that Apple is talking about being "the digital hub", they will pretty much have to support the copy-control mechinisms, or your iMac-DV won't be able to talk to your new Sony TV.
    --
  • And how many printers or scanners or graphics tables support firewire?
  • firewire also has a clear upgrade path to 1600 Mbps

    Great, now tell me what applications can actually use that much bandwidth. For that matter, show me a desktop computer that can process that much raw data. Also, for the low speed components like mice and keyboards, will the cost of FireWire interface circuitry ever be as cheap as USB 1.1 circuitry?

    The biggest advantage I can see for FireWire is it's use of P2P verses S/M interfacing. Devices like PDAs and non-computer connected devices such as A/V equipment have a clear use for FireWire. I just don't know if that will be enough to overcome the momentum USB is likely to have on the desktop.

  • Except the obvious fact that this is an Intel technology that will probably require Intel silicon.

    There is 3rd party silicon for USB 1.1 and I don't see any reason why this would change with 2.0. You will probably see USB 2.0 on Intel silicon first, but I'm sure we'll see it from other's soon. As an example, a few weeks ago I bought a 2-port USB 1.1 PCI card for $20. It was some no-name clone card company. Certainly not Intel silicon here.

  • Firewire chips are just as cheap as USB chips. If not cheaper because they will be in all consumer electronic devices...

    Ah, this is the kind of logic I like to hear. If the price is competitive with USB, the motherboard manufacturers will be more likely to include it.

    USB will have a problem with higher speeds because it is very processor intensive.

    This is a very good argument. If USB 2.0 bogs the machine down at 480Mbps, there will be more reason to look towards FireWire for high-speed components.

    I would love to see both interfaces on motherboards. My original statement was that the motherboard manufacturers are more than likely only going to include one. USB is more entrenched which makes it more likely to be the one to win out. If a strong merit is shown why both should be present, then our odds of seeing both are that much higher.

  • First, learn a little more about USB 2.0 here:

    I really feel that USB 2.0 will be the dominant player in a few years. This won't be because of technical superiority as much as entrenchment and having a clear upgrade path.

    As long as the cost of USB 2.0 PC interfaces comes down to close to that of USB 1.1, there will be no reason for motherboard manufacturers to not put the interface out there. The 2.0 ports can still talk to 1.1 hubs and peripherals, so in the beginning the end user will not see a difference.

    Once enough machines are out there with USB 2.0 interfaces you will see some peripheral manufacturers start to migrate over as well. People will always have a mix of 1.1 and 2.0 components being that they will coexist on the system using the same string of cables. However, in time, 2.0 ports will be the only thing you find on new PC motherboards.

    Now, think in terms of a motherboard manufacturer. This is a commodity market and cutting costs is essential. These motherboards already support USB 1.1. They know they will be replacing the 1.1 ports with 2.0 ports. These manufacturers are going to ask themselves, "why should I put two incompatable high speed interfaces on the board?" To take it to a further extreme, in a few years I expect to see many motherboards coming out without old fashioned serial and parallel ports. Even the keyboard and mouse ports could be endangered if the cost of the USB keyboard and mice come down.

    Firewire is likely to be out there for a long time to come. It will probably dominate the A/V world being that USB was never targeted to that market. However, except in high-end situtations, I don't think we will ever see a lot of motherboards including direct FireWire support. It will remain an add-in card for most people.

    Microsoft will eventually support USB 2.0. They are just going to wait until real hardware shows up. This is the same scenario they are taking with Bluetooth [matlock.com] support. Intel or other hardware manufacturers will release add-on software for Windows to handle USB 2.0 until Microsoft integrates it into the OS. It has been done before and it will be done again.

  • Looks like those NBCi bastards TOS'd the guy.
    I just pray that I have the flash bit in my cache at home...it was truly godlike.

    C-X C-S
  • Glad I'm not the only one that sees it that way.

    C-X C-S
  • Chalk up one more neat idea that Apple had 10 years before MS thought to copy it. Like the bunny says, good things come to those who wait.
  • Apple's been selling OS X Server for quite a while. (Is it one year or two?) IIRC, the Apple Lisa had preemptive multitasking in 1982. Both Apple and Microsoft sold versions of Unix (A/UX and Xenix, respectively) in the late '80s. Apple was well known to be developing a preemptive multitasking system from about 1989 onward, and we all know how well that worked out. Pink became Taligent, which went bust. (Rumor has it, Pink was actually in pretty good shape before IBM fscked it all up.) Then came Copland, which was good enough to release as a developer beta before it was deep-sixed for reasons I don't understand. Only after they barfed on all of these did they buy NeXT and start all over again.

    But of course, all this is beside the point. You know as well as I do that preemptive multitasking is totally overrated. It's worth 100 times as much as a checkbox feature than as a practical device. Here's a perfect case in point: My MacOS 7, 8, or 9 machine has a much more responsive interface on a 75-MHz machine than Gnome on a 500-MHz Linux box. I am not making this up. Cooperative multitasking can work very well. On the Mac, it almost always does. Multithreaded, even. Another case in point: a batch process started up on my UltraSPARC today that rendered the box unusable by me until it completed. Preemptive multitasking is obviously not a panacea. Why don't you pick a useful feature, like protected memory.

  • Ohhh.... that sounds like a troll, but I just can't resist biting...

    Okay, maybe it was a troll. Sometimes I can't resist. Thanks for humoring me!

    My MacOS 7, 8, or 9 machine has a much more responsive interface on a 75-MHz machine than Gnome on a 500-MHz Linux box

    Uhh.. and thats with WHAT apps running concurrently?

    Any collection of apps you care to name. Even when a process does hog the CPU on the Mac (such as when Sherlock decides to index the drive), the Mac's interface at all times remains more responsive than Gnome. Believe me, I'd love for Gnome to be snappy and responsive - but on my 500-MHz PC with 128MB of RAM, it isn't. Not even if it's the only thing running.

    RE: CPU hogging on a PMT system - At least you have the option of changing priorities

    Not if I don't own the process. It's good to be da root!

    But I guess you're happy using MacOS 7-9 instead of MacOS X, or Win3.1 instead of Win9x. Win9x barely qualifies as a pre-emptive OS tho, most of the kernel is single-threaded, so apps tend to block each other too much - try NT4/W2k.

    Instead? :-) For a company touting their OS as being multithreaded, Microsoft sure didn't put much effort into threading anything that runs on it. Explorer, Word, Excel - they all lock me out when doing the least little task. Drives me crazy. The MacOS Finder has much better multithreading than Explorer, at least on NT4. As the Amigoids used to boast, it lets me execute two copies at the same time. I can't say as much for NT.

    I'll run MacOS X when I believe it's stable. In the meantime, MacOS 9.1 is doing very well for me, and Red Hat on my PC.

  • I think that this is missing the point, though. Unless you plan on running Windows XP on your iMac, you should be more than safe. I have no doubt that USB will continue to be supported, though not necessarily embraced by Apple's future OS releases...

    Viva la OS X!

    Jethro

  • Out to get us/Linux Support (Score:4)

    by Jethro73 ( 14686 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2001 @05:23AM (#299150)
    Now I *know* they are out to get us. It is a conspiracy to make you buy new hardware. The *day* after I bought my first USB keyboard, this story comes out... Consider:

    - AT to ATX (Legit upgrade, no consipracy there)
    - Socket to Slot back to Socket (definitely a conspiracy)
    - USB to Firewire (then back to USB after 2.0)

    Grrr...

    Must upgrade... Must upgrade...

    Maybe I am just insane...

    Also, on a related note, did anyone else notice the GREAT USB support of Linux? RH setup detects my Microsoft optical mouse during setup, and Windows ME doesn't... Now *that* is weird...

    Jethro
  • The complete opposite of the truth. The Firewire group voted against putting the copy control into the specs.
  • i think i remember reading that even though 2.0 is backwards-compatible, it'll slow down to v1.x speeds if a v1.x device is plugged in. so plug in your keyboard into the same controller, and your hard drive slows to a crawl, etc. anybody know if this is true? how about for 800 and 1600 Mbit firewire?

  • MS is clearly using its power as a monopoly to force some technology out of the market. First bluetooth and now USB 2.0. MS is very much aware that their support can make or break these technologies.

    How much more proof do we need?

  • Re:Not many USB devices? (Score:5)

    by znu ( 31198 ) <znu.public@gmail.com> on Wednesday April 11, 2001 @05:44AM (#299154)
    Actually, iMacs all have Firewire now too. And other Apple machines have been shipping with Firewire on board for years, as have some PCs from Sony and Compaq. There's quite a bit of Firewire stuff out there already, and absolutely no USB 2.0 stuff.

    Original USB has it's place; a Firewire keyboard or mouse is clearly absurd. But you've got to understand USB 2.0. It's an inferior standard cooked up by Intel because Firewire's peer-to-peer design makes Intel nervous; it means you'll be able to hook lots of 'smart' devices together without a computer. Intel clearly doesn't like that idea.

    Because USB 2.0 isn't peer-to-peer, it's next to useless in the consumer electronics industry. That means that even if computers start showing up with USB 2.0, they'll still need Firewire to talk to all your other devices. And because USB 2.0 chipsets will never be made in anywhere near the same volume as Firewire chipsets (which will eventually be in every camcorder, TV, DVD player, stereo, etc.), it will probably cost more.

    --
  • Like every new chipset enhancement, Intel always made the drivers. USB2 will be the same. They will just release them when XP gold comes out, like they have when all the other windows flavors came out, abiet a little later.
  • Just being pedantic.
  • Good point. I had forgotten about that. I wonder if the Slashdot editors knew that or not.

    Otherwise, this article could qualify as a troll to stir up USB 2.0/Firewire zealots, like myself. <g>
  • Oh, really. I've got 3 Firewire connectors on my motherboard -- two external 6-pin connectors and one internal 6-pin connector. They cost less than $1 to include on a motherboard, after all. Most PC manufacturers just don't do it right now, but it's getting more common. Compaq has had computers with Firewire built-in for years.
  • It's not that much. I believe it's less than a dollar, so it's probably already figured into that "roughly a dollar" estimate I read somewhere during the whole licensing flak. Plus, most of the most energetic supporters of Firewire, like Sony, get the license fee waved anyway. It's really a nonissue.

    The real price issue is that the device controllers for Firewire are a bit more complex than USB device controllers because the protocol is more advanced and because the devices should be able to act on their own on the network. Also, a device can talk to multiple devices on a Firewire network, not just the main computer. For your computer or a video camera, it's not that big of a deal. For a hard drive, though, it requires a bit of additional logic to handle transfers which are abnormal for a hard disk. I mean, how many hard drives talk to multiple machines normally without some mediating agent handling the communication?

    This is where the costs add up. USB 2.0 saves a good bit of that by making the CPU do a good bit of the work and by not allowing device-to-device communications without the CPU involved. USB 2.0 is like a Winmodem. It's cheap and gets the job done, but it taxes resources better spent doing other work.
  • First of all, they don't use the same connector at all, so there's no use trying to make them compatible. Second, a system with good Firewire support is makes it just as easy to plugin a Firewire device and go as it is for a USB device.

    This has nothing to do with politicking, for once, and everything to do with superior, mature technical standards. Despite all the touting of USB by Intel, MS is actually going with the better standard. USB 2.0 is not as ready to go as Firewire, which MS has had *years* to get running. I'm not surprised that MS has Firewire support first. It's been around since 1986 with the latest revision to the standard happening in 1993. USB 2.0 hadn't even been started on until Apple started pushing Firewire in their own products and it gained media attention. This is why Windows XP has support for Firewire and not USB 2.0. It has nothing to do with moneyed interests. If it did, then you can be sure it would've been Intel's standard going in instead.
  • 'd like to point out that our systems are already fairly dependent on the processor... seeing as how THAT'S WHAT MAKES OUR SYSTEMS WORK!

    Then, are you opposed to the use of graphics cards? They allow you to farm out computation of 3D rendering to keep the load off the processor. Are you opposed to sound cards which keep sound processing off of the CPU? You must also be in favor of Winmodems, too, if this is your stance.

    The fact is that the more needless tasks you take off of your CPU, the more your CPU is free to do real work. USB requires the CPU to be involved when it doesn't have to be. Firewire frees a device from dependency on the CPU. There doesn't even have to be a computer running for two Firewire devices to talk to each other. Try saying the same thing about USB.

    USB works on multiple platforms, including PPC. Please explain how USB locks us into Intel, as you imply?

    Well, this is a straw man argument as I never said that you get locked into Intel processors with this. USB 2.0 just makes you more dependent on a faster CPU for performance. Slower machines will perform more poorly when using high bandwidth USB 2.0 devices. When you need to take in a DV stream over the USB 2.0 port and do some video rendering on it, the contention for CPU resources makes have a faster (more expensive) CPU necessary. It's all very simple.

  • USB 2.0 is just an Intel scam anyway (Score:3)

    by Valdrax ( 32670 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2001 @05:18AM (#299162)
    Actually, I hope it is the death knell. The original USB standard was not intended to be extended like this. It was meant for simple, low bandwidth devices, and the protocol specs show it. While USB 2.0 defeats some of the problems, such as evenly slicing your bandwidth among devices no matter what they need, it's still a processor arbitrated bus. It's just an attempt by Intel for further system dependency on the processor at the expense of performance. It helps their bottom line to make us more dependent on their hardware at our own expense.

    Plus, the FUD marketing plan that they used just when Firewire started to get some public interest turned me off instantly. "Oh, no, don't use Firewire! We'll have this standard up and running in a few years, and then Firewire will be dead because ours is slightly faster than their current standard. Never mind that speed bump Firewire has planned. Listen to our vaporware instead!"

    Firewire is elegant. It doesn't suffer from the star topology bottlenecks of USB 2.0. It's not processor arbitrated and does not require and active computer to be useful. It supports isochronous transfers. It makes a good networking protocol. It is in every way superior, and Intel and, apparently, Microsoft both know it. I hope that this is the knife in USB 2.0 that kills it. Bring on the Firewire devices, I say.

  • Re:The annoying thing (Score:4)

    by Valdrax ( 32670 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2001 @05:36AM (#299163)
    The annoying thing though is that, although firewire might be better, most motherboards don't have them on-board. So USB 2.0 would be nice for those of us (ahem, all of us) that have USB ports on our computers.

    While the connectors are the same, the circuitry needed to recognize USB 2.0 isn't there. Surely, you don't expect to plug an UltraATA/100 drive into an EIDE controller and expect to get full UltraATA/100 speeds out of it? This isn't just a matter of updating software. The hardware controller device has to recognize the protocol, which it won't magically do. Since the purpose of these controllers is to be cheap, don't expect them to be firmware-upgradeable either.

  • Re:Moderators on crack? (Score:4)

    by Valdrax ( 32670 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2001 @07:20AM (#299164)
    Actually, in the class sense of the word, it is a troll. However, no one really uses troll to mean a good intellectual post meant to trick people into a flamewar. Nowdays, it just means some 14 year old posting a bunch of profanity laced racist slurs or an inane, worn-out joke over and over again, like the old grits routine and the recent revival of the Beowulf cluster nonsense.

    I guess no one remembers to good old days, when newsgroup discussions were filled with people from academia, who actually put some thought into baiting people. Race baiting and name calling is easy. Making people honestly believe you think something really stupid or irritating is a lot harder. No one remembers when a troll was a thing of art instead of the infantile behavior it is today.

    I mourn for the loss of the intellectual troll. They were the court jesters of the Internet. Nowdays, trolls are just a bunch of immature vandals who go about urinating all over message boards because they have no respect for the sense of community that the long-time members of that site once enjoyed.

    In a way, I feel like a herald for the aliens in Independence Day. You move into a new community on the Internet, and you find a rich variety of well-meaning individuals who are interested in little more than discussing their ideas. In this small preserve of civility, you can feel free to express yourself. Then, the ravagers come and destroy the community you once loved. They don't read old discussions for topics well hashed-out. They don't obey the rules of behavior. In fact, they spurn them openly. You then have no choice but to move on, saddened by the loss of another haven on the Internet. You find a new place to enjoy, and then the cycle repeats.

    I guess I've rambled long enough. It just makes me nostalgic to see a post like this. To see what intellectual provocation looks like once again. I doubt I'll see it again on Slashdot in a long time.

  • Re:This is not neccesarily good (Score:5)

    by Valdrax ( 32670 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2001 @05:23AM (#299165)
    This has nothing to do with USB 1.0. It's still being supported as the hot-pluggable low-bandwidth device interface it was intended to be.

    This is about USB 2.0, the hacked extended version that support devices at 480 Mb/s. It was intended to be a Firewire killer, but doesn't have the same technical merits. Intel started crowing about coming up with it soon about the time Firewire started to get some momentum going. It effectively killed the momentum for Firewire for awhile. I say let USB 2.0 die. It's an inferior protocol that's intended to further slave your computer to the processor instead of farm that functionality out.

    USB 1.0 isn't going anywhere. It's still good for what it was intended for.

  • Re:RTFP: Read the fscking post (Before moderation) (Score:5)

    by Valdrax ( 32670 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2001 @07:06AM (#299166)
    No kidding. It's an obvious troll, in the classic sense of a post designed to fool people into a flamewar. It's actually one of the few beautiful, well thought out trolls I've seen on Slashdot. Most people don't even bother to think something out as far as this. It's all goatse.cx this and Beowulf cluster that, with a mix of profanity, racism, and obscene ascii art thrown in.

    It's good to see the rare intellectual troll every now and then. This post should've only have been marked Funny (+1) or Troll (-1), with maybe a couple of Overrated/Underrated moderation thrown in.

    Oh no. Oh, Lord, no. I'm posting about moderation, something I consider the cardinal sin of offtopic kvetching. Oh, well. I'm still counting down from the Day of the Karma Cap.
  • Are the moderators blind? Only one moderator had the sense to mod this as overrated. Do the rest just see a long post and instantly think it's informative or interesting? Don't any of the moderators understand what a troll is?!? I'm just surprised that this guy isn't a Major troll.
  • Firewire is supported (to an extent) under the 2.4 kernel, just like USB is.

    Check out this SourceForge page [sourceforge.net] for more information.

    I have a Belkin 3-port i1394 card in my Linux box (2.4.3 kernel) and can pull in video from my Sony camcorder.


    --
    Charles E. Hill

  • Apple also invented Firewire. That term is (tm)Apple. Sony calls it iLink(tm). The official standard is IEEE-1394.


    Yes, there are more peripherals for USB 1.1 than firewire -- but that is because most of them are low-bandwidth devices (mice, keyboards, etc.)


    These probably won't go away any time soon (good thing) and can continued to be used for low-bandwith devices while i1394 can handle the big stuff like video connection, replacing SCSI/IDE and Ethernet.


    --
    Charles E. Hill

  • more points:

    Apple likes fire wire and has based their marketing on fire wire devices. AND
    M$ has decided to use fire wire over usb 2.0 AND
    M$ likes to "embrace and extend" THEREFORE
    Apple is doomed

    ----------------------
  • you're right, i just like saying "doomed"
    ----------------------
  • So now Intel has to pay for the privilege of building stuff that was designed by/for AMD, rather than setting their own specs.

    Which is definitely what they should have done with the p4
  • Actully, the ps2 has both USB and 1394

  • usb 2.0 rollout schedule (Score:3)

    by Big Jojo ( 50231 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2001 @06:49AM (#299174)

    Lack of WinXP support is exactly what Microsoft promised last year ... see the May (?) WinHEC slides on the topic, where they described their ship criteria. Basically, no OS support till host controllers and devices have been available for a while, and drivers are proven. This isn't news.

    It's only this month that USB 2.0 host controllers have begun to be available from vendors, as PCI addin cards. (Belkin, Orange.) I've yet to see USB 2.0 devices of any kind be advertised for walk-in cash purchases. Wait till the summer before you expect to see these devices ... like IDE-speed disk access. (480 Mbit/sec ~= 60 MByte/sec, in the same range as ATA/66.)

    Firewire advocacy aside, USB 2.0 clearly has a future. It's faster, and when you buy a system with USB 2.0 support built in, it'll have the same connector you know about. Devices are forward and backward compatible. And finally having conformance testing is a good thing, too.

    And let's not forget the next generation of PCMCIA devices, "CardBay" ... the first generation was ISA-on-a-Stick, then came PCI-on-a-Stick, next time it's USB 2.0 going out those familiar connectors. Cheaper than PCI/Cardbus support. See http://www.pcmcia.org/cardbay.htm [pcmcia.org]

  • For those who say that this doesn't matter to this 31337 Slashdot crowd: Realize that numerous linked to sites from Slashdot have shown that great than 80% of the readers of Slashdot who follow the link are running Win32 OS', most often with IE.
    98% of the time that I read /., it's from work, where it's NT 4.0 and IE. Can't install Mozilla - don't have the privileges. Which is fine - they're not paying me to beta test other people's software. So I know I'm helping to skew the statistics.
    --
  • Crap, that's a good reason. And I just love that Intel's euphonism for destroying fair use rights is "Keeping Honest People Honest" (http://developer.intel.com/technology/1394/). Unfortunately given the current state of affairs if USB 2.0 were to take Firewire's place, I'm sure the MPAA thugs would insist on similar access controls, which would result in much inferior technology with the same consumer-hostile "features".
  • Maybe .03%

    -----------------------

  • Apple has been proudly doomed for decades. They're not going anywhere.

    -----------------------

  • FireWire vs. USB 2.0 (resources) (Score:5)

    by webword ( 82711 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2001 @05:29AM (#299192) Homepage
    USB 2.0 versus FireWire [macworld.com] (MacCentral Online) -- Solid article. Check it out.

    Face-off between USB and FireWire Flash Card readers [barefeats.com] -- "Translation: Do NOT expect the gap between FireWire and USB readers to close when USB 2.0 readers start shipping. Do expect FireWire to be updated soon to achieve 800Mbit/sec... possibly 1600Mbit/sec, Moral: Use FireWire any time the device can handle the speed." (Somewhat useful.)

    Will USB or FireWire connect with consumers [cnet.com] (CNET) -- "In the end, FireWire may take the lead for storage devices, scanners, video cameras and consumer electronic devices, while USB continues to dominate mice, keyboards and other peripherals." (Comments: Some fluff, but useful.)

    USB 2.0 versus 1394 [semtech.com] (Japanese) -- I don't read Japanese, but this is an article comparing USB 2.0 and 1394 . . .

    Tom's Hardware Comparison [google.com] (via Google) -- "In the FireWire versus USB debate, currently it is no contest. USB is cheap and well suited for inexpensive devices like keyboards and mice, while IEEE1394 is far, far faster, more user friendly and a bit more robust, but is also a little more expensive to implement."

    SCSI versus IDE, FireWire, USB, etc. [macbuyersguide.com] (Mac Buyer's Guide) -- "Indeed, Apple specifically recommends against FireWire drives, for use with its high-end video editor, Final Cut Pro." (Comments: Other interesting stuff is in this article. Check it out.)

  • I'm sure it has more to do with snubbing Intel, than snubbing Linux.

    While Microsoft is watching the revenue losses in the server domain, they don't see Linux (in their mind, a veritable frankenstein of X11, enlightenment, GNOME, KDE, etc. etc.) as a threat to their simplified-for-consumers Windows XP desktop platform.

    They also snubbed Intel on the X Box, though they "let" Intel buy their way back into that project late in the game. So now Intel has to pay for the privilege of building stuff that was designed by/for AMD, rather than setting their own specs.

    I don't know the specifics of this latest snit that Microsoft has against Intel, but maybe (speculation) it's over a lack of help in getting Windows 2000 to run on IA64.

  • Great, more Blue Screens o' Death (Score:5)

    by Speare ( 84249 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2001 @05:35AM (#299195) Homepage Journal

    I use Win2K daily and have very solid uptimes. I think it's pretty solid, and I would expect XP to be another step in the right direction as far as stability goes. (Other aspects of XP trouble me, such as the kiosk-oriented gui and the copy control features.)

    It's fairly well known that the biggest issue for Win9x/WinNT/Win2K's stability is crappy third-party device drivers. The fault lies in the OS architecture, to be sure, but the reality is that device drivers can crash your Windows since they run in a less restrictive processing environment.

    Microsoft tests their own drivers a lot more than they can exercise ATI's drivers, so guess what happens when you install an ATI video card that's not on the HCL? Boom.

    Do you think this'll be any better when someone installs some generic $25 USB2 hub? How about new devices that have been in development for a while, assuming USB2 support for XP would save them, who are now reading resumes for some code jockey to learn how to make a USB2 driver for their first assignment?

    Even if Microsoft wants to snub Intel for whatever bedfellow business reason, it's in their best interest to make sure consumer-level cheapo devices can't rip down the platform. Boom.

  • And you know if they did implement it before the stuff solidifies, there'd be frothing hordes screaming "incompatibility", and "embrace & extend" in no time.
  • I don't really see it as a real obstacle, though. Another post [slashdot.org] points out that 2.0 is backward compatible(thank goodness), so it won't be too much of a hinderance as long as MS stays on the ball about getting it out soon.

    One of the other replies on this thread also makes the point that with such a pervasive OS, it's probably best to have nothing rather than a half-assed(esp. from Microsoft) implementation in wide deployment. Let's just hope the vendors play nice with their drivers, otherwise it just looks like egg on XP's face.
  • Device Bay was supposed to be a standard for plug-in drives and devices. Like SCSI drive plug-in trays, Device Bay had slide-in trays with blind mating connectors. Connections for IEEE-1394 and USB-1 were provided. There's even a locking device, so you can't pull a drive that's mounted. Seemed like a great idea. Endoresed by Microsoft, Intel, Compaq, etc. Went nowhere. Now that IEEE-1394 is getting some traction, maybe it will.

    It's annoying that Apple didn't go that route. Apple is still using the "little boxes all over the desktop" approach to expansion, which they've foisted on users since the Apple II.

    The Device Bay consortium's site [device-bay.org] seems to have died.

    Incidentally, can you boot Windows XP from an IEEE-1394 drive? Do mainstream boot roms support this?

  • Microsoft is throwing it's support behind LanMan
    Does that mean we'll see Microsoft Bob in blue tights and a cape?
  • You don't have USB 2.0 though because the hardware is still being worked on. You probably have USB 1.1 or 1.0 if you have an older system. They aren't supporting it because the hardware isn't there yet. This is a change of pace for them.
  • USB is nice, but it's a relative newcomer. Firewire has been out longer and I've not heard anything but good things about it. Standards for hardware equipment and add-ons is a good thing for the consumer as we've seen with PC clones. Prices fall, more companies in the business etc. As opposed to differing standards, like microchannel expansion bus vs PCI vs ISA vs VLB, it got difficult to figure out which add-on goes on what computer.

    I like it.
    DanH
    Cav Pilot's Reference Page [cavalrypilot.com]
  • The phrasing of the "not supported" announcement is a bit misleading.

    USB 2.0 controllers & devices will be supported, just via third-party drivers. This is NOT the same as WinNT4's non-support, which prevented even the possibility of third-party support.

    MS simply doesn't have time to fully include well-developed OS-level support for USB 2.0. (I work at a large company researching USB 2.0, and we're just barely getting started.) There's maybe a half-dozen devices to evaluate and test OS-level support with.

    Contrast this with FireWire, which does have a reasonalby large number of 400Mb/s devices available for testing & development.

    USB 2.0 host cards are available. USB 2.0 devices are coming soon. Intel will be including USB 2.0 on the motherboard starting next year.

    USB 2.0 support WILL happen; it IS happening. It's just going to take a little longer than MicroSoft has to put full-blown thoroughly-tested support in XP, and we'll have to use third-party drivers until it does. FireWire's advantage, from MicroSoft's point of view (they don't care about peer-to-peer), is only that it has been around a bit longer. USB 2.0 will be inherently built into Intel-based motherboards soon; it WILL arrive, cheaply, and will be supported.

  • an efficient standard that MS is supporting. I think this is a great idea. Rather than putting out buggy software for vaporware, they are deciding to back a new technology with real-world experience. There are already moy different devices out that are currently supported by Apple and soon to be Windows and eventually *nix. My new Firewire CD-RW drive works great with my iBook. I really didn't like the USB drive that I had it was too slow, messed up my mouse, and too up too many proc cycles.

    Amigori

  • This may be redundant, but I thought I should mention it anyway: does anyone else think this is more of the deal MS formed with Apple years ago?

    -MS gives Apple money to stay in the game
    -Apple sets up MS Explorer as the default browser, and now ships MS Explorer exclusively in Mac OS X
    -MS puts in Firewire support, which Apple primarily developed and has on nearly all their hardware

    Given the pattern, Apple probably owes MS something next. Maybe touting Office on their web site?

    I'm still waiting for a version of Mac OS X that can run on Intel machines. :) Really pretty system and I sorta like it.

  • It also creates strange bedfellows: Apple and Microsoft on one side

    Not strange bedfellows at all. M$ kept Apple alive by porting software and investing. They work in concert with one another.

    Whats worse is that sony loves iee1384, this is a certain sign of its direction.

  • Only Reason (Score:4)

    by SubtleNuance ( 184325 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2001 @05:20AM (#299247) Journal
    #1 Reason:

    Firewire has Oppressive Copy Control built in.
    USB 2.0 does not

    No further analysis or insight necessary. Welcome to the future friends.

  • God I hate Microsoft (Score:5)

    by ZanshinWedge ( 193324 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2001 @05:26AM (#299252)
    Wait, before you think this is a standard "Linus is the true god, Bill Gates is the anti-christ!" posts, hear me out.

    I like a lot of Microsoft's products. I use Windows 2k as my workstation OS. I like Internet Explorer, I like Office, I like Visual Studio, etc. Hell, I've even paid cold hard cash for some of these products (heh). Increasingly though I look at Microsoft's new products I keep hearing that little voice inside my head saying "uhhh, I hate to point this out but the old version was better". I prefer Office 97 to Office 2000, Windows 98 SE to Windows ME, etc. And Windows / Office XP are looking less and less like products I want to upgrade to. There are tons of things that annoy the crap out of me about Windows 2000 right now (for example, the whole ASPI fiasco) but all these new products from Microsoft look like they will simply increase the number of things that annoy me, and not increase one whit the things that please me.

    Also, I find it interesting that MS spent plenty of time making sure their anti-piracy system will work for Win XP but they didn't have enough extra programmers to integrate USB 2.0 (which has been highly hyped for well over a year now).

  • Couple of quick points (Score:5)

    by Ergo2000 ( 203269 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2001 @05:50AM (#299255) Homepage
    • Microsoft is not dropping support for USB 1, so all those USB peripherals will work fantastically.
    • USB 2.0 hasn't even been finalized yet.
    • There is no way Microsoft can put a product (Windows XP) into RC stages supporting hardware that hasn't even been finalized. This simply makes total sense for them to quell the disappointment later when every reviewer is falling over themselves to report the abhorrent lack of USB 2.0 support.
    • For those who say that this doesn't matter to this 31337 Slashdot crowd: Realize that numerous linked to sites from Slashdot have shown that great than 80% of the readers of Slashdot who follow the link are running Win32 OS', most often with IE.
    • You can be sure the MS will add USB 2.0 support later on. I'm sure this will give a little push to Firewire for a while, but once USB 2 has straightened out their ship I have no doubt that it will be supported in the MS OS'
    • Ever notice how "Bluetooth" became the darling of the open source community? Why is that? This is curiousity.
  • As it says above, USB is for low speed devices (like keyboards). Firewire is for high speed devices (like hard drives). A keyboard doesn't need firewire. This is why Macs have moved from SCSI/ADB to Firewire/USB

    Kurdt
  • While USB 2.0 defeats some of the problems, such as evenly slicing your bandwidth among devices no matter what they need, it's still a processor arbitrated bus. It's just an attempt by Intel for further system dependency on the processor at the expense of performance.

    I'd like to point out that our systems are already fairly dependent on the processor... seeing as how THAT'S WHAT MAKES OUR SYSTEMS WORK!

    It helps their bottom line to make us more dependent on their hardware at our own expense.

    USB works on multiple platforms, including PPC. Please explain how USB locks us into Intel, as you imply?

    Don't get me wrong, FireWire is awesome, but why do you resort to the very FUD tactics of which you accuse Intel?
  • While USB 2.0 defeats some of the problems, such as evenly slicing your bandwidth among devices no matter what they need

    I've heard this several times from mac advocates, yet a friend taking USB programming classes insists that it's not true, and I've never seen it outside of what I'd consider 'heresay.' Could you point to any documentation on this?

  • Yeah, I've read that article, as well as many other little 'gems' by DKE, like his 'Unix isn't an OS' crap. This is exactly what I would consider heresay, and that's being extremely generous, as 1) there are no supporting links, and 2) he has a clear agenda. His big problem is the speed mixing with lower speed devices, so you should use Firewire, which can vary from 100Mbps and will expand to 1600Mbps in the near future. Same problem. And there is no justification for the 1/N bandwidth sharing, which is actually mostly refuted in the WSJ link with the discussion of isocronous/bulk transfer guarantees. And since the 2.0 standard wasn't set until late last year, it's kinda hard to debunk something that doesn't exist, isn't it?
  • Yea, A Better technology is going to be supported, while a weak technology Is having help dying. This is actually good.


  • In the recent controversy we learned that it's already in Firewire. So this decision is consistent with M$'s plan to integrate copy restriction mechanisms into Windows.

  • USB just needs another kick in the pants (Score:5)

    by Consultant Jon ( 265243 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2001 @05:25AM (#299288)
    I'll grant you, it's usb and not Firewire, but all technologies can't be lucky enough to have been invented by Apple.

    If it had been Apple's, then you know it would've done better. Sure, Intel has a vested interest in promoting USB, and sure, Intel is a pretty big company. But as big as Apple? Not by a long shot.

    You see, company size can't just be measured in terms of assets or market cap. It has to be measured in terms of love and caring. It has to be measured in terms of how many partisan zealots are clamoring to fight for the fatherland, and Apple takes the cake by far. There may be fewer mac users than Wintel users, but they're a whole lot more rabid. When you do something wrong (even if it was right and they just think it was wrong), then they'll let you know. Mac users are like that.

    How does this bode for USB 2.0?

    Well, if they want USB to succeed, then they'll have to bring it in line with Apple's standards, both of technical and cultural means. For one thing, they'll have to make it a lot more expensive. People are sheep and unwilling to invest in a technology that doesn't cost through the nose. (Just look at Microsoft or VA Linux if you want to know what I mean.)

    They'll also want to start vending it in twenty shades of pastel. People are sheep and unwilling to invest in a technology that doesn't put their children's Barbie collections to shame in sugary rainbow gawdiness. It's a fact.

    But most importantly, they will have to emulate Apple's exceptional and successful marketing techniques. Remember when Apple scortched Intel's bunny ads? That was hilarious. Intel will have to come out with a campaign that really demonstrates why you should use USB. They'll have to use a lot of nudity, and more importantly, they'll have to use celebrity nudity. A pinup photo spread of Albert Einstein covering his delicate genitalia with an assortment of grapes (each painted a different color to represent the different available USB colors as discussed above) with the slogan "USB: Yowzers" would go a long way towards bringing USB in line with Apple's projected growth.

    But most importantly of all, USB has to kill all its competition. We can't allow market inefficiencies to set in when multiple redundant technologies are being used across the industry. That's just wasteful. Apple learned this years ago when they killed the more successful Nubus in favor of their own proprietary PCI specification, and they haven't looked back. Unfortunately, the Wintel players haven't yet caught on to Apple's brilliant strategies, so they might be a little slower in turning the tables by killing up ASB. But if our economy is to grow into the next couple decades, we have to trim down our wastrel occupations and allow innovation to flourish.

    Only through these means shall USB reign supreme.
  • Well, Microsoft made the right decision on this one. USB2.0 is a poor engineering tradeoff and largely just an attempt to capitalize on Apple's marketing blunders related to FireWire.

    FireWire products are widely available now, FireWire has a number of technical advantages over USB2.0, FireWire products work well, and they are faster now than USB2.0 when it will be released.

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