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Networking (Apple) Businesses Apple Hardware

Apple Releases Free, OS-Independent, FireWire SDK 179

Posted by pudge from the mmmm-beeeeer dept.
mcwop writes "Apple announced the release of a free FireWire SDK for embedded devices. The kit is not OS-dependent. Is this a response to the release of USB 2.0 or is Apple simply trying to keep a steady stream of FireWire devices coming? What effect will this have on FireWire b? What are the effects on the Open Source community developing FireWire interfaces? Time will tell. Nonetheless this is an interesting development."
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Apple Releases Free, OS-Independent, FireWire SDK More

Apple Releases Free, OS-Independent, FireWire SDK

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  • FireWire (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Good god, doesn't Smokey the Bear have enough problems without Apple putting FireWire into the hands of everyone ?!

  • Does this mean? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by t0qer ( 230538 ) on Thursday August 08, 2002 @04:58AM (#4031383) Homepage Journal

    Does this mean firewire support will finally be coming to Virtual Dub? [virtualdub.org] I think vdub is a kick ass program but now that the guy I do capture for has a Sony PCR-DC1 I gotta use premier,
    which is sort of fat and bloated (sorry adobe)

    • Re:Does this mean? (Score:2, Informative)

      by ic3p1ck ( 597610 )
      Actually, if you're using windows you can use directx / directshow to access a firewire DV camera.

      So virtualdub could've implemented support for streaming video to and from a DV camera.
      • Actually, if you're using windows you can use directx / directshow to access a firewire DV camera.

        So virtualdub could've implemented support for streaming video to and from a DV camera.

        VirtualDub doesn't use DirectShow for video capture; it uses VfW. Rewriting it to use DirectShow for capture would be a significant undertaking. (DirectX is a cast-iron bitch to deal with. I use DirectShow with some videoconferencing software I wrote (to capture from different webcams), and it took me a good long time to get it running right). I think the only place where VirtualDub uses DirectX is for displaying video, and even then it's optional (Options | Enable DirectDraw acceleration is unchecked by default).

  • Yaay apple! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by CoolVibe ( 11466 ) on Thursday August 08, 2002 @04:59AM (#4031390) Journal
    I love firewire and the sheer openness of it. Also, the speed of it (in my own experience) is impressive. USB is just for peripherals, use firewire if you need to shift loads of data from one place to another _FAST_.

    This is looking good... Also, the platform-agnostic approach is a good one. What's next, Aqua on Intel? ;)

    • Re:Yaay apple! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by quintessent ( 197518 )
      USB is just for peripherals, use firewire if you need to shift loads of data from one place to another _FAST_.

      True. However, the article is talking about USB 2.0, which moves data at 480 Mb/s, vs. the current (?) firewire speed of 400.

      It's too bad firewire didn't catch on more. Had Apple not been greedy with the name, I think it would have become the standard in the PC world too. People just have a hard time understanding/remembering "IEEE 1394."

      • Re:Yaay apple! (Score:3, Informative)

        by Llywelyn ( 531070 )
        Firewire has taken several industries, such as digital recording and portable hard drives, by storm.

        It has proven itself to be very popular in a variety of areas and now they can use "FireWire" as a name.

        Just the way it goes.
        • Firewire works in a beautiful way. USB sometimes still hangs machines.
          • Firewire works in a beautiful way. USB sometimes still hangs machines.

            ...and when it doesn't hang them, USB slows them down to a crawl.

            You can have my FireWire hard drive and webcams after you pry them from my cold, dead fingers. (They only get used with x86 boxen under Win2K and Linux...the only Apple machines I have are three Apple IIs (IIGS, IIe, and II+) and a Quadra 610. It goes without saying that FireWire devices don't work too well with those machines. :-) )

      • Re:Yaay apple! (Score:5, Informative)

        by Bart van der Ouderaa ( 32503 ) on Thursday August 08, 2002 @06:01AM (#4031557)
        It's too bad firewire didn't catch on more ??? The name maybe, but IEEE 1394 not caught on?
        IEEE 1394 is also called a DV connector, I.link (sony).

        It's used on the playstation 2 (to connect to other playstations 2 among other things), every selfrespecting digital video camera has such a connector, there are a large number of external HD/CD-R/DVD peripherals that use the IEEE 1394 connector. You can get a IEEE 1394 card for your computer from a large number of different vendors.

        Firewire is already embedded in the market and while USB 2.0 might become a competitor because of it's name, the peripherals are just now comming into the market. In the PC world however they seem to serve different markets (IEEE 1394 for video, USB 2.0 for peripherals).

        I think IEEE 1394 will stay on the PC, although mainly used in video. Apple will continue to push (and improve I've seen stories talking about the next versions going to 1600 MB/s) firewire.

        • Plus, we can't forget that companies like Creative Labs are trying to push Firewire a bit more with their Audigy cards, which have an "SB 1394" port built-in. Not that I care for Creative, or anything, but this will certainly help make 1394 a bit more mainstream.

          Creative Labs SB 1394 [soundblaster.com]

          I think that now is the time that Firewire is just starting to take off. In my experience, USB has been unreliable at best. I don't think 2.0 is a whole lot better, aside from speed. 1394 for devices that need speed and reliability, and USB for mice and printers. That's the way that it should be.
        • >>Firewire is already embedded in the market

          Sure, 1394 has occupied a certain market share, as you say, primarily on digital video (since the DV format is built around it) and anywhere high speed external storage is required (laptops, macs in general*), and where 1394 ports are included (e.g. Macs, most Sony PCs).

          There's also a bit of a market for systems where neither USB 2 or 1394 ports are available and where a new controller card will be necessary either way (e.g. the other 95% of the PC market). Here, the longer history of 1394 means that more devices are available; but it still has to compete with USB 2 in other areas...

          >>and while USB 2.0 might become a competitor because of it's name,

          ROFL!!! USB 2 is a serious competitor for firewire... But it's primarily because of its backwards compatibility. I can't see the name recognition alone being a big deal.

          USB 1.x devices will work fine on USB 2 ports, and most USB 2 devices will work (although at reduced speed) on USB 1.x ports. The manufacturer can replace a USB 1.x chipset with a USB 2 chipset, without affecting compatibility with your existing USB devices at all. It really doesn't cost that much more to build systems with USB 2.

          On the other hand, at best, firewire has to coexist with a cheaper low data rate standard of some kind -- it's cost prohibitive to build a firewire mouse. And USB 1.x is already widespread in both the Mac and PC worlds. So, for most PCs, adding firewire support would mean integrating it in alongside continued USB 1.x functionality. More expensive.

          Of course, it's important to point out: Less port types for more devices = less confusing; that's "mac-like" for the same reasons as ADB and USB 1.

          So, given this, the Mac community's general support of firewire over USB 2 is kind of ironic... But just because they eat the cake doesn't mean they would know how to bake one.

          There are lots of spurious comments about the inferiority of USB 2 coming from macheads. As far as I can tell, the trashing that USB 2 is getting is mostly your typical not-early-adopted-here rhetoric, and includes listing of unimportant technical merits (e.g. peer-to-peer -- great for connecting two computers or DV cameras, but needlessly driving up costs for the remaining 95% of stuff you connect to your computer), and pointing at the USB standard's association with Intel (Okay, so what?)

          Now, it's valid to point out that the established base of 1394 devices in the Mac world means that Apple is tied to 1394 for the time being, and so their standard USB 1.x + 1394 combination will save money over going to USB 2.x + 1394.

          [I could then argue that making users pay for more functionality on every system, even though only a handful of them will actually take advantage of it, is more "mac-like" too. But that would just be me speaking as a cynical PC user. =) ]

          >>I think IEEE 1394 will stay on the PC, although mainly used in video.

          Oh, of course, I think that 1394 cards will continue to be available. But I don't think 1394 will ever be standard in the PC world in the same way that USB 1.x is and USB 2 will be.

          * I don't mean to insult mac users' technical knowledge, but for every machead who's willing to crack open their G4 tower to drop in another HD, there's one who either:
          - doesn't know how
          - is willing to drop extra $ to avoid dealing with scary computer innards
          - owns an imac or a cube and doesn't have that option
          - is out of drive bays (or IDE channels and PCI slots for another IDE controller) -- you can't exactly migrate your mac to a full-size tower case with ease, or buy a mobo with more pci slots, you know what I mean? =)

        • USB2 is a competitor because it integrates so seamlessly with USB1 software and drivers and because of its backwards compatibility. It isn't quite right to say that the installed based of USB2 is the same as the installed base of USB1, but it's pretty close for many practical purposes. FireWire is nicer technically, but in comparison, it is much less widely used.

          I think USB2 will also come to be widely used on Macs. FireWire will probably become a niche product for digital video. For storage, serial ATA may take away a lot of business from both USB2 and FireWire (assuming that external serial ATA drives will become common--I don't see why not).

      • Re:Yaay apple! (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        USB 2.0 has a PEAK performance of 480 Mb/s, but Firewire has a SUSTAINED performance of 400 Mb/s.

        Firewire still kicks USB 2.0 for video stuff. It's a shame that Intel's 480 Mb/s marketing bullshit is working so well...

        • Not just the speed (Score:4, Insightful)

          by pbrice68 ( 581968 ) on Thursday August 08, 2002 @08:29AM (#4031937)
          Although USB 2.0 may be 480 vs FireWires 400 MB/sec, there are other beneifts to FireWire (other than FireWire 2, at 800 MB/sec, should be out and about this year) like: 1. You don't need a computer to use FireWire. One FireWire device can connect directly to another FireWire device without a workstation. Although we don't see much implementation of this - it would be conventient. How about a FireWire port on my car stereo to connect my iPod? 2. FireWire can carry POWER as well as data. WHen you plug an iPod in with it's FireWire cable, it charges as well as trasmits data through the same cable. In fact, if you should need to recharge away from your computer, the usual AC plug for recharging is a FireWire cable. I do think that Apple fucked up when they made licensing the name so expensive. Instead of one name "FireWire" everywhere you go, you see FireWire on Apple's, iLink on Sony computers and cameras,...etc. With all these different names, nobody realizes how pervasive it is. SOme PC users don't even know they have FireWire, and most Mac users don't know they have "1394".
          • One nitpick, USB carries up to 500 mA of 5V electricity.
          • How about a FireWire port on my car stereo to connect my iPod?

            There are already stereo components with USB connectors that can talk to portable audio devices. You just make the car stereo both a USB host and a USB device.

            FireWire can carry POWER as well as data.

            So can USB.

            The difference between FireWire and USB are really subtle. The only place where I can think it would make a practical difference is where you have two computers and two disks all connected by FireWire. But Ethernet and various storage interfaces cover that case already, with better functionality and better software support.

      • Re: Yaay apple! (Score:5, Informative)

        by Antity ( 214405 ) on Thursday August 08, 2002 @08:38AM (#4031973) Homepage

        the article is talking about USB 2.0, which moves data at 480 Mb/s, vs. the current (?) firewire speed of 400.

        Firewire aka IEEE 1394 is the better technology. Why? Because you don't need a central host. This is important.

        Firewire devices can interchange data point-to-point. USB always needs a host (read: PC, Mac, whatever) to keep the bus up. This is why Intel is pushing USB. Not because of technical aspects (ok, maybe to punish Apple), but because they want you to have to keep some central device (PC) to be able to exchange data between (USB) devices.

        Again, on Firewire, this is not needed.

        • But the USB model is also much simpler. All the extra possibilities that FireWire offers mean more complex software and more possibilities for misconfigurations and problems. In fact, in practice, it seems like USB and FireWire are really used in the same kinds of configurations by most people.

          • All the extra possibilities that FireWire offers mean more complex software and more possibilities for misconfigurations and problems.

            With Firewire/1394 you can plug your digicam into a 1394 compliant printer and you get your photos. In most cases, there isn't even something you could misconfigure (talking about cable and protocol).

            In fact, in practice, it seems like USB and FireWire are really used in the same kinds of configurations by most people.

            Yes; if 1394 is used for A, B, C, and D and USB is used for A, B, and C, "most people" use USB for the same thing.

            I don't want to talk about licensing costs; 1394 transceiver chips are very cheap to manufacture. 1394 protocol stacks for the OSes have been around for quite some while, so there's another point where things should have settled.

            This is not rocket science; 1394 is just more versatile than USB while at the same time being as stable (although USB 1.1 had a much lower bandwidth and already this killed some drivers if there was heavy load on the US-Bus - and they wanted to sell this crap as "Plug and Play"?).

            Have a look at the hardware and protocol specs of both USB and 1394. 1394's are just so very more sane.

            • With Firewire/1394 you can plug your digicam into a 1394 compliant printer and you get your photos

              You may notice that there are almost no FireWire digicams or printers.

              In any case, you could easily make the same work with USB using existing standards: most digital cameras already speak USB storage and/or PTP, and a printer can easily and cheaply talk to the camera, pretending to be a computer. But nobody apparently really wants this; most people who want that kind of printing apparently pick a printer with a card reader.

              Have a look at the hardware and protocol specs of both USB and 1394. 1394's are just so very more sane.

              I have no doubt that IEEE1394 is better designed. But what difference does that make to me as a user? I have USB1, USB2, and FireWire devices, and the USB devices have overall been cheaper, easier to install and use, and even a little more reliable.

      • Re:Yaay apple! (Score:3, Informative)

        by sh00z ( 206503 )
        It's too bad firewire didn't catch on more. Had Apple not been greedy with the name, I think it would have become the standard in the PC world too.

        Please define "greedy." According to Apple [apple.com], the fee is exactly $0.00 for the license to use the name and logo (you can even apply on-line and save the cost of a stamp):
        The FireWire Logo is an Apple trademark and must be licensed for use by third-parties. There is currently no licensing fee. The agreement is a 5-page Adobe Acrobat file, and contains all the information and guidelines third-party developers need to license the FireWire Logo for use on product packaging, advertising, and other product marketing materials.

        • Re:Yaay apple! (Score:4, Insightful)

          by timothy_m_smith ( 222047 ) on Thursday August 08, 2002 @09:12AM (#4032161)
          Please define "greedy." According to Apple [apple.com], the fee is exactly $0.00 for the license to use the name and logo (you can even apply on-line and save the cost of a stamp):

          I think he was referring to Apple being greedy in the past. I believe that prior to this announcement, using the name FireWire cost the OEMs $1-2 per product.
          • I believe that prior to this announcement, using the name FireWire cost the OEMs $1-2 per product.
            You may be thinking of the hardware royalty, which has been reduced from $1/port [com.com] to 25 cents [businessweek.com]. Prior to the May announcement [1394ta.org] of the 1394 Trade Assiciation adopting Apple's name and logo as a branding identity (and Apple granting free-as in beer-use to do so), I couldn't Google a single reference to a separate fee for the use of the Trademarked Firewire name and logo, once you've actually paid to incorporate the technology into your hardware.

          • To call a $1/port (now $0.25) licensing fee for a hardware technology they invented "Greedy" pales in absurdity.

            You must really hate spending hundreds for an intel or AMD processor.

            Sheesh!
      • USB 2.0 peaks at 480 Mb/s -- unless you have a USB 1 device in the chain somewhere. And that's peak. Firewire sustains 400 MBs, and moreover, it's peer-to-peer, 1394 devices on the bus can exchange data without going through the computer (or even having a computer on the bus).

        And 1394b will support speeds up to 3.2Gb/s.

        USB has Intel going for it. 1394 has technical excellence going for it.
      • True. However, the article is talking about USB 2.0, which moves data at 480 Mb/s, vs. the current (?) firewire speed of 400.

        Well that's just wrong. 480Mb/s is a *theoretical* speed for USB 2.0. As I understand it, you'll never see that actually on a USB 2 bus because of the poor implementation (though it should be faster than drinking thru a 12Mb/s straw.)

        On the other hand, I regularly-- in fact daily-- get 400Mb/s over my firewire bus (Which is 12 feet long, by the way... quite a long run for a high speed serial protocol.)

        Furthermore, that's standard firewire. The current top of the line (demonstrated regularly but not yet shipping) version of firewire can do up to 3.2GB/second. (I may be wrong and its 3.2Gb/s)

        It's too bad firewire didn't catch on more. Had Apple not been greedy with the name,

        Apple was "greedy" with the name? This is your standard issue silliness. You think the MAc would have caught on better if apple had let PC manufacturers call their computers Macs? Yeah, Windows Mac would be the number one OS and apple wouldn't exist--- but the Macintosh would not have won. (Actually it did, everyone runs the Mac UI now.)

        Anyway, ANYONE who wants to use the FireWire brand name can use it for 1394 ports. That was another good step towards encouraging Firewire.

        Firewire is dominant, and it is winning. I know of some still cameras with USB ports, but of know video cameras with USB 2 ports.

  • Will this make possible... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Toasty16 ( 586358 ) on Thursday August 08, 2002 @05:10AM (#4031425) Homepage
    open source DVRs which are able to bypass restrictions imposed by DTV providers? From an earlier /. story:

    http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/08/0 7/1328207&mode=nested&tid=129

    Also mentioned is a proposal being considered by the FCC that would allow cable companies to 'turn off' the firewire port, which DVR's will use to connect to digital televisions, so that some broadcasts can't be recorded.

    • Think they will just 'turn off' the firewire port on the digital TV set, not on DVR
      • Which is why the smarts on TVs need to be separated from the display. Can you imagine if there was an open interface that display manufacturers put between their expensive screens and the el-cheapo logic board that drove it all? Then even *if* the TVs shipped with logic that permitted 'killing the firewire port' you could take replace the $50 dollar board in your $600 TV and take that right away...

        • Re:logic boards (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Toasty16 ( 586358 )
          Some higher end TVs are quite "malleable." The Sony Wega series, for instance, has a service mode that allows for manipulating the image like a computer monitor. They also have a set of ID codes which control what features are activated or deactivated. I'd recommend not changing the ID codes unless you know exactly what does what, because you might turn your 36 inch Triniton display with component input into a 27 inch with RCA inputs. Of course, if you actually know what you're doing, you could activate hidden features, such as re-enabling the firewire port even after its been deactivated due to regulations and restrictions.
    • DVR's cannot run off the firewire port in some cases as its a spec requirement for other technolgies such as iTV....so this may be smoke and mirrors
    • This IS already possible--at a price!

      You can purchase a RCA DTC-100 HD ATSC/DirecTV Tuner (~USD$500) and add a 169time.com HDVR and Advantage VX-1 (~USD$2,000). The HDVR adds firewire to the DTC-100 and transmits/receives standard mpeg2-ts as well as DirecTV's proprietary format. The Advantage VX-1 is a little GNU/Linux box that runs a proprietary program on Linux 1394 to convert the DirecTV stream to standard mpeg2-ts on-the-fly. Maybe someone will be able to figure out the DirectTV stream format coming off the HDVR and release a Free version? This combination lets you record to a HD D-VHS machine: ~USD$600 for a Mitsubishi or $1,200 if you want the JVC D-VHS with a MP@HL MPEG-2 decoder (the DTC-100 has a builtin decoder too).

      The experimental mpeg1394 driver lets one record mpeg2-ts to and playback from a HDD. It works with D-VHS machines and the 169time.com HDVR.

  • Oh yeah.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by af_robot ( 553885 ) on Thursday August 08, 2002 @05:11AM (#4031429)
    (singing on Doors music)
    Come one Apple, light my wire...

  • (Mac) os independant (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tunah ( 530328 ) <sam&krayup,com> on Thursday August 08, 2002 @05:11AM (#4031430) Homepage
    Obtaining the FireWire Development Kit
    The FireWire Software Development Kit is available today, for both Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X. This SDK provides the latest FireWire software, plus sample code and documentation.
    Hmm... choose any OS as long as its one of our last two. (Not a mac-hater, just pissed off coz I have an iMac with 8.6 ;-P)

  • Free, not?! (Score:4, Informative)

    by jukal ( 523582 ) on Thursday August 08, 2002 @05:12AM (#4031433) Journal
    I read the EVALUATION LICENSE, which states for example:

    "This Evaluation License does not grant a license to incorporate the FireWire Reference Platform, any portion of it, or any Modification into any board, module, integrated circuit, macrocell, core or other assemble or device. To obtain a license to develop or distribute assemblies incorporating the FireWire Reference Platform or Modifications, visit http://www.developer.applce.com/mkt/swl" [apple.com]"

    So, it seems that this is strictly for evaluation, or did I miss something?

  • Let's hope this encourages more FireWire devices (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I have two FireWire ports on my G4, and a nice FireWire cable that came with it. I've never used any of them for a damn thing. My printer connects via USB, my ZIP drive connects via USB, my webcam connects via USB, and of course the Apple keyboard and mouse connect via USB.

    It would be nice to see more devices (printers, external HDs) supporting FireWire.

    • Re:Let's hope this encourages more FireWire device (Score:4, Informative)

      by jimbolaya ( 526861 ) on Thursday August 08, 2002 @06:37AM (#4031627) Homepage
      There are plenty of FireWire hard drives (and CD/DVD) burners out there, and Orange Micro [orangemicro.com] makes the FireWire iBot webcams. Epson [epson.com] sells a FireWire adaptor for many of its high-end printers Third parties (e.g., Archos [archos.com]) sell FireWire equipped Zip 250 drives.

      As far as the keyboard and mouse...well, let's not push it!

    • They are tons of firewire HDs and CDRW s. Let alone the iPod, scanners and printers.
    • Dude! Grab a cheap miniDV cam, get the Vitrix Echo Transitions [virtix.com] to add transporter effects to your home video, Bravo Effects [virtix.com] to add the laser blasts, and make "Attack of the Clones" the way it should have been made!

      Well, maybe not quite but you can still do a hell of a lot with iMovie and some cheap plug-ins.

    • I don't know first-hand about FireWire [macworld.com] printers [macworld.com], but the FireWire ports seem to be used more for somewhat "specialty" items that need the grunt FW gives. There are plenty of audio [motu.com] and video [formac.com] devices that utilize and depend on FireWire.

      At the very least, many musicians use external FW drives to stream digitial audio to, making it very easy to take that raw data to another machine for mix-down, collaboration with other artists, &etc. I'm guessing the video production folks do the same thing.

      Don't forget about the various digital media players out there. Very few of these are going to be USB in the future.

    • External HDs? There are lots of external firewire HDs. I have one sitting on my desk. It even has a pretty blue light. Works peachy. I also have a portable firewire CD-RW drive. Not as pretty, but works keen and requires no separate power cord - gets all the power it needs from the firewire cable. Nice. One of these days (when I actually have money) I'm going to get an iPod which has, of course, a firewire connection. I would gladly give up one of the USB ports on my Powerbook in favor of another firewire port.
    • so, it allows for device independence. this is not the case with usb, whose purpose is to support keyboards and such. sony/apple/panasonic are interested in 1394 since a home network is created through chained connections, as opposed to needing a home switch/hub. there is also wireless 1394...
    • My iMac DV is older than your G4, and my two FireWire ports never got a bit of use until I bought my iPod in June. Now, I just use one of them to sync it to iTunes; I recharge from the wall adapter so I don't clutter up my desk too much.

      • Do you now see the master plan?

        You have to get the ports out there, on most of the installed base-- that means shipping them a couple years.

        And THEN you can release a groundbreaking product that uses them, like the iPod.

        You would have hated the iPod if you relied on that iMac and didn't have firewire, right?

        • True. On the other hand, the FireWire ports and DVD drive were the reason I went with it, instead of spending an additional grand for a G3 tower with external monitor and the same features. I figured that PCI slots for upgradable video were not worth a thousand bucks.
        • To the rational mind there can be no offense, no obscenity, no blasphemy- only information of greater or lesser value

          Just curious...what standard does the rational mind use to make judgements about the relative value of information? Can that standard be objectively defended using reason alone?


          • Rational standards. The very act of being rational requires these judgements. You know what you know for fact, by direct sense of it. You know the rules of logic. You infer from that whether what you're hearing is bunk or not.

            If its bunk, you know its not true. If it may not be bunk, you can provisionally say its true. If you know its true, then you know its true.

            But you cannot say "That is blasphemy!" and use THAT as an excuse to suppress it. This is what moral relativists and other religious people (such as right wingers and liberals) do all the time-- liberals are always beating the drums of untruth and telling Big Lies-- such that merely saying the truth becomes blasphemy to anyone who has swallowed the Big Lie. An example of a big lie is "obviously greenhouse gasses are leading to global warming". A rational person recognizes that this may be true and there is some supporting evidence, but there is also evidence that brings this into question, so its not "obviously" true.

            Those who want you to believe in irrationality use blasphemy as a tool-- they make it unthinkable (ie you're not allowed to think about) the ideas that they disagree with. Such as its not obvious that every human owes every other human their support. Or as Bush recently said, 4 years of our lives giving back to the "greater good". (I thought that's what taxes are.) Thats one of the biggest lies out there.

            But they don't try to make a rational case for it, they just repeat it over and over until their followers end up repeating it as well. And standing up to it becomes blasphemy.

            Here's another example: To a gay person, saying "yes that person has a right to decide who will live in the apartment they are renting" is blasphemy-- because they belive that "gay rights" triumphs over property rights. They don't. Just as gay people have the right of free association, people who own apartment buildings do as well. If a christian kicks me out of their apartment building because I'm a non-christian, then that is their right (Assumign they follow the lease) I don't want to do business with someone who doesn't want to do business with me. It may not be fair, but it is their right.

            But many people say that anything that is "unfair" is wrong-- and that puts you into quite a moral quandry when you think about it. Because life isn't fair and you can't MAKE it fair. But to keep people from recognizing the quandry-- the questioning of it is treated as blasphemy.

            • The question is whether reason alone is sufficient to allow a person to make moral judgements about the value of information. My point is that reason is insufficient to provide a moral basis.

              The quote that I was responding to was speaking about assigning value to information. How can anyone, on the basis of mere reason, assign value to information?

              The very act of being rational requires these judgements.
              Are you speaking of moral judgements - good/bad, right/wrong, or of true/false? Boolean is different from moral.

              You know what you know for fact, by direct sense of it.
              Do you? I would suggest to you that most of us know very little from direct observation, and most things we accept on the basis of a trusted authority

              You know the rules of logic. You infer from that whether what you're hearing is bunk or not.

              If its bunk, you know its not true. If it may not be bunk, you can provisionally say its true. If you know its true, then you know its true.

              True or false has no bearing on right/wrong.

              The .sig was commenting on the superiority of reason because it is "above" judging obscenity, blasphemy, etc, but at the same time asserting that a moral value could be attached to information. That seems illogical to me.

              Respectfully,
              Anomaly

  • store GB's on videocam (Score:3, Interesting)

    by patrickoehlinger ( 445411 ) <patrickoehlinger@gmx.net> on Thursday August 08, 2002 @05:17AM (#4031452) Homepage Journal
    Wow, maybe now will somebody come up with a solution to use digicams as a external storage.
    I everytime thought this shouldn't be to difficult.

  • Well, he got one out of three... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Llywelyn ( 531070 ) on Thursday August 08, 2002 @05:39AM (#4031503) Homepage
    Free? Not really, unless you count "evaluation" as free. Or perhaps I'm looking at the wrong thing, hard to tell.

    Platform Independent? FireWire is, Apple's SDK is not (last I checked).

    FireWire SDK. Yes, defiantly.

    Well, I guess it *is* too much to ask on /. that the person and reviewer both actually *read* the information before commenting on it.

    I guess it would also be too much to ask for a link to the actual press release.

  • Firewire growing? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ciryon ( 218518 ) on Thursday August 08, 2002 @05:41AM (#4031514) Journal
    This is a smart move by Apple. They recently released the iPOD [apple.com] portable mp3 player for Windows and I'm pretty sure people will want to get firewirecards for that. Plus, many new graphicscards and soundcards have built-in firewire. Yes, most new motherboards have USB 2.0, but people want Firewire as well.

    Ciryon

  • Anybody know what the status of Apple's firewire patents are? Particularly, expiry dates?
  • well didn't you?

    cause I can't find other dev kits than for mac!

    *or have I simply gone blind?*

  • Ah people read the license, http://developer.apple.com/firewire/FireWire_RefPl at_Eval_Lic.pdf

    Its not Free as in Beer or as in Free to reuse cod entirely..

    I hoping Jbos wises up an offers it as open source both the sdk and the ref platform.. but I will not hold my breath
  • Does anybody know if firewire is being used to replace the old and slow GP-IB in the measurement instrument business? (oscilloscopes, frequency generators and all the other lab stuff)

    I'm getting a bit tired of programming a brand new instrument with a 20 year old protocol. I think Firewire would be ideal for that (better than USB).

    • What instruments are you coding for? At the laboratory I work at, all the new equipment coming in seems to communicate via ethernet. All the new Agilent GC/MS's and HPLC's, and the Thermo Elemental ICP/MS we just bought are networked to the computer they interface with. Works quite well and allows you to control multiple instruments with one workstation. And there's no need for you to buy those ridiculously expensive GP-IB cards, either.
    • What's the latency on a Firewire message?

      I'm working on an instrument with a high data rate (100k samples/sec) and a need for low latency. USB 2.0 high speed would be nice, with its 125 usec frame cycle.

      Another issue is electrical isolation. How do you protect your box from another vendor's box that the customer has grounded to the Wrong Place?
      • FireWire cycles occur every 125 usec...
      • IEEE-1394b allows for many things, including an optical cable that should solve the electrical isolation problems.
      • Latency is dependent on the application. If you want a *minimum*, then sending asynch requests *typically* gets to it's destination in 5usec or less (for short msgs ... add on appropriate numbers for longer msgs, worst case packets [2k bytes at 400 Mbits/sec] would be about 80 usec). If there is a lot of traffic on the bus, and you need deterministic access with a lower max, then you need to use "isoch" requests which deliver a packet every 125 usec (with some jitter depending on the current traffic load ... worst case delay is about 200 usec). ... and the 1394b spec defines how to run gavanically isolated using UTP and various forms of optical fiber
    • I don't know about other instruments, but lab video cameras are using 1394. Note this is not the same as a firewire-enabled DV camcorder, the lab cameras send uncompressed video at higher data rates. (Video compression loses data, and compression artifacts screw up any computer analysis of the image.)

  • So, in summary... (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    - the firewire stack (the bit this article is intended to refer to, given the release date) is cross-platform but only free for evaluation purposes

    - the firewire SDK is not cross-platform

    Given the story's so misleading, perhaps an editor could fix it?
  • Why is that square world icon now the icon for Apple items? What happened to the silver apple?
  • I am not well enough versed on the technical details to glean this info from the technical docs. Can anybody speak to the possibility of me buying an x86 style board someday that can boot from firewire?
  • Is this a response to the release of USB 2.0 or is Apple simply trying to keep a steady stream of FireWire devices coming?

    Why can't it be both?

  • Cluster computing interconnect (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 08, 2002 @02:38PM (#4034494)
    Firewire is not just a high speed connection for copying files to your iPod or from your camera, it has capabilities that go far beyond. A very good application for firewire is as a cluster computing interconnect.

    Among other notable features Firewire has ability to do direct memory access without CPU intervention. It is a very low latency interface. This is a critical factor in tightly coupled clusters using things like MPI (message passing interface).

    Apple would like to see people develop firewire as a topology for MPI. I'm not saying this is THE reason for this sdk release, but it certainly is A reason.

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