The FireWire standard (also called IEEE 1394) is a computer data bus and communications interface standard that transfers data at 400 Mbit/s.
It uses a six-wire serial interface and provides a simple, efficient, low-cost alternative to conventional parallel, serial, and USB computer cables.
FireWire was originally conceived in 1991 by Apple Computer and released in 1995. Competing standards such as USB and IEEE 1394a were released in 1996 and 2003 respectively.
FireWire is available on Macintosh computers, PCs, and certain music-related devices such as digital audio systems.
which statement regarding the firewire standard is accurate?FireWire supports a wide variety of peripherals including hard drives, digital video devices (such as the DV camcorder), microphones, display screens, printers and more. In total there are 9 different connection types under the FireWire standard.
What are the facts about firewire standard?
1. Term used to describe it.
The War of the Standards (often referred to simply as the “FireWire wars”) is a term used to describe a conflict between competing standards for digital audio and video interconnection within personal computers.
The situation began with the release of FireWire, which was invented by Apple Computer in 1995. Initially many computer manufacturers supported FireWire, including Compaq/Digital, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Lenovo, Gateway 2000 and Dell.
However following their acquisition of Apple Computer’s PCs business in 2003 they stopped supporting FireWire after recommending only Apple Macintosh products be used for serious work. Hewlett-Packard are now making USB adapters that have FireWire ports.
2. How it all started.
The two competing standards are IEEE 1394 (a standard developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) and USB (Universal Serial Bus, a standard developed by the USB Implementers Forum, Inc.)
Both of these standards were released in 1996. The resulting controversy began when Apple Computer decided to implement IEEE 1394, also known as FireWire, instead of USB on its computers.
This decision was made despite the fact that many of Apple’s competitors were starting to ship PCs with USB ports.
At this time Apple had already introduced its own digital camcorder which used IEEE 1394 for connection between the camcorder and the computer.
USB was added to the market only in the year 2000, and many PC makers were still reluctant to implement USB ports on their computers.
Some computer manufacturers such as Gateway 2000 still supported both standards.
3. The beginning.
In the early 2000s, technological advances led to the introduction of smaller and lower-cost hard disk drives that could hold large amounts of data.
In June 2000, Apple introduced the iPod, a portable music player that used a FireWire connection to load songs from a computer’s hard drive.
In late 2001, Apple introduced the first generation of its Mac Mini computer with a USB port, but it continued to advertise the computer as being “FireWire Ready” because it included a FireWire port and was advertised as being able to run two FireWire drives at once.
The following year Apple released the first iMac with USB ports, but it continued to advertise this computer as “FireWire 800” because it included a FireWire 800 port.
Meanwhile, other companies began to release computers that included USB ports and supported both standards.
4. Conflicting Technologies
The main concern at the time was that there were technical limitations with USB.
For example if too many devices were connected to one PC, the PC might become unstable or slow down.
But by 2003 Apple had sold 40 million iPods using FireWire. This led other manufacturers to worry about how they should proceed.
Also, Apple had released the iMac G4, which didn’t include any FireWire ports at all.
To remedy this, Apple released some adapters to let users connect their Firewire devices to their USB ports.
5. The results
The decision of whether or not to use FireWire or USB caused problems for computer manufacturers.
If they chose the wrong standard, they’d end up having to pay royalties to both competing groups.
They would also risk losing sales due to technical limitations that made their computers incompatible with one or the other group’s products.
In 2004 Apple announced that it was dropping all lawsuits against computer manufacturers that used USB instead of FireWire as a digital audio/video connector in their PCs and peripherals.
They claimed that they would work to promote the use of USB interfaces with their iPod digital music player.
Then in 2005 Apple announced that MacBooks would no longer include FireWire ports, but they still supported FireWire peripherals.
Some PC manufacturers are continuing to use FireWire instead of USB because it allows users to transfer large amounts of data quickly, while others are continuing to support both standards.
