Comments on: Apogee Confirms Compatibility with MacBook Pro FW800

By: Valis

Valis — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 07:47:09 +0000

Apple didn’t invent SCSI but they certainly were a huge promotor of it and it formed their exclusive interface in an age when PC’s had PIO mode devices that chugged along in comparison. And for all the fanfare over Mac+SCSI Apple also summarily dropped it as soon as there was enough performance to justify the cost savings. I can think of several other Apple marketing bullets that have gone through similar arcs as well.

In any case I agree with Peter, Apple now sees the firewire port as a ‘pro’ feature and the soundbite from Jobs over the lack of its inclusion in the Macbook pretty much states this. Something about not knowing of any consumer camera that has firewire support (I could almost hear him say iPod as well in this statement).

By: Fatboy Joe

Fatboy Joe — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 08:39:05 +0000

robin parry – In reference to the fact that USB 3 (4.3Gb/s) is in the very near horizon.

If I am not mistaken, the strategy is to “encourage” manufacturers to adopt and popularize FireWire 800 enabled devices.

By: robin parry

robin parry — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 21:37:37 +0000

does this mark the end of firewire?
or just the, used by everyone, 400 version?
after all the years of stable service?
hell apple invented it, now they abandon it!!!

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:01:39 +0000

@poorsod: That’s exactly correct. That’s always been the case. The only concern is that some misbehaved devices don’t like certain controllers. But using the FW800 port really isn’t a problem. In fact, in terms of flexibility having that FW800 port really is better than a FW400 port. That’s part of why I think Apple may not be backing off of FW entirely, just seeing it as the pro feature.

By: poorsod

poorsod — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 16:25:04 +0000

Just to confirm. The upshot of this is, with the relevant connector, any FW400 device can connect successfully to the MBP’s FW800 port?

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 14:05:46 +0000

@peropaal — what they’re saying is correct *for their devices*. I.e., the Ensemble and Duet were FW400 speed to begin with. FW800 hasn’t really been necessary outside storage from what I’ve seen.

By: Peropaal

Peropaal — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 10:30:41 +0000

Connecting a FW400 device to a FW800 network does alter the total speed of the network and throttles everything down to FW400 speed.

I really don’t understand this statement from Apogee

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 08:32:19 +0000

Yeah, absolutely. I think the issues people have had in isolated cases with FW800 ports have been controller related, (ie, the chip that does the FW implementation). That’s a whole other can of worms, and not really about FW800.

By: Adam Jay

Adam Jay — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 08:19:34 +0000

for what it is worth, i’ve been using my Metric Halo 2882+DSP via the same 800 to 400 connector cable on my iMac for the last 6 months with zero problems whatsoever. so i do think backwards compatible truley means backwards compatible.