Re: [NTLK] Connecting to a G4

From: Nathan Turnage (nturnage_at_andadv.com)
Date: Thu Aug 21 2003 - 07:21:33 PDT


iLink is a bastardization of the Firewire standard. Sony, in their
infinite wisdom and love for their own proprietary technology, thumbed
their noses at Apple and created iLink to transfer video from their
camcorders.

You see, Apple had called together a group of companies that made up
sort of a "Firewire consortium" and Sony, seeing Apple as a niche player
on their way out, refused to join the group. Since they didn't join that
original group, they, like so many other companies, missed out on the
deal Apple was making with their original Firewire buddies, whereby they
didn't pay licenseing (for some specified time) and would get discounts
on future licensing of the technology. So, to make a long story short,
Sony, to avoid increased licensing fees, created iLink which used thier
own 4-pin connector that would tranfer data in the same way as the 6-pin
true Firewire devices would. But what the 4-pin cables lack is the
ability to tranfer power to the devices connected to them, as the 2
missing wires carry electricity not data.

I hope that wasn't too long winded.

nT

Paul Guyot wrote:
> Il me semble que le 21/08/03 à 7:06 -0500, Matt Lichtenberg nous racontait:
>
>>hate to jump in in the middle of the debate, but.
>>correct me if i'm wrong. but isn't FireWire the same (electrically) as
>>IEEE1394, a completely non-Apple-invented standard?
>
>
> FireWire is the first name of IEEE 1394 (another name is I.Link as
> you mention it) and it was invented by Apple. In fact, the name "IEEE
> 1394" is the name of a standard and it actually appeared when Apple's
> specification was standardized.
>
> Cf: http://www.1394ta.org/Technology/
>
> Paul

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