FireWire cable

What is FireWire?

FireWire is a way to connect to a device or computer. FireWire is the name given by Apple to IEEE 1394, which is the serial bus interface standard for high-speed communications and real-time data transfer. As a serial bus, FireWire transmits a bit of information at a time.

FireWire is a connector, which is used with USB. FireWire is used as a connector with USB to connect peripherals to your personal computer. FireWire is also called IEEE 1394. FireWire is a popular connector.

IEEE 1394 is the interface standard for high-speed communications and real-time data transfer serial bus. It was developed by Apple in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In which Apple worked mainly in collaboration with several companies such as Sony and Panasonic. So it's called Apple Interface FireWire. IEEE 1394 is the standard version of the High-Performance Serial Bus. FireWire provides a plug-and-play socket connection.

FireWire cable is a natural way to connect any peripherals with an IEE 1394 port, such as digital cameras, network-attached storage devices, external hard drives, and printers. FireWire is a connector used with USB to add other peripherals to your computer.

Where and how is FireWire used?

FireWire is often used to connect digital camcorders, external hard drives, and other devices. FireWire supports transferring data through FireWire connections at speeds of up to 480 Mbps. FireWire is used to connect other devices that have the advantage of transferring information very fast.

The eyesight camera used for chatting on Mac can be connected using a FireWire cable. In addition to connecting peripherals such as camcorders or external hard drives, FireWire can be used as a connector to transfer files between two connections. This means that two computers can also be connected via FireWire.

FireWire has the advantage of being able to transfer power to the device via the same cable that transfers data. The disadvantage of FireWire is that cables are more expensive.

Although most camcorders also include a USB2 connector, many of these new camcorders can only be used to download digital images. If you want to download the video, you will need a FireWire connection.

Like USB, FireWire supports a variety of connector types. The end of the cable that goes to the computer is the 6 pin cable, while the small connector that goes to the camcorder is the 4 pin cable.

How does FireWire work?

FireWire is a method of transferring information between digital devices, especially audio and video devices. FireWire is very fast for information transfer. The new version of FireWire achieves speeds up to 800 Mbps. You can connect up to 63 devices in a FireWire bus.

FireWire supports both Windows operating system and Mac OS.

Suppose you have a digital camcorder connected to your home computer. When your computer is enabled, it tracks all the devices connected to the bus. Each is called an address, a calculation.

FireWire is plug-and-play, so if you connect a new FireWire device to your computer, the operating system automatically detects it and retrieves information about the driver disk. If you have already installed the device, the computer activates it. FireWire devices are hotly pluggable, which means they can be connected and disconnected at any time after the power is turned on.

History and Development of the FireWire

FireWire is Apple's name for the IEEE 1394 high-speed serial bus. Its development was started by Apple in 1986 and was developed by the IEEE P1494 working group. It was run mainly by the contributions of Sony, Apple, and Panasonic. Engineers from Philips, LG Electronics, Toshiba, Hitachi, Canon, INMOS / SGS Thomson and Texas Instruments contributed. 

IEEE 1394 is a serial bus architecture for high-speed data transfer. FireWire is a serial bus, which means that information is transferred a bit at a time. Parallel buses use many different physical connections. They are more expensive and heavier. IEEE 1394 supports completely different and asynchronous applications.

Apple considered replacing FireWire with a parallel SCSI bus while providing connectivity for digital audio and video devices. Apple's development began in the late 1980s, then introduced to IEEE, and was completed in January 1995. This was followed by several repairs as well as some technical updates.

Apple first included onboard on FireWire in its 1999 Macintosh models. Most Apple Macintosh computers produced between 2000 and 2011 included the FireWire port. However, in February 2011, Apple introduced the first commercially available computer with Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt became a standard feature on Apple's entire computer as the spiritual successor to FireWire in Apple's environment. Apple's last products, including FireWire, Thunderbolt Display, and Mac Book Pro, was discontinued in 2016. Apple still sells the Thunderbolt to the FireWire adapter, which provides a FireWire 800 port. A separate adapter is required to use it with Thunderbolt 3.

This system was commonly used to connect data storage devices and digital video cameras but was also popular in industrial systems for machine vision and commercial audio systems. Many users prefer the more common USB 2.0 for more efficient speed and power delivery capability. Fixed data transfer rate for FireWire USB 3.0 data transfer rate is higher than USB 2.0.

FireWire Technical Information

FireWire can communicate with 63 perimeters. This is peer-to-peer device communication. The communication between the scanner and the printer allows the system to use without memory or CPU. FireWire also supports more than one host per bus. It is designed for plug and play and hot swapping. The copper cable used for the most common execution can be up to 4.5 meters (15 feet) long.

It is more flexible than most parallel SCSI cables. In its six-conductor or nine-conductor variants, it can supply up to 30 volts up to 45 watts per port. Medium utility devices are allowed to operate without a separate power supply.

FireWire devices implement the ISO / IEC 13213 "Configuration ROM" model for device configuration and identification to provide plug-and-play capabilities.

In tree topology FireWire equipment is conducted on the bus. Each device has a unique self-ID. One of the nodes, the root node, is selected and always has the highest ID. Self-IDs are given during the process, which happens after each bus reset.

 FireWire is seriously capable of operating the system due to how more than one device interacts with the bus and allocates bandwidth to the bus devices. FireWire is capable of both asynchronous and isochronous transfer methods simultaneously. Isochronous data transfers are transfers for devices that require constant, guaranteed bandwidth.

Comparison between FireWire and USB

While both USB and FireWire technologies provide similar results, there are fundamental differences between them. USB requires a bus master, especially a PC, which connects point-to-point with the USB slave. This allows for low efficiency or low-cost peripherals of the bus. Intelligent hubs are required to connect multiple USB devices to a single USB bus master.

In contrast, FireWire is basically a peer-to-peer network where any device can act as a host or client. It can allow multiple devices to be connected to one bus.

The FireWire host interface supports DMA and memory-mapped devices. Allows transfer without loading host CPU with data and transfer and buffer-copy operations.

In addition, FireWire includes two data buses for each section of the bus network, while USB 3.0 has only one data bus. This means that FireWire can communicate in both directions simultaneously (full-duplex), while 3.0 USB communications can only communicate in one direction at any time (semi-duplex).

Operating System Support

Full support for IEEE 1394A and 1394B is available for Microsoft Windows, Free BSD, Linux, OS Pal-Mac OS .6..6 Mac OS, Net BSD, and Haiku. FireWire supports all versions of Windows, from Windows 98 to Windows 10, as well as Mac OS 8.6 and later, Linux, and many other operating systems. A maximum of 63 devices can be connected to a FireWire bus or controlling device via a daisy-chain. Even if you use equipment that supports different speeds, each of them can be plugged into the same bus. They can also operate at their own maximum speed.

Versions of FireWire

1. FireWire 400 (IEEE 1394-1995) 

2. Improvements (IEEE 1394a-2000)

3. FireWire 800 (IEEE 1394b-2002) 

4. FireWire S 800 T (IEEE 1394 C-2006)

5. FireWire S 1600 and S 3200