When Were FireWires Invented?
FireWire -- also known as IEEE 1394 after the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers standard with which it is associated -- is a high-speed interconnect technology for computers developed by Apple in the 1980s and ratified as an IEEE standard in 1995. FireWire has capabilities similar to Universal Serial Bus and supports a variety of devices.
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Purpose
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FireWire is optimized for high-speed communication, making it suitable for devices such as external hard drives and digital video cameras. In 2001, Apple Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering Jon Rubinstein called FireWire "a key component of Apple’s ‘digital hub’ strategy." Apple intended to make FireWire the standard interface over which computers and audio/video devices communicated, and received a Primetime Emmy engineering award the same year honoring the impact of FireWire on the production of television programming.
FireWire vs. USB
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At the time of its introduction, USB was a technology intended for low-speed peripherals such as mice. The original USB 1.0 and 1.1 specifications -- used until 2000 -- offered a maximum theoretical transfer rate of 1.5MB per second. The original FireWire specification offered a maximum transfer rate of over 49MB per second, making it more appropriate for devices that required high data-transfer rates. FireWire and USB have both improved greatly in speed since the 1990s.
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Other Capabilities
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FireWire, unlike USB, supports a direct connection between two computers, and can serve as a substitute for Ethernet to create a wired computer network with operating systems that support this feature. On Mac computers, you can also use FireWire for Target Disk Mode, a technology that allows one computer to access the hard drive of another -- even if the target computer is unable to boot.
Thunderbolt
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As of the time of publication, several of Apple's computers, including the MacBook Pro, Mac Mini, iMac and Mac Pro, have FireWire ports. Many Windows computers have FireWire ports as well. However, Apple's computers also include a much faster port called Thunderbolt. While FireWire 800 supports a maximum data transfer rate of just over 98MB per second, Thunderbolt supports bidirectional communication with data moving at speeds up to 1.25GB per second in both directions simultaneously.
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References
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