[mdlug] IEEE 1394a

[Raymond McLaughlin]

Raymond McLaughlin wrote:
> Michael Rudas wrote:
>> --- Carl T. Miller wrote:
>>
>>> Garry Stahl wrote:
>>>> IEEE 1394a ... What is it used for and what uses it?
>>> It's a type of type of connection that requires little
>>> configuration (similar to USB), but it's much faster.
>>> You may have heard of by it's other name, FireWire.
>> Actually IEEE-1394*a* is nominally SLOWER than USB 2.0 -- 400 Mbps max
>> vs. 480Mbps -- but IEEE-1394*b* has nominally 2x the throughput of the
>> "a" version at 800 Mbps.  Real-world results peg 1394a and USB 2.0 as
>> about equal; I have not played with the "b" version.
>>
>> Apple was (is?) the biggest promoter of this protocol.  Video
>> camcorders are the most likely devices you will encounter with this; a
>> few video monitors have it, as well as some external hard drives that
>> support both USB 2.0 and IEEE-1394x.
>>
>> ~~ Mikey
> 
> I too wish to reply to this, but I'm sending the reply to the main list 
> where it belongs.

Duoh! I see Carl alredy did that. Thunderbird just didn't filter it that 
way. Let's see if fixing the subject line changes that.

What I wanted to add was that I recall reading a couple of articles 
about Firewire that described it as a big security hole because it 
provided a link by which an external device could directly access system 
memory, regardsless of the OS. Here a a couple of links that a quick 
google turned up.
<http://it.slashdot.org/it/08/03/04/1258210.shtml>
<http://www.matasano.com/log/695/windows-remote-memory-access-though-firewire/>