jor@soda.csua.berkeley.edu (Jason O'Rourke) writes:

> Bruce Murphy  <pack-news@rattus.net> wrote:
> >> I should think Firewire would be standard on Macs since they developed it,
> >> the biggest problem tho is Apple is charging a higher royalty for Firewire
> >> than Intel charges for USB which is why these days you see more USB.
> >
> >And not becuase the PC industry inevitably picks the crappy product
> >because it's a few cents cheaper?
> 
> USB1 solved a different problem than firewire.  Serial was becoming a PITA,
> with the need for 16550 UARTS and resource requirements.  You'll keep in 
> mind that macs use both usb and firewire.  

There's no point in putting firewire on a mouse, indeed.

> With the interface already in place, it was a natural and quick progression
> to putting these storage devices on it, and later the need for much more
> performance.

CD writers, hard drives, and various other things should have never been
sold with USB interfaces. Fortunately, most of the people who bought them
have learned this important lesson.

> You can install firewire cards for less than $30 and it comes
> standard on a few motherboards, but unless you have a DV setup, you don't
> have a need.  Unlike most Macs,

What? You mean laptops and the all-in-one compact style macs? I think
you should have a look at the newer generation of PC cases.

> PCs have bays for additional hard drives
> and so the need for high speed external storage is greatly reduced.

This also is a myth. Unless you like gutting your machine to move
storage around, waiting an age for scanners, etc, there are lots of
things for which firewire is very useful.

PC owners think that external hard drives aren't needed becuase they
don't have the opportunity to use them, thanks to IDE (spit).

B>