The tragedy of FireWire: Collaborative tech torpedoed by corporations

[Rich]

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/06/the-rise-and-fall-of-firewire-the-standard-everyone-couldnt-quite-agree-on/?mbid=synd_digg

Quoting from the URL above:

The rise and fall of FireWire - IEEE 1394, an interface standard
boasting high-speed communications and isochronous real-time data
transfer - is one of the most tragic tales in the history of computer
technology. The standard was forged in the fires of collaboration. A
joint effort from several competitors including Apple, IBM, and Sony,
FireWire was a triumph of design for the greater good. It represented a
unified standard across the whole industry, one serial bus to rule them
all. Realized to the fullest, FireWire could replace SCSI and the
unwieldy mess of ports and cables at the back of a desktop computer.

Yet FireWire's principal creator, Apple, nearly killed it before it
could appear in a single device. And eventually the Cupertino company
effectively did kill FireWire, just as it seemed poised to dominate the
industry.

The story of how FireWire came to market and ultimately fell out of
favor serves today as a fine reminder that no technology, however
promising, well-engineered, or well-liked, is immune to inter- and
intra-company politics or to our reluctance to step outside our comfort
zone.

...

[Andy Burns]

Apple, nearly killed it before it could appear in a single device.
And eventually the Cupertino company effectively did kill FireWire,
just as it seemed poised to dominate the industry.

I think I only used firewire once, for a huge file transfer between two
PCs using TCP/IP over firewire, it was damned fast (400Mbps?) compared
to fast ethernet at the time (this pre-dated any machine I owned having
gigabit ethernet).

[Bob Henson]

Post by Andy Burns

Apple, nearly killed it before it could appear in a single device.
And eventually the Cupertino company effectively did kill FireWire,
just as it seemed poised to dominate the industry.

I think I only used firewire once, for a huge file transfer between two
PCs using TCP/IP over firewire, it was damned fast (400Mbps?) compared
to fast ethernet at the time (this pre-dated any machine I owned having
gigabit ethernet).

Anyone transferring video from a camera to a desktop would also realise
the advantage of Firewire. Not only, as you say, was it fast but it was
much more reliable than the USB which was the only normal alternative -
no dropped frames etc. I still use my Firewire connection and have an
old Firewire card which I am keeping in case my next desktop doesn't
come equipped with Firewire.

[Anssi Saari]

Post by Bob Henson
I still use my Firewire connection and have an
old Firewire card which I am keeping in case my next desktop doesn't
come equipped with Firewire.

Clearly Firewire had decent success in the market as Firewire cards with
PCI Express interface seem to be commonly available today. Adapters to
USB likewise.

I remember I had two external Firewire drive enclosures and a sound card
(or box) that connected to it. I remember one of the enclosures even
supported Firewire 800 but I never had a computer with that.

[Michael Black]

Apple, nearly killed it before it could appear in a single device.
And eventually the Cupertino company effectively did kill FireWire,
just as it seemed poised to dominate the industry.

I think I only used firewire once, for a huge file transfer between two PCs
using TCP/IP over firewire, it was damned fast (400Mbps?) compared to fast
ethernet at the time (this pre-dated any machine I owned having gigabit
ethernet).

I suspect most people, at best, had only one firewire connector. So maybe
their computer had it, or maybe they had a video camera that did. But you
needed two, so only the hardcore got that far.

But, which disappeared first? Did the connector disappear from computers
(not that they were on computers that commonly) or from the external
devices? One would seem to cause the other, but if they disappeared from
the external devices first, then there was a lot less reason to have the
interface on the computer.

I think I found part of an external drive that has a firewire connector,
I'm not familiar enough to know if it is. I've never had one on a
computer I owned.

Michael

[RS Wood]

Post by Rich
The rise and fall of FireWire - IEEE 1394, an interface standard
boasting high-speed communications and isochronous real-time data
transfer - is one of the most tragic tales in the history of computer
technology. The standard was forged in the fires of collaboration. A
joint effort from several competitors including Apple, IBM, and Sony,
FireWire was a triumph of design for the greater good. It represented a
unified standard across the whole industry, one serial bus to rule them
all. Realized to the fullest, FireWire could replace SCSI and the
unwieldy mess of ports and cables at the back of a desktop computer.

Great article. I first experienced Firewire when I bought my first
Mac. It came with an ipod (a student deal that year) that connected
over Firewire, and it was really impressively fast, especially
compared to USB-2, which was new at the time. I later got a Firewire
external harddrive, the cool, tube-shaped video camera for iChat that
mounted on top of your screen, and I think that's it. Good thing too,
since Firewire disappeared not long after that. The external drive
also had a USB connection, so that was saved, but the camera was a
goner.

I think Firewire lost out to USB-3 which was showing up on more
computers, and could match the speed of Firewire. A lot of people
invested in Firewire video cameras though, and that's a pretty
significant investment to have to swallow when Apple "pulls the plug,"
so to speak.

Oh yeah, just remembered the coolest trick: You could boot a Mac up in
"Firewire mode" so it appeared as an external disk. So I used to
regularly plug my Mac laptop into a Mac desktop, with the laptop
showing up as an external Firewire disk. Then I ran sync software to
keep the two things in sync.

I'm not aware of any other technology that allows you to plug one
computer into another like that. These days I sync to a FreeNAS box.

[Huge]

On 2017-06-28, RS Wood <***@therandymon.com> wrote:

[34 lines snipped]

Post by RS Wood
I'm not aware of any other technology that allows you to plug one
computer into another like that.

Any Unix (Linux) machine can act as a file server for any other Unix (Linux)
machine, giving you the same effect.

[RS Wood]

Post by Huge
[34 lines snipped]

Post by RS Wood
I'm not aware of any other technology that allows you to plug one
computer into another like that.

Any Unix (Linux) machine can act as a file server for any other Unix (Linux)
machine, giving you the same effect.

That's news to me. Over a cable? What's the trick? The only things
I know of involve setting up an FTP server on one, and connecting over
a network/router. Genuinely curious, as I'd use this.

[Marko Rauhamaa]

Post by RS Wood

Post by Huge

Post by RS Wood
I'm not aware of any other technology that allows you to plug one
computer into another like that.

Any Unix (Linux) machine can act as a file server for any other Unix
(Linux) machine, giving you the same effect.

That's news to me. Over a cable?

Yes, over a cable or wirelessly.

Post by RS Wood
What's the trick? The only things I know of involve setting up an FTP
server on one, and connecting over a network/router. Genuinely
curious, as I'd use this.

Yes, it involves communicating over an IP network. At its simplest, you
have a dedicated Ethernet link connecting the two machines. But more
likely you are connected across a switch or a router.

As for serving the files, there are numerous options: NFS, SAMBA,
GFS2/FreeNAS, GlusterFS, OpenAFS etc. It's not really plug-and-play, but
it's very much doable.


Marko

[Rich]

Post by RS Wood

Post by Huge
[34 lines snipped]

Post by RS Wood
I'm not aware of any other technology that allows you to plug one
computer into another like that.

Any Unix (Linux) machine can act as a file server for any other Unix (Linux)
machine, giving you the same effect.

That's news to me.
Over a cable?

There are those of us from the old school that still refer to those
CAT5 thingies as "ethernet *cables*".... :)

Post by RS Wood
What's the trick? The only things I know of involve setting up an
FTP server on one, and connecting over a network/router.

No router/switch/hub (there I go, dating myself again) necessary
provided one has a "crossover *cable*" handy. :)

Post by RS Wood
Genuinely curious, as I'd use this.

[Andy Burns]

Post by Rich
No router/switch/hub (there I go, dating myself again) necessary
provided one has a "crossover *cable*" handy. :)

Generally you'll get away without a crossover cable, all gigabit ports
must be auto MDI/MDI-X and many fast ethernet ports have been for years.

[Bob Eager]

Post by Andy Burns

Post by Rich
No router/switch/hub (there I go, dating myself again) necessary
provided one has a "crossover *cable*" handy. :)

Generally you'll get away without a crossover cable, all gigabit ports
must be auto MDI/MDI-X and many fast ethernet ports have been for years.

If desperate, one can even use a pair of serial or parallel ports.

[Michael Black]

Post by Rich

Post by RS Wood

Post by Huge
[34 lines snipped]

Post by RS Wood
I'm not aware of any other technology that allows you to plug one
computer into another like that.

Any Unix (Linux) machine can act as a file server for any other Unix (Linux)
machine, giving you the same effect.

That's news to me.
Over a cable?

There are those of us from the old school that still refer to those
CAT5 thingies as "ethernet *cables*".... :)

Post by RS Wood
What's the trick? The only things I know of involve setting up an
FTP server on one, and connecting over a network/router.

No router/switch/hub (there I go, dating myself again) necessary
provided one has a "crossover *cable*" handy. :)

I hear more recent ethernet interfaces can even tell which way things are
going, and adapt, so no crossover cable needed.

Michael

Post by Rich

Post by RS Wood
Genuinely curious, as I'd use this.

[Rich]

Post by Michael Black

Post by Rich

Post by RS Wood

Post by Huge
[34 lines snipped]

Post by RS Wood
I'm not aware of any other technology that allows you to plug one
computer into another like that.

Any Unix (Linux) machine can act as a file server for any other
Unix (Linux) machine, giving you the same effect.

That's news to me.
Over a cable?

There are those of us from the old school that still refer to those
CAT5 thingies as "ethernet *cables*".... :)

Post by RS Wood
What's the trick? The only things I know of involve setting up an
FTP server on one, and connecting over a network/router.

No router/switch/hub (there I go, dating myself again) necessary
provided one has a "crossover *cable*" handy. :)

I hear more recent ethernet interfaces can even tell which way things
are going, and adapt, so no crossover cable needed.

True, but if one has a crossover in the toolbox, then it will always
work, even if one has encountered one of the older non-autoswitching
ports on some device.

[Ivan Shmakov]

[...]

Post by Rich

Post by Michael Black

Post by Rich

Post by RS Wood
What's the trick? The only things I know of involve setting up an
FTP server on one, and connecting over a network/router.

No router/switch/hub (there I go, dating myself again) necessary
provided one has a "crossover *cable*" handy. :)

I hear more recent ethernet interfaces can even tell which way
things are going, and adapt, so no crossover cable needed.

AFAICT, it's been this way for at least a decade.

Post by Rich
True, but if one has a crossover in the toolbox, then it will always
work, even if one has encountered one of the older non-autoswitching
ports on some device.

You mean, on /both/ devices? (As otherwise the autoswitching
port on the device that has it will adapt to the other.)

[RS Wood]

Post by Ivan Shmakov

Post by Rich
True, but if one has a crossover in the toolbox, then it will always
work, even if one has encountered one of the older non-autoswitching
ports on some device.

You mean, on /both/ devices? (As otherwise the autoswitching
port on the device that has it will adapt to the other.)

Guess my question is, once you've connected the two machines via
crossover ethernet cable, then what? Each machine thinks the other is
the router and you can use SFTP between them?

In response to the comment about SAMBA, NFS, etc.: yes, I use that
stuff regularly. But they require two networked computers and a
router between them to assign addresses. The cool thing about Apple's
Target Firewire mode is that one machine just appeared to the other as
though it were an external drive. Really, shockingly easy to move
files back and forth that way. (I used Chronosync, a GUIfied rsync
with lots of features).

[Richard Kettlewell]

Post by RS Wood
Guess my question is, once you've connected the two machines via
crossover ethernet cable, then what? Each machine thinks the other is
the router and you can use SFTP between them?
In response to the comment about SAMBA, NFS, etc.: yes, I use that
stuff regularly. But they require two networked computers and a
router between them to assign addresses.

No router is needed. You can assign addresses manually or (sometimes)
use link-local addresses.

[Rich]

Post by RS Wood

Post by Ivan Shmakov

Post by Rich
True, but if one has a crossover in the toolbox, then it will always
work, even if one has encountered one of the older non-autoswitching
ports on some device.

You mean, on /both/ devices? (As otherwise the autoswitching
port on the device that has it will adapt to the other.)

Guess my question is, once you've connected the two machines via
crossover ethernet cable, then what? Each machine thinks the other is
the router and you can use SFTP between them?

No, give each an IP address on the same subnet, then
sftp/scp/rsync/etc. between them

Post by RS Wood
In response to the comment about SAMBA, NFS, etc.: yes, I use that
stuff regularly. But they require two networked computers and a
router between them to assign addresses.

A router is not needed to assign addresses.

Addresses can be at least:
1) assigned statically to each machine;
2) handed out by DHCP - which also does not need a "router", just
some machine (could even be one of the two being connected) on the
same network to respond to DHCP requests
3) if on IPV6, they might even be "auto-assigned" based upon the
ethernet port MAC address

[Ivan Shmakov]

[...]

Post by Rich

Post by RS Wood
In response to the comment about SAMBA, NFS, etc.: yes, I use that
stuff regularly. But they require two networked computers and a
router between them to assign addresses.

A router is not needed to assign addresses.
Addresses can be at least: 1) assigned statically to each machine; 2)
handed out by DHCP - which also does not need a "router", just some
machine (could even be one of the two being connected) on the same
network to respond to DHCP requests 3) if on IPV6, they might even be
"auto-assigned" based upon the ethernet port MAC address

Not quite; IPv6 stateless autoconfiguration (SLAAC) still
requires some party to send router advertisements that contain
available IPv6 network prefixes. True, fe80::/64 link-local
addresses are going to be assigned even without that, but these
are somewhat tricky to use. (At the least for the uninitiated.)

[Ivan Shmakov]

Post by RS Wood

Post by Ivan Shmakov

Post by Rich
True, but if one has a crossover in the toolbox, then it will
always work, even if one has encountered one of the older
non-autoswitching ports on some device.

You mean, on /both/ devices? (As otherwise the autoswitching port
on the device that has it will adapt to the other.)

Guess my question is, once you've connected the two machines via
crossover ethernet cable, then what? Each machine thinks the other
is the router and you can use SFTP between them?

A router is only needed when you have to /route/ packets -- that
is, when there's more than one network (say, LAN and WAN.)

Here, Ethernet is the only network, and either box can just send
the packet to the "ether" to have the other receive it.

Post by RS Wood
In response to the comment about SAMBA, NFS, etc.: yes, I use that
stuff regularly. But they require two networked computers and a
router between them to assign addresses.

I suppose you mean "DHCP server" here, which is an orthogonal
function to routing. (Or forwarding, for that matter.)

... Unless with IPv6, where it's indeed routers that announce
the availability of network prefixes (IPv6 address ranges.)
Of which hosts can then take one or more addresses as they
please. (DHCPv6 is also available, but not that necessary.)

Post by RS Wood
The cool thing about Apple's Target Firewire mode is that one machine
just appeared to the other as though it were an external drive.
Really, shockingly easy to move files back and forth that way.

... But what's more relevant is: there're a plenty of
zero-configuration protocols running on top of IPv6/Ethernet and
IPv4/Ethernet; some of which (unless I be mistaken) originated
at Apple.

Hence, I would quite expect that when one connects two
NFS-capable (or whatever is their equivalent) Apple devices to a
common Ethernet network, both of them just "see" each other.

In particular, $ ping OTHERHOST.local should work instantly --
the 'local' domain being used by Apple for their
zero-configuration "multicast DNS" (mDNS) service.

(I may have some experience with said protocols, but being a
free software enthusiast for nearly 20 years now I have no
experience with pretty much anything Apple. You may very well
call me an Orange in this regard; sorry.)

Post by RS Wood
(I used Chronosync, a GUIfied rsync with lots of features).

[Paul Sture]

Post by Ivan Shmakov

Post by RS Wood
The cool thing about Apple's Target Firewire mode is that one machine
just appeared to the other as though it were an external drive.
Really, shockingly easy to move files back and forth that way.

... But what's more relevant is: there're a plenty of
zero-configuration protocols running on top of IPv6/Ethernet and
IPv4/Ethernet; some of which (unless I be mistaken) originated
at Apple.
Hence, I would quite expect that when one connects two
NFS-capable (or whatever is their equivalent) Apple devices to a
common Ethernet network, both of them just "see" each other.
In particular, $ ping OTHERHOST.local should work instantly --
the 'local' domain being used by Apple for their
zero-configuration "multicast DNS" (mDNS) service.
(I may have some experience with said protocols, but being a
free software enthusiast for nearly 20 years now I have no
experience with pretty much anything Apple. You may very well
call me an Orange in this regard; sorry.)

In the Apple world, zero-configuration is known as Bonjour.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonjour_%28software%29>

[Ben Bacarisse]

Post by RS Wood

Post by Ivan Shmakov

Post by Rich
True, but if one has a crossover in the toolbox, then it will always
work, even if one has encountered one of the older non-autoswitching
ports on some device.

You mean, on /both/ devices? (As otherwise the autoswitching
port on the device that has it will adapt to the other.)

Guess my question is, once you've connected the two machines via
crossover ethernet cable, then what? Each machine thinks the other is
the router and you can use SFTP between them?

When I first met Ethernet, "Ethernet cable" referred to a fat yellow
coaxial cable, limited to about 1500m in length into which devices
tapped using a vampire connector. What we now call Ethernet cables were
in those days called drop cables and were used to connect the controller
to the vampire connector.

When you plug multiple devices into the back of a switch (or router) you
are, logically, connecting to drop cables to a very, very, very short
Ethernet cable the length of the box! Of course, it's not implemented
that way, but that's what's happening logically. Nowadays the majority
of Ethernet installations have no Ethernet cable at all. This is just
as well because modern fast Ethernet would not work using these old
coaxial cables.

The point of this TL story is that Ethernet is a broadcast protocol.
Logically, the signals propagate over the net can can be read by any
host. Hosts find each other by replying to broadcast requests of the
form "who is 192.168.1.100?". The reply tells the asker (and anyone
else cares to listen) what the MAC address of host 192.168.1.100 is.

All a cross-over cable did was to simulate a zero-length Ethernet cable,
so provided the two hosts were given different IP addresses everything
from there up would just work.

Post by RS Wood
In response to the comment about SAMBA, NFS, etc.: yes, I use that
stuff regularly. But they require two networked computers and a
router between them to assign addresses. The cool thing about Apple's
Target Firewire mode is that one machine just appeared to the other as
though it were an external drive. Really, shockingly easy to move
files back and forth that way. (I used Chronosync, a GUIfied rsync
with lots of features).

Like USB, Firewire had protocols designed all the way up to the file
server level which is why it all "just worked". You could do that with
Ethernet too, but it would be undesirable -- you don't want everyone's
drive showing up on everyone else's machine because the Ethernet people
stipulated a file sharing protocol that kicks in automatically.

[Paul Sture]

Post by RS Wood

Post by Ivan Shmakov

Post by Rich
True, but if one has a crossover in the toolbox, then it will always
work, even if one has encountered one of the older non-autoswitching
ports on some device.

You mean, on /both/ devices? (As otherwise the autoswitching
port on the device that has it will adapt to the other.)

Guess my question is, once you've connected the two machines via
crossover ethernet cable, then what? Each machine thinks the other is
the router and you can use SFTP between them?

No router required[1], simply assign a unique IP address to each machine in
/etc/hosts (or the equivalent) and make sure that /etc/hosts entries agree
across all systems. Not too hard for less than say half a dozen systems.
A switch or hub can be used instead of a router where you have more
than 2 systems.

Any (all?) modern operating system has the concept of Zero-configuration
networking (aka zeroconf), which is used if no DHCP server can be found.
No diddling with your /etc/hosts file necessary, zeroconf will allocate
addresses from the reserved block 169.254.0.0/16 (IPv6 hosts use the
prefix fe80::/10)

<http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/about/press/internet-protocol-journal/back-issues/table-contents-15/zero-config-networking.html>

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_configuration_networking>

[1] to be more precise, "no DHCP server required", for apart from the
physical wires, this is what most routers provide out of the box. I
tend to set up my own DHCP server and disable the one in the router.

Because I've come across confusion here before...

It's important here to understand the difference between DHCP Server and
DHCP Client. Consumer routers will typically have both enabled by
default - the DHCP Client is used to get an external IP address from
your ISP, the DHCP Server is used to allocate LAN side addresses to your
network.

[Rich]

Post by Ivan Shmakov
[...]

Post by Rich

Post by Michael Black

Post by Rich

Post by RS Wood
What's the trick? The only things I know of involve setting up
an FTP server on one, and connecting over a network/router.

No router/switch/hub (there I go, dating myself again) necessary
provided one has a "crossover *cable*" handy. :)

I hear more recent ethernet interfaces can even tell which way
things are going, and adapt, so no crossover cable needed.

AFAICT, it's been this way for at least a decade.

True, but some of us have relatively older stuff still sitting around
being used. I've got a couple old PCI ethernet cards in a box that
most likely are not auto-switching. I also just recently retired a
very old four port 10/100 switch that was not auto-switching (it
finally started acting flakey and dropping packets, so it got swapped
out).

Post by Ivan Shmakov

Post by Rich
True, but if one has a crossover in the toolbox, then it will
always work, even if one has encountered one of the older
non-autoswitching ports on some device.

You mean, on /both/ devices? (As otherwise the autoswitching port on
the device that has it will adapt to the other.)

Fair enough, yeah, you need a pair of devices with non-autoswitch ports
to actually need a crossover cable anymore. Which will depend on the
age of the equipment you try to interconnect.

[Larry Sheldon]

Post by RS Wood

Post by Huge
[34 lines snipped]

Post by RS Wood
I'm not aware of any other technology that allows you to plug one
computer into another like that.

Any Unix (Linux) machine can act as a file server for any other Unix (Linux)
machine, giving you the same effect.

That's news to me. Over a cable? What's the trick? The only things
I know of involve setting up an FTP server on one, and connecting over
a network/router. Genuinely curious, as I'd use this.

Any unix-like file system can be NFS-mounted on an other unix-like computer.

[Marko Rauhamaa]

Post by Larry Sheldon
Any unix-like file system can be NFS-mounted on an other unix-like computer.

NFS is among the many options. Unfortunately, I have yet to hear of a
truly satisfactory option.

The classic NFSv3 is easy to set up but:

* Communication problems routinely hang the clients: "nfs: server
<servername> not responding, still trying."

* In a classic unix way, computers trust each other. It is trivial to
spoof other users.

* NFS doesn't support the regular unix/Posix/linux file system
semantics completely.

NFSv4 addresses the spoofing issue but a proper setup is much more
complicated than in NFSv3.


Marko

[Huge]

Post by RS Wood

Post by Huge
[34 lines snipped]

Post by RS Wood
I'm not aware of any other technology that allows you to plug one
computer into another like that.

Any Unix (Linux) machine can act as a file server for any other Unix (Linux)
machine, giving you the same effect.

That's news to me. Over a cable? What's the trick? The only things
I know of involve setting up an FTP server on one, and connecting over
a network/router. Genuinely curious, as I'd use this.

So long as they can talk to one another, it doesn't matter how, although
Ethernet is likely the best solution these days. You probably don't even need
a hub/switch. Then you can fire up an NFS server, or run rsync over
ssh.

I suspect Microsoft's broken (and driven solely by licensing fees) concept
that a machine is either a client or a server has contaminated the space
occupied by real computers. Unix machines can be either or both.

[Scott Alfter]

Post by Huge
[34 lines snipped]

Post by RS Wood
I'm not aware of any other technology that allows you to plug one
computer into another like that.

Any Unix (Linux) machine can act as a file server for any other Unix (Linux)
machine, giving you the same effect.

Target mode isn't like that. It basically turns a Mac into an oversized
external hard drive. Somewhere, I might still have a FireWire drive
enclosure I bought years ago and used at various times with hard drives and
DVD burners. Target mode turns a Mac into one of those.

_/_
/ v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
(IIGS( https://alfter.us/ Top-posting!
\_^_/ >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?

[Richard Kettlewell]

Post by RS Wood
Oh yeah, just remembered the coolest trick: You could boot a Mac up in
"Firewire mode" so it appeared as an external disk. So I used to
regularly plug my Mac laptop into a Mac desktop, with the laptop
showing up as an external Firewire disk. Then I ran sync software to
keep the two things in sync.

In Apple’s world it’s called Target Disk Mode and is not limited to
firewire. https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201462 describes its current
form.

AFAIK it’s more analogous to Linux’s NBD or iSCSI than the network
filesystems which people are mentioning elsewhere in this thread, but at
any rate the idea is not unique to Apple.

[Caecilius]

Post by RS Wood
Oh yeah, just remembered the coolest trick: You could boot a Mac up in
"Firewire mode" so it appeared as an external disk. So I used to
regularly plug my Mac laptop into a Mac desktop, with the laptop
showing up as an external Firewire disk. Then I ran sync software to
keep the two things in sync.

Didn't the earlier Macs let you do the same thing with SCSI? I've
never been a Mac user, but I recall someone telling me that Apple
chose different SCSI IDs for the disks in their desktop and laptop
products to allow booting into target disk mode.

[Michael Black]

Post by Caecilius

Post by RS Wood
Oh yeah, just remembered the coolest trick: You could boot a Mac up in
"Firewire mode" so it appeared as an external disk. So I used to
regularly plug my Mac laptop into a Mac desktop, with the laptop
showing up as an external Firewire disk. Then I ran sync software to
keep the two things in sync.

Didn't the earlier Macs let you do the same thing with SCSI? I've
never been a Mac user, but I recall someone telling me that Apple
chose different SCSI IDs for the disks in their desktop and laptop
products to allow booting into target disk mode.

That sounds vaguely familiar. Not something I ever did, but I did use a
Mac for most of a decade.

Michael

[Scott Alfter]

Post by RS Wood
Oh yeah, just remembered the coolest trick: You could boot a Mac up in
"Firewire mode" so it appeared as an external disk. So I used to
regularly plug my Mac laptop into a Mac desktop, with the laptop
showing up as an external Firewire disk. Then I ran sync software to
keep the two things in sync.

Kernel-mode debugging over FireWire allows one computer to completely take
over operation of another computer: freeze it at any time, poke around in
memory, etc. I last used this capability years ago, but it looks like it's
still a going concern, with this webpage having last been updated a little
over a month ago:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/debugger/setting-up-a-1394-cable-connection

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