FireWire

Firewire was one of the connectors used in digital devices especially in printers and digital Cameras. It was introduced by Apple. It came with some extraordinary features that the other connectors doesn’t provide at that time. In this article, we are going to discuss the Firewire connector in detail.

FireWire

History :
The FireWire connector was originally known as the IEEE 1394 interface before Apple trademarked it. It was developed in the early 1990s. At that time FireWire provides faster speeds than any other connectors. FireWire connector was first commercially launched with the Macintosh computers.  The first generation of this connector is called FireWire 400.  Later there are multiple generations came of FireWire connector.

Generations :

Name	Year of Released	Speed	Description
IEEE 1394 (FireWire 400)	1995	100-400 Mbps	1. It was a 6-pin connector. 2. It was able to supply power to the connecting devices that means devices that requires small amount of power do not need additional power supply . 3. Its range was limited to 4.5 metres only.
IEEE 1394a	2000	up to 400 Mbps	1. It was a 4-pin connector. 2. It was unable to supply power to the connecting devices. 3. It was backwards compatible that means all the previous generation is supported as well .
IEEE 1394b (FireWire 800)	2002	400 MBps	1. It was a 9-pin connector.
IEEE 1394c (FireWire S800T)	2006	800 Mbps	1. It uses Cat 5e cable that is basically a twisted pair cable for computer networks.
FireWire S1600 and S3200	2012	1.57 Gbps	1. It’s was the last commercially marketed version.  2. It was backwards compatible.

Features of FireWire :

1. It was hot-swappable which means the device connected using this connector to a computer can be inserted and removed while the computer system is running.
2. It was supported by Windows, Linux, Mac operating system.
3. Peer-to-peer & ad hoc networks can be created by FireWire. 

Drawbacks of FireWire :

1. All the manufacturers don’t include FireWire ports on their devices.
2. It cannot share the system resources .
3. USB got a lot faster than the FireWire.
4. It has some security issues.