ThinkPad

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Firewire, anyone? (self.thinkpad)

submitted 1 year ago by pastermil to c/[email protected]

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Any Thinkpad user here using their Firewire port? What would you use it for? I read that we can make ad-hoc connection between two computers.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

FireWire (or IEEE1394) was commonly used to connect tape camcorders to transfer video due to it being faster than USB at the time, there was also a short period where iPods came with a FireWire cable only (I think). The power output is also a bit higher than what USB-A is capable of (7 vs. 5 W).

Edit: I'm dumb. First and second generation iPods literally had FireWire ports, but they initially only provided FireWire to FireWire cables (6-pin) in the box.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't think thinkpads ever came with the 6 or 8 pin flavors of firewire, only the 4 pin "i link" style plug that doesn't do power.

Which essentially limits them to only transferring data to devices with batteries like camcorders.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

No idea, I don't have any ThinkPads with IEEE1394. I'm pretty sure the only laptops to come with 6 pin FireWire were Macs, with the 8 pin only appearing on PowerBooks, I believe.

But they dropped FireWire with the first "unibody" MacBook.