It was created by Apple in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
It can also be abbreviated as 1394.
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This cable also carries power, allowing devices with medium power requirements to operate without a separate power source.
It is also available in Cat 5 and fiber versions.
FireWire Versions
The original version of FireWire technology, called FireWire 400, was released in 1995.
It can transmit data at 100, 200 or 400 Mbps, depending on the FireWire cable.
These data transmission modes are commonly referred to as S100, S200 and S400.
It has six circuits, two of which provide power to the machine.
It is most commonly used on desktop computers.
5 years later, the IEEE 1394a was released in 2000.
This version of FireWire is designed to improve the original design.
It provides faster bus reconfiguration, power-saving suspend mode and more.
Just two years later, the IEEE 1394b came out in 2002.
It is also called as FireWire 800, or S800.
For backward compatibility with slower versions, it uses a new encoding scheme called beta mode.
FireWire S1600 and S3200 were announced in the late 2000s, but they were not released.
Recent developments in FireWire include a new port specification that adds compatibility with Ethernet technology.
The port can be connected to IEEE Std 1394 (FireWire) or IEEE 802.3 (Ethernet gadget).
Lastly, a single-mode fiber as a medium for data transmission will add more speed to FireWire.
The goal for the near future is 6.4 Gbit/s speed and more connectors to enhance compatibility.
USB is supported on nearly every computer and machine while FireWire not.
Most modern computers do not have a built-in FireWire port.
The latest USB standard is USB 3.1, which supports transfer speeds of up to 10,240 Mbps.
This is much faster than the 800 Mbps supported by FireWire.
As mentioned above, FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 use different cables that are not compatible with each other.
On the other hand, the USB standard has always maintained good backwards compatibility.
However, USB devices cannot be daisy-chained together like FireWire devices.
USB devices require the computer to process this information after leaving one gear and entering another gear.
