If you've been following my Firewire woes, this evening, I got The
Final Answer in a phone call (no less!) from a Dell tech support
supervisor.

The setup:

Dell Inspiron 2650 computer (no Firewire port, USB 1.1 only)
PCMCIA slot with PCMCIA Firewire adapter
Disk drive in a Firewire enclosure.

I've been using the computer with the PCMCIA Firewire adapter to
record stereo from a Mackie Onyx mixer with pretty good success. I
wanted to experiment with the rig for live multitrack recording, and
for that I needed more disk space than the internal drive, and I
figured that a faster drive would be desirable. It seemed like
Firewire would be a good approach.

After trying four or five different Firewire cases and a couple of
different PCMCIA adapters and not being able to access the drive, I
started writing to the tech supports - Mad Dog (the current drive
case), Adaptec (the current PCMCIA Firewire adapter) and Dell. I got
the usual runaround, essentially "try something else." Obviously the
adapter works since it works with the Onyx audio interface and also
with my Jukebox 3. The drive works. I took it to a different computer
(thanks to my friendly used computer store) with a real Firewire port
and it works there. The drive case also has a USB port, and that works
when connected to my computer.

Dell's final answer was that the motherboard design is "old" and isn't
intended to support Firewire through the PCMCIA slot. The fact that
something works, I guess, is just incidental. Interestingly, he said
that if my computer was under service contract, they could replace the
motherboard but that it wouldn't be worth paying for it as a repair. I
didn't expect the warranty to cover failure due to obsolescence, but I
guess it might be a good thing to consider if I ever buy another Dell
computer.

Anyway, just for kicks, this evening I connected the drive to the
computer through the USB1.1 port, cranked up the rig, and let it run
for an hour recording four stereo tracks of tone at 16-bit, 44.1 kHz.
I was surprised that it didn't choke completely (I didn't bother to
try to calculate the required throughput - Arny???? You're good at
that stuff) and I didn't see any obvious glitches with an eyeball on
the waveforms. I'm running them, a pair at a time, through Wave Repair
now to let it count glitches. It's 80% though the first file with 8
"clicks" counted. But they may not be significant.

Anyway, while I'm bummed that I can't use Firewire to connect the disk
drive, it looks like at least for a modest project, USB1.1 might work
OK.




--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
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"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
news:znr1123722444k@trad...

Dell's final answer was that the motherboard design is "old" and isn't
intended to support Firewire through the PCMCIA slot.

How old is the PC? PCMCIA supports IEEE 1394 only in the newest revision,
which seems like it was a few years ago. Is your laptop from the 90's?

Anyway, while I'm bummed that I can't use Firewire to connect the disk
drive, it looks like at least for a modest project, USB1.1 might work
OK.


I think USB 1 has an unwritten '2 tracks at a time' rule.

jb

"reddred" wrote in message
...

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
news:znr1123722444k@trad...

Dell's final answer was that the motherboard design is "old" and isn't
intended to support Firewire through the PCMCIA slot.

How old is the PC? PCMCIA supports IEEE 1394 only in the newest revision,
which seems like it was a few years ago. Is your laptop from the 90's?

Anyway, while I'm bummed that I can't use Firewire to connect the disk
drive, it looks like at least for a modest project, USB1.1 might work
OK.


I think USB 1 has an unwritten '2 tracks at a time' rule.

jb



too bad you can't use usb 2 wich is faster than fwire

I am surprized you would say 16 clicks per track times 4 is OK for any
project. I'm looking for a portable rig that can handle at least 10
inputs at 24 bits w/o any glitches. That may be too much to ask but
I'm asking anyway.

"Carl Valle" wrote:

too bad you can't use usb 2 wich is faster than fwire



Not for audio. USB2 has a higher peak rate, but Firewire has better
sustained rate.

--
"It CAN'T be too loud... some of the red lights aren't even on yet!"
- Lorin David Schultz
in the control room
making even bad news sound good

(Remove spamblock to reply)

In article znr1123722444k@trad (that's me!) writes:

If you've been following my Firewire woes, this evening, I got The
Final Answer in a phone call (no less!) from a Dell tech support
supervisor.

While the chat on the phone with the supervisor guy was quite
professional, the follow-up response by e-mail was rather amusing:

Mr. Rivers, as per your telephonic conversation with my Supervisor,
the PCMCIA card slot is not compatible with the Firewire card.
As a result of the same you will not be able to install the
Firewire adapter card in the system. However you can connect the
Firewire Adapter to the USB port of your system.

This will surely address your concerns.

Got it. So I guess the Firewire card isn't working with the Mackie
Onyx after all. Now all I need is a Firewire-USB1.1 adapter and I'll
be all set. g




--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Mike Rivers wrote:

In article znr1123722444k@trad (that's me!) writes:

If you've been following my Firewire woes, this evening, I got The
Final Answer in a phone call (no less!) from a Dell tech support
supervisor.

While the chat on the phone with the supervisor guy was quite
professional, the follow-up response by e-mail was rather amusing:

Mr. Rivers, as per your telephonic conversation with my Supervisor,
the PCMCIA card slot is not compatible with the Firewire card.
As a result of the same you will not be able to install the
Firewire adapter card in the system. However you can connect the
Firewire Adapter to the USB port of your system.

This will surely address your concerns.

Got it. So I guess the Firewire card isn't working with the Mackie
Onyx after all. Now all I need is a Firewire-USB1.1 adapter and I'll
be all set. g

Dell are clueless.

I just love the way they have to insist they 'solved' your problem.

Graham

In article writes:

How old is the PC? PCMCIA supports IEEE 1394 only in the newest revision,
which seems like it was a few years ago. Is your laptop from the 90's?

Apparently it's not as old as I thought. Purcahsed in November 2002.

I think USB 1 has an unwritten '2 tracks at a time' rule.

I've been testing by recording stereo tracks because I'm using Wave
Repair (which doesn't work with mono files) as a first passs glitch
detector. But it doesn't seem to have a problem recording four pairs
of stereo tracks. Thinking back to the TASCAM US-* series, they always
talked about a limit of six streams, typically four (mono, I assume)
tracks recording and two playing. So maybe I'm pushing the envelope
here.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
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In article writes:

too bad you can't use usb 2 wich is faster than fwire

If I did that with this computer, it would have to be through the
PCMCIA slot, which, for all I know, may have the same problem as
Firewire when talking to a disk drive.

The computer has only one PCMCIA slot, so if I use that with the
Firewire adapter to talk to the Onyx card, I don't have a slot for
a USB2 adapter for the disk drive (if it even works).

Obviously the answer, if I really want to pursue this, is to buy a new
computer. At this point, however, I can't convince myself that the
investment is worth it.

--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article .com writes:

I am surprized you would say 16 clicks per track times 4 is OK for any
project.

Upon a closer look, it turns out that all but two of those are analog
in nature. One that was on all the tracks at the same time was a
result of moving the generator so I could reach a piece of paper that
was under it. Probably crackled the cable.

I agree that any glitches is too much, but given all the other sources
for clicks, I could consider this "down in the noise level" if I
wanted to.

I'm looking for a portable rig that can handle at least 10
inputs at 24 bits w/o any glitches. That may be too much to ask but
I'm asking anyway.

Got one. My Mackie HDR24/96 will do 24 tracks at 24 bits without any
glitches, and it's really no harder to carry into a gig than a
computer and all its trappings (but it's limited to 44.1/48 kHz sample
rate, without using external A/D converters and cutting the track
count in half). The only thing it doesn't have is a way to quickly
burn a CD. If I want to do that, I need to carry along the CD
recorder.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

How is the HDR24/96 for latency?

(but it's limited to 44.1/48 kHz sample
rate, without using external A/D converters and cutting the track
count in half).

Yet it's Model # is "24/96", which at least stongly implies 96kHz
sample rate.

Have you heard of any Notebooks PC or Mac that can do what the Mackie
does?
Dkid

How old is the PC? PCMCIA supports IEEE 1394 only in the newest revision,
which seems like it was a few years ago. Is your laptop from the 90's?


please dont be too hard on me for asking a dumb question, but is IEEE
1394 the technical name for firewire? i see this connection on my dell
inspiron 5150. i just wanna hit myself upside the head for not
thinking about that earlier.

jake

please dont be too hard on me for asking a dumb question, but is IEEE
1394 the technical name for firewire? i see this connection on my dell
inspiron 5150. i just wanna hit myself upside the head for not
thinking about that earlier.

jake

Take it easy on that noggin' but yeah 1394 is firewire

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
news:znr1123764045k@trad...

In article
writes:

How old is the PC? PCMCIA supports IEEE 1394 only in the newest
revision,
which seems like it was a few years ago. Is your laptop from the 90's?

Apparently it's not as old as I thought. Purcahsed in November 2002.


Well, it should be compliant with the most recent PCMCIA spec, and Dell is
trying to sell you a board in an effort to get you to go away. I suspect
software might be the culprit. Have you tried to find more recent drivers
for it than Dell's? I'm sure it's third party. Might be worth a shot, but
I'd back up my system partition first.

jb

"Jake Saliba" wrote in message
oups.com...

How old is the PC? PCMCIA supports IEEE 1394 only in the newest
revision,
which seems like it was a few years ago. Is your laptop from the 90's?


please dont be too hard on me for asking a dumb question, but is IEEE
1394 the technical name for firewire? i see this connection on my dell
inspiron 5150. i just wanna hit myself upside the head for not
thinking about that earlier.

Aye, that it is.

jb

You could always replace the existing internal drive with a bigger and
faster model (check out the Hitachi Travelstar).
Only risk is that some older bios's have some peculiar restrictions on
drive sizes, which you might want to look into.

--Peter

Mike Rivers wrote:
In article writes:


too bad you can't use usb 2 wich is faster than fwire


If I did that with this computer, it would have to be through the
PCMCIA slot, which, for all I know, may have the same problem as
Firewire when talking to a disk drive.

The computer has only one PCMCIA slot, so if I use that with the
Firewire adapter to talk to the Onyx card, I don't have a slot for
a USB2 adapter for the disk drive (if it even works).

Obviously the answer, if I really want to pursue this, is to buy a new
computer. At this point, however, I can't convince myself that the
investment is worth it.

--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
news:znr1123723870k@trad...

In article znr1123722444k@trad (that's me!) writes:

If you've been following my Firewire woes, this evening, I got The
Final Answer in a phone call (no less!) from a Dell tech support
supervisor.

While the chat on the phone with the supervisor guy was quite
professional, the follow-up response by e-mail was rather amusing:

Mr. Rivers, as per your telephonic conversation

Did you call a guy or talk to him about telephones? I dig big words.

with my Supervisor,
the PCMCIA card slot is not compatible with the Firewire card.

It should be. Maybe they made it right before the spec came out?

As a result of the same you will not be able to install the
Firewire adapter card in the system. However you can connect the
Firewire Adapter to the USB port of your system.

This will surely address your concerns.


I hear they pay 299 rupees an hour. Outsourceing is value for money, that's
what they say.

jb

Carl Valle wrote:

"reddred" wrote in message
...

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
news:znr1123722444k@trad...


Dell's final answer was that the motherboard design is "old" and isn't
intended to support Firewire through the PCMCIA slot.

How old is the PC? PCMCIA supports IEEE 1394 only in the newest revision,
which seems like it was a few years ago. Is your laptop from the 90's?


Anyway, while I'm bummed that I can't use Firewire to connect the disk
drive, it looks like at least for a modest project, USB1.1 might work
OK.


I think USB 1 has an unwritten '2 tracks at a time' rule.

jb




too bad you can't use usb 2 wich is faster than fwire

How about a USB 2.0 PCMCIA adapter?



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Mike Rivers wrote:

In article znr1123722444k@trad (that's me!) writes:


If you've been following my Firewire woes, this evening, I got The
Final Answer in a phone call (no less!) from a Dell tech support
supervisor.


While the chat on the phone with the supervisor guy was quite
professional, the follow-up response by e-mail was rather amusing:


Mr. Rivers, as per your telephonic conversation with my Supervisor,
the PCMCIA card slot is not compatible with the Firewire card.
As a result of the same you will not be able to install the
Firewire adapter card in the system. However you can connect the
Firewire Adapter to the USB port of your system.


This will surely address your concerns.


Got it. So I guess the Firewire card isn't working with the Mackie
Onyx after all. Now all I need is a Firewire-USB1.1 adapter and I'll
be all set. g

"Telephonic conversation"??

Neat


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Mike Rivers wrote:

Anyway, just for kicks, this evening I connected the drive to the
computer through the USB1.1 port, cranked up the rig, and let it run
for an hour recording four stereo tracks of tone at 16-bit, 44.1 kHz.
I was surprised that it didn't choke completely (I didn't bother to
try to calculate the required throughput - Arny???? You're good at
that stuff) and I didn't see any obvious glitches with an eyeball on
the waveforms. I'm running them, a pair at a time, through Wave Repair
now to let it count glitches. It's 80% though the first file with 8
"clicks" counted. But they may not be significant.

16 bits times 44,100 samples per second gives you 705.6kbits per channel
per second (not accounting for any kind of sample overhead or anything).
Since USB 1.1 is rated at 12Mbit/s throughput, that gives you up to 17
channels' worth of audio THEORETICALLY. Not that you'll get anywhere
near that at a sustained level in normal use, but four channels (at
about 2.8Mbit) shouldn't be a problem.


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dkid wrote:

I'm looking for a portable rig that can handle at least 10
inputs at 24 bits w/o any glitches. That may be too much to ask but
I'm asking anyway.

RME Fireface 800 will do that
http://rme-audio.com/english/firewire/ff800.htm

Hi Mike,

If you decide to get a new computer, and you don't need battery
operation, you might consider getting a desktop computer instead of a
laptop. You can put together a computer in a small desktop case pretty
cheaply, then add an LCD monitor. It will cost less than a laptop, have
more functionality and expandability, and only be slightly less
portable.

Just a thought.

Dean

In article . com writes:

How is the HDR24/96 for latency?

Analog in to analog out is about 1.2 msec.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article .com writes:

is IEEE 1394 the technical name for firewire? i see this
connection on my dell inspiron 5150.

Yes, that's the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers
(IEEE) standard number that defines the interface. Firewire is, I
believe, and Apple or Sony (or joint) name. Toshiba calls it something
else.




--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article writes:

Well, it should be compliant with the most recent PCMCIA spec, and Dell is
trying to sell you a board in an effort to get you to go away.

No, they aren't trying to sell me anything. But it's clear that they
want me to go away. They're out of ideas.

I suspect
software might be the culprit. Have you tried to find more recent drivers
for it than Dell's? I'm sure it's third party.

Where would you look, and for what? Adaptec doesn't have a driver for
the PCMCIA card. I have the latest BIOS update from Dell.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article writes:

You could always replace the existing internal drive with a bigger and
faster model (check out the Hitachi Travelstar).
Only risk is that some older bios's have some peculiar restrictions on
drive sizes, which you might want to look into.

I've been considering replacing the drive. There was some evidence
that it was getting flaky, but now I'm not sure. However, I'd prefer
not to put the money and time into replacing the drive only to have
something else die shortly thereafter. The original drive is a Hitachi
Travelstar.

I've run an 80 GB drive through the USB route, so I guess the BIOS can
handle it.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article CcMKe.194358$s54.60387@pd7tw2no writes:

How about a USB 2.0 PCMCIA adapter?

The computer has only one PCMCIA slot, and I need a Firewire adapter
to connect the Onyx. The first adapter I got was a combination USB2
and Firewire. The USB on that one didn't work at all, and the Firewire
didn't work very well with the Onyx.

It's just a case of trying to teach an "old" computer new tricks, and
you really can't. Another myth.

--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article 4jMKe.194366$s54.118360@pd7tw2no writes:

16 bits times 44,100 samples per second gives you 705.6kbits per channel
per second (not accounting for any kind of sample overhead or anything).
Since USB 1.1 is rated at 12Mbit/s throughput, that gives you up to 17
channels' worth of audio THEORETICALLY. Not that you'll get anywhere
near that at a sustained level in normal use, but four channels (at
about 2.8Mbit) shouldn't be a problem.

I figured on about 1/2 to 1/3 in practice. In fact, with 8 tracks (4
stereo) I got a few clicks per hour. When I tested with 6 tracks, I
got no clicks. Twice. So perhaps 6 tracks is a safe limit. I can live
with that.

--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article .com writes:

If you decide to get a new computer, and you don't need battery
operation, you might consider getting a desktop computer instead of a
laptop. You can put together a computer in a small desktop case pretty
cheaply, then add an LCD monitor. It will cost less than a laptop, have
more functionality and expandability, and only be slightly less
portable.

I need a real portable computer to do real portable computer work,
too. I suppose that I could make up something like what you suggest,
but at least for some trips, I'd end up taking the laptop, too.

Understand that this isn't a "must have" for me. I'm just trying to
see what I can do with what I have laying around, or can augment with
a small investment.

--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Mike Rivers wrote:

In article .com writes:


is IEEE 1394 the technical name for firewire? i see this
connection on my dell inspiron 5150.


Yes, that's the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers
(IEEE) standard number that defines the interface. Firewire is, I
believe, and Apple or Sony (or joint) name. Toshiba calls it something
else.

"iLink"



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Mike Rivers wrote:

In article 4jMKe.194366$s54.118360@pd7tw2no writes:


16 bits times 44,100 samples per second gives you 705.6kbits per channel
per second (not accounting for any kind of sample overhead or anything).
Since USB 1.1 is rated at 12Mbit/s throughput, that gives you up to 17
channels' worth of audio THEORETICALLY. Not that you'll get anywhere
near that at a sustained level in normal use, but four channels (at
about 2.8Mbit) shouldn't be a problem.


I figured on about 1/2 to 1/3 in practice. In fact, with 8 tracks (4
stereo) I got a few clicks per hour. When I tested with 6 tracks, I
got no clicks. Twice. So perhaps 6 tracks is a safe limit. I can live
with that.

Other factors to consider are whether the software is capturing to a
"local" temp drive first, or to memory, and what kind of buffering there
is at all stages - in the initial capture, in writing to the temp space,
in reading from temp, and writing to the USB port... basically the
efficiency of the whole chain from the analog input to the read/write
heads in the outboard drive. Weakest link, and all that


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Mike Rivers wrote:

In article .com writes:


If you decide to get a new computer, and you don't need battery
operation, you might consider getting a desktop computer instead of a
laptop. You can put together a computer in a small desktop case pretty
cheaply, then add an LCD monitor. It will cost less than a laptop, have
more functionality and expandability, and only be slightly less
portable.


I need a real portable computer to do real portable computer work,
too. I suppose that I could make up something like what you suggest,
but at least for some trips, I'd end up taking the laptop, too.

Understand that this isn't a "must have" for me. I'm just trying to
see what I can do with what I have laying around, or can augment with
a small investment.

Here's something to check out: http://www.shuttle.com/ (or direct to
http://sys.us.shuttle.com/ for complete systems)

These are small cube-style cased PCs that combined with an LCD monitor,
provide a very portable solution. We use them to build
video-surveillance DVRs and they work great. For around CDN$300 we can
get a basic case/mainboard/cooler package that includes two onboard EIDE
or SATA channels, AC97 5.1 audio with optical I/O, video, LAN, etc.,
plus multiple firewire and USB 2.0 ports, front-panel USB and audio
ports... add a CPU and drives and away you go.

The ones we use have a single floppy bay, a single HDD bay, and a single
CD-ROM bay, one AGP and one PCI slot, but that's already more than most
laptops provide, and they are available with more bays and slots.



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"Carl Valle" wrote in message news:e7AKe.1488


too bad you can't use usb 2 wich is faster than fwire


Faster bit raw bit rate, but not faster in real use. Slower.

geoff

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
news:znr1123798483k@trad...

In article
writes:

Adaptec doesn't have a driver for
the PCMCIA card. I have the latest BIOS update from Dell.


I've looked up the date for IEEE 1394 implementation in the PCMCIA spec, and
it looks like you might have come a hair's breadth from support: the spec
came out in April 2001.

jb

In article writes:

I've looked up the date for IEEE 1394 implementation in the PCMCIA spec, and
it looks like you might have come a hair's breadth from support: the spec
came out in April 2001.

Dell is a pretty conservative company. It wouldn't be unusual for them
to be at least a year behind the publication data of a specification.

Do you have any insight as to what "IEEE 1394 implimentation in the
PCMCIA spec" actually means? What I have certainly works - otherwise I
wouldn't be able to use the Onyx, or use it to transfer files to and
from my Jukebox 3. It just seems that it doesn't work with a disk
drive that's supposed to work as a disk drive.

Is there something in the current 1394 part of the PCMCIA spec that
addresses data transfer to disks that may not have been included in an
earlier version?



--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article JGSKe.196184$s54.121676@pd7tw2no writes:

Other factors to consider are whether the software is capturing to a
"local" temp drive first, or to memory, and what kind of buffering there
is at all stages - in the initial capture, in writing to the temp space,
in reading from temp, and writing to the USB port... basically the
efficiency of the whole chain from the analog input to the read/write
heads in the outboard drive. Weakest link, and all that

Ouch! How can any normal audio engineer with an EE degree be expected
to know, or even determine all that?

The reason why I'm conducting physical experiments is to find out what
happens in practice rather than work out the theoretical throughput
and then have to make (hopefully intelligent) estimates as to how much
slop to allow.

The Onyx has a choice of several latency (buffer size) settings. I've
been running it at the second-to-lowest setting. I suppose that by
making the buffer large enough, the performance for short recordings
will probably improve, but with long recordings, I expect that the
weakest link will eventually be broken.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

is IEEE 1394 the technical name for firewire? i see this
connection on my dell inspiron 5150.

Yes, that's the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers
(IEEE) standard number that defines the interface. Firewire is, I
believe, and Apple or Sony (or joint) name. Toshiba calls it something
else.

Apple developed the standard with support from Sony and some others. They
attempted to get $1 per port royalties from Sony and everyone else when Sony
started putting iLink (Sony's trademarked name) ports on their camcorders,
but Sony told Apple to go pound sand. Good thing, because it would likely be
a proprietary interface otherwise. (Jobs is sometimes a big idiot)

-John O

Is there something in the current 1394 part of the PCMCIA spec that
addresses data transfer to disks that may not have been included in an
earlier version?

Some PC Card slots (PCMCIA is old terminology :-)) were not 'cardbus'
compatible, which IIRC was a wide and fast transfer through the PCI
subsystem, or even DMA. The older cards were much slower. It could be that
certain Dell notebooks didn't have cardbus slots, meaning you couldn't get
anything near 1394-possible transfer speeds.

-John O

Mike Rivers wrote:
If you've been following my Firewire woes, this evening, I got The
Final Answer in a phone call (no less!) from a Dell tech support
supervisor.

*snip*

After trying four or five different Firewire cases and a couple of
different PCMCIA adapters and not being able to access the drive, I
started writing to the tech supports - Mad Dog (the current drive
case), Adaptec (the current PCMCIA Firewire adapter) and Dell. I got
the usual runaround, essentially "try something else."

*mega-snip*

Hey Mike,

One thing that i've come across consistently is that the chipset of the
case's enclosure is vital to proper performance of drives, especially
firewire drives for PC's it seems. The fastest chipset that i know of is
the Oxford 911 chipset. In the past it provided the fastest FW
throughput and i believe it still does. Look for a case that has this
chipset. It is essentially the translator of FireWire to IDE.

Have you tried a different case? I would certainly try that before you
get a new computer/motherboard. Bytecc makes a great one, the "ME-740F".
It's listed for about 50 bucks in Toronto.

Have you tried a different PCMCIA card? Also with firewire cards, look
for Texas Instruments or Lucent chipsets onboard. Generally highers quality.

Roach

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
news:znr1123846782k@trad...

In article
writes:

I've looked up the date for IEEE 1394 implementation in the PCMCIA spec,
and
it looks like you might have come a hair's breadth from support: the
spec
came out in April 2001.

Dell is a pretty conservative company. It wouldn't be unusual for them
to be at least a year behind the publication data of a specification.

Do you have any insight as to what "IEEE 1394 implimentation in the
PCMCIA spec" actually means? What I have certainly works - otherwise I
wouldn't be able to use the Onyx, or use it to transfer files to and
from my Jukebox 3. It just seems that it doesn't work with a disk
drive that's supposed to work as a disk drive.


The pinouts, while mechanically the same and backwards compatible, have been
altered to duplicate the functions of both USB and firewire. The newer spec
cards can draw more power, and pass it along to a USB or 1394 bus if need
be.

I really don't recall exactly what was happening with your drive, does it
seem like a power issue from the bus or does it have a wall wart? This is an
EIDE drive in a case?

jb