High Performance Serial Bus
1394
FireWire
IEEE 1394
I-Link

    (Or "IEEE 1394") A 1995 Macintosh/IBM
   PC serial bus interface standard offering isochronous
   real-time data transfer.

   1394 can transfer data between a computer and its peripherals at
   100, 200, or 400 Mbps, with a planed increase to 2 Gbps.
   Cable length is limited to 4.5 m but up to 16 cables can be
   daisy-chained yielding a total length of 72 m.

   It can daisy-chain together up to 63 peripherals in a tree-like
   structure (as opposed to SCSI's linear structure).  It allows
   peer-to-peer communication, e.g. between a scanner and a
   printer, without using system memory or the CPU.  It is
   designed to support plug-and-play and hot swapping.

   Its six-wire cable is not only more convenient than SCSI cables
   but can supply up to 60 watts of power, allowing low-consumption
   devices to operate without a separate power cord.

   Some expensive camcorders included this bus from 1995.  It is
   expected to be used to carry SCSI, with possible application to
   home automation using repeaters.

   Sony calls it I-Link, most people call it "FireWire".

   See also Universal Serial Bus, FC-AL.

   (2014-09-06)