Hacker News Reader

Comment by baybal2 | Hacker News Reader

It reminds me of the old "FireWire vs USB."

Firewire was an originally open standard, but there came Apple and demanded to exact a symbolic 1$ per device payment.

Despite FireWire being an indisputably better standard from technical standpoint, that 1$ completely ruined the mood with OEMs, and they lost the market.

USB on the other hand, was not really open, but Intel's central leadership in it guaranteed that there were no disarray with association peers throwing random capricious demands.

Most USB implementers were random Taiwanese OEMs who never formally joined the USB-IF, but nevertheless Intel was smart enough to close eyes on that.

View on HN

>Firewire was an originally open standard, but there came Apple and demanded to exact a symbolic 1$ per device payment.

What? Firewire was a project initiated by Apple in mid-1980s, which then was further developed by the IEEE P1394 Working Group. Patents and pooling was part of it from the very beginning, with the primary drivers being Apple, Panasonic, Philips, and Sony (there were also a half-dozen odd smaller contributors). I don't remember there being any sort of "originally open standard" part to it whatsoever. Yeah, Apple owned the trademarked name "Firewire" for IEEE 1394, while Sony and TI used "i.LINK" and "Lynx" respectively, and Apple initially tried charging extra for that which was really stupid (but late 90s Apple was pretty dysfunctional). But even without that wasn't there still the standard $0.25/unit manufacturer royalty?

If you've got some other sources I'd be happy for the trip down memory lane because it's been a really, really long time since that particular battle. I'm not disagreeing that Apple's charge definitely harmed momentum, just that it's not like they came out of nowhere. Though it's worth noting that Firewire was inherently more costly anyway since it required dedicated silicon rather than handing everything off to the CPU. At the time that also gave it vastly more reliable real performance and latency vs USB, and Firewire 400 would typically obliterate USB 2 despite the latter having a sticker speed of 480 Mbps. But it was more inherently costly IIRC.

1394TA was open as far as I remember

HEVC, VVC, H.264 are also Open Standards, does not mean it is patents free or Royalty free.

While VP8, VP9 arguably isn't as much of of Open Standards, it is not patents free ( Neither is AV1 ) but Royalty Free.

Margins on most consumer electronics are extremely small. $1 per device may seem symbolic, but it starts looking like real money at scale.

I own many USB gadgets that I bought for less than $10. Paying 10% of the retail price for the privilege of using a specific port/protocol seems out of the question. Even for low-end computers (~$300) $1 for a license is a lot of money.

FireWire also had a few port types which required different cables and connectors, while USB at the time only had one (this was before Mini and Micro USB). Apple even included dongle converters with their iPods.

USB also had the advantage of Intel pushing it, resulting in almost every PC with an Intel CPU (large majority) having USB ports.

> USB also had the advantage of Intel pushing it, resulting in almost every PC with an Intel CPU (large majority) having USB ports.

In the mid to late 1990s, USB was scarce. It didn't take off until after Apple replaced its ADB (Apple Desktop Bus) port with USB in the first iMacs. Once that happened, manufacturers flooded the market with consumer products (e.g. CDRW drives) and PC makers followed suit. Up to that point PC makers had standardized on the serial port.

I don't have contemporaneous links at the moment but the second paragraph of a relatively recent (2015) article summarizes:

> But Apple shocked the computing world when it swept its old connectors away with the original 1998 iMac. The bulbous computer adopted a then-struggling standard developed by Intel called USB (Universal Serial Bus). In a hint of what was to become the company’s ability to make or break certain technologies, USB would go on to live up to its “universal” descriptor and become the most prevalent connectivity standard in the world. The solid-and-hollow stacked rectangles of its “A” connector now appear in everything from alarm clocks to airplanes. [0]

[0] https://www.fastcompany.com/3044088/apple-and-usb-a-history-...

That neglects to mention that Microsoft Windows 95 OSR2 launched a few months before (97) and that entire release was centered around better USB support for a broader range of components. (e.g. CDRW Drives)

I don't think its fair to say PC "Followed suit" in using USB.

If I remember at the time peripheral manufacturers had USB devices ready to go for the Win95 launch and Microsoft fucked up and couldn't get USB support ready in time. So Win95 shipped without it and peripheral manufacturers were utterly livid.

The next couple of releases of Windows included totally redesigned USB support.

Once Windows 98 hit though, USB was well supported on the platform. During a brief stint in late 98 through 99 I worked at a consumer electronics chip manufacturer (56K modems and DSL) and we had good support for USB on Windows 98 and Windows NT at that time.

> I don't think its fair to say PC "Followed suit" in using USB.

I didn't say that. I said, specifically, "PC makers followed suit".

Microsoft may have supported USB in their OS, but PC manufacturers lagged.

I doubt Apple had anything to do with pushing USB's widespread adoption. Apple was at one of its lowest points during this time period, and it was pre OSX.

The poor support in Windows, as well as peripheral OEMs still using other ports slowed its adoption.

I think the problem was that USB can charge only @ 5 v vs firewire @ 12 v

Reply on news.ycombinator.com