Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Thunderbolt

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 211 posts

Re: Thunderbolt

#151

Post by archangel_one »

tygorius wrote: post #103
sgt wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes.. 50% chance of getting it right every time, even though it feels like less than that! It doesn't help that some motherboards put the USB ports upside-down for some inexplicable reason, and when it's dark you can't see the little USB logo on the cable anyway.

Oh, it's not so bad once you take advertising sub-clause of the spec into account. That's the hidden clause that states the USB logo will be on the top of a properly-oriented plug unless you're Microsoft or Logitech, in which case your corporate name is allowed top-billing, so to speak. Of course, if the slots are oriented vertically...

Yes, I have a couple on the side of the monitor I'm typing this on and they always seem wrong to me once I get something plugged in (after one or two failed attempts, of course).

Also doesn't help when the lighting's not so good and you have a USB logo embossed in black plastic on a black plug with the manufacturer's logo embossed in the same way on the other side. Trial-and-error probably isn't as bad as squinting at it trying to figure out which side is "up"...

Re: Thunderbolt

#152

Post by radicaldreamer »

vietor wrote: post #121
brk wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps true, but how exactly would you mate the connector with a high voltage power source without a massive amount of kludgery?

If you've ever done field tech work, freelance or otherwise, you'd know that mere physical incompatibility isn't going to stop some people from plugging nearly any connector into nearly any port.

Sad, but true.

Re: Thunderbolt

#153

Post by adolph »

maggit wrote: post #29
cal5k wrote: post #25

I can't seem to find an answer to this in the materials - is this optical or copper? Light Peak was supposed to be optical, but the Wikipedia page has unsubstantiated claims of it initially being copper.

> Electrical or optical cables From http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/index.htm I don't know what that means though. Does the newly released MBP support both or only one?

Engadget seems to think the MBP will support both at least in theory: Intel will eventually bake the optical transceivers into the cables themselves.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/24/intel-thunderbolt-a-close...

Re: Thunderbolt

#154

Post by ugh »

bgruber wrote: post #120
brk wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps true, but how exactly would you mate the connector with a high voltage power source without a massive amount of kludgery?

my sister recently plugged a usb cable into an ethernet port. don't assume that because something seems like a massive amount of kludgery to you that a user won't do it anyway.

I plugged a USB cable into an Ethernet port many times! Not intentionally, obviously, but I did it because the USB plug has just the right width to fit snugly in an Ethernet port. It’s easy to do when you are not looking. You should try it, it even feels sort of right in a very wrong way.

There is no kludgery involved when plugging USB cables into Ethernet ports. They just fit perfectly.

Re: Thunderbolt

#155

Post by ugh »

kayoone wrote: post #100

The problem with USB 3.0 is that it still isnt supported by Intel and probably never will since they developed Thunderbolt. If you want USB 3.0 today, you need an extra Chip on your board because its not integrated in any chipset. When Intel integrates Thunderbolt nativly the game is over for USB 3.0

“Intel fully supports USB 3 and plans to integrate it in the future.” — http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/24/intel-promises-native-usb...

Re: Thunderbolt

#156

Post by paolomaffei »

On another note the new MacBook Pro is nothing special: - still no SSD drive built-in (+$250) - still no 8GB of RAM built-in (+$200) - less battery duration than last generation

Re: Thunderbolt

#157

Post by kayoone »

ugh wrote: post #155
kayoone wrote: post #100

The problem with USB 3.0 is that it still isnt supported by Intel and probably never will since they developed Thunderbolt. If you want USB 3.0 today, you need an extra Chip on your board because its not integrated in any chipset. When Intel integrates Thunderbolt nativly the game is over for USB 3.0

“Intel fully supports USB 3 and plans to integrate it in the future.” — http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/24/intel-promises-native-usb...

got me there. Seems like they see Thunderbold not as a competing technology and more like a successor of firewire. Fine by me then, but they havent integrated USB 3.0 yet into their chipsets!

Re: Thunderbolt

#158

Post by calloc »

pyre wrote: post #33
rythie wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firewire was 400MBits for 5 years before USB2 was released (USB1 was only 12MBits). Look who won that one.

IIRC, it was because Intel made USB chipsets really cheap vs IEEE1394a (aka FireWire) chipsets.

USB can easily be emulated and done using just the CPU, no chips required while Firewire required a real chip that did the negotiation and sat directly on the memory bus for DMA.

Re: Thunderbolt

#160

Post by frankus »

CrLf wrote: post #9

Technically it seems nice, but what's up with reusing the "high voltage" symbol for this? And "thunderbolt" is a very tacky name...

$20 says it was Intel's idea.
Post reply on HN