Once upon a time, I loved SCSI. (Was: Help! Is this kernel or hardwareproblem?)

[Rob Lembree]

On Nov 28, 2005, at 7:27 PM, Ben Scott wrote:

> On 11/28/05, John Abreau <jabr at blu.org> wrote:
>>>   I remember one of the neat features being the ability to shut  
>>> down the
>>> Powerbook and use the internal hard disk as an external disk for  
>>> another
>>> host.
>>
>> That still works. ... a key combination to hold down while booting
>> that brought the machine up as a firewire hard drive, and I was able
>> to install from another Mac onto this machine's drive to do the  
>> upgrade.
>
>   Now that's just too cool.

It's especially cool when you have a machine to recover, or you want  
to do
a really clean backup.

>   Apple always did (and continues to) have such nice designs.  It's a
> pity they're so darn proprietary.

You mean like by using BSD and making the sources available?  ;-)

(not trying to start a flamewar -- compare the openness of Apple to ANY
other Unix vendor, and the closest might be, and only recently, Sun)

>   A new revision of the USB spec introduces something called
> "USB-To-Go", which allows for two devices to negotiate the
> master/slave relationship.  It's mainly intended for things like
> cameras and cell phones, which are usually slaves to a PC, but people
> occasionally want to connect to each other.  So I don't know if we can
> ever expect to see simple PC-to-PC USB links.

This is the real point of my note.  Please don't get me started on USB.
Sigh.  I've just spent several infuriating weeks with my friendly USB
bus and protocol analyzer working on this stuff.  I really hate USB, and
now have all the more reason to hate it.  Ask me sometime how sad
Windows' USB driver is compared to Mac or Linux...

Yes, USB OTG (on-the-go) allows a device to be either a host or
device.  The best example is a mobile handset (we don't call them
phones -- just like we don't call companies like T-Mobile 'carriers',
we call them 'operators').  A handset with USBOTG can plug into a PC
and be lots of things to the PC, such as a number of serial ports,
mass storage, etc.  The very same handset can plug into a USB printer,
and take on the 'host' side of the equation.

Now about networking.  Yes, you can run ethernet protocols over
USB, we do it all the time to boot prototype handsets using TFTP
from mac and linux boxes.  Google on 'cdcether'.  The CDC stands
for 'communication device class' by the way, not 'Control Data
Corporation' or 'Connected Device Configuration'.

>   Again, Apple was their own worst enemy.  If they hadn't been so
> proprietary about Firewire, there's a good chance USB would never have
> gained traction, and we wouldn't have to worry about fixing all the
> brain damage in USB.

Ehh, USB becomes a whole lot less interesting when you compare
it to Firewire 800 or better.  Also, USB falls flat on its face with  
real
media demands that require isochronous transfers -- effectively
bandwidth guarantees.  You'll never hook up your MiniDV camcorder
over USB.  Firewire also supports loads more devices per port.  Ever
wonder why you have so many USB ports on your PC?

>   *sigh*
>
> -- Ben
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