the new Apple iMac

From: Kai Kaltenbach <kaikal_at_MICROSOFT.com>
Date: Thu May 7 16:02:01 1998

| -----Original Message-----
| From: David Wollmann [mailto:dwollmann_at_ibmhelp.com]
| Sent: Thursday, May 07, 1998 1:40 PM
| To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
| Subject: Re: the new Apple iMac
|
| is/will there be a USB Zip drive?

Nope.

Kind of off the classic subject but...

USB is for sound, keyboards, pointing devices, joysticks, single-user
printers, and low-bandwidth video such as webcam/lowres
videoconferencing/frame capture. USB is a low-speed bus that is already
overwhelmed with all of these duties without dropping a very high bandwidth
storage device on there as well. The last thing you want is for your mouse
to get choppy when you print, for example. The "high speed" version of USB
is only 1.5MBps and Dolby Digital AC-3 DVD audio can take half of that
alone. We are strongly evangelizing against anyone doing fast storage
devices for USB.

IEEE1394/Firewire is the connection of choice for full motion video/editing,
storage devices, workgroup printers, etc.

Kai
Received on Thu May 07 1998 - 16:02:01 BST