Is it just me?

[Emcha_audio]

What if in 0 years from now you didn't need any docking stations because you weren't forced into it, and that your gear which is already rocking and pretty performant didn't need to have an other layer of connection and drivers to murk everything up? You know the saying if it ain't broke don't fix it?

Maybe the reason he's looking at the present now instead of the long run 40 years from now, is that because he lives in the present now and he has to work and make a living with paying the bills of not only his studio but his own life too. Those of us who work to live and not just fiddle have no desire to think of 50 years from now, when what is being done now puts artificial limits not to make things more powerful and convenient, but prettier.. because let's face it, at this point in time in our life, a thinner laptop is just esthetics, and esthetics rarely pays the bills.

[robertg]

Originally Posted by Emcha_audio

Maybe the reason he's looking at the present now instead of the long run 40 years from now, is that because he lives in the present now and he has to work and make a living with paying the bills of not only his studio but his own life too. Those of us who work to live and not just fiddle have no desire to think of 50 years from now, when what is being done now puts artificial limits not to make things more powerful and convenient, but prettier.. because let's face it, at this point in time in our life, a thinner laptop is just esthetics, and esthetics rarely pays the bills.

Having a thinner and smaller notebook isn't just about it looking good. My 2010 macbook pro is kind of a tank in comparison to the 2013 version. It's lighter in my bag too. These things matter, to a lot of people.

Really, if you have tons of peripherals to use with the older connections, a $150 belkin thunderbolt station is not an unreasonable solution at all.

You are making a mountain out of a mole hill by trying to tell me that he has to 'pay bills' and 'make a living' and all of this is going to come crashing down because of some petty adaptor costs. Give me a break?

Besides, it's not like you aren't free to use any one of 1000 other PC notebooks with every port on the back you could possibly dream of.

[robertg]

Originally Posted by Emcha_audio

and that your gear which is already rocking and pretty performant didn't need to have an other layer of connection and drivers to murk everything up?

And by the way, this question tells me you don't know very much about the technical side of thunderbolt. There isn't any new "layer" or any "driver" issue to murk everything up. For example, you will never be able to find a case of firewire over thunderbolt acting up. It's seamless.

[Emcha_audio]

Originally Posted by robertg

And by the way, this question tells me you don't know very much about the technical side of thunderbolt. There isn't any new "layer" or any "driver" issue to murk everything up. For example, you will never be able to find a case of firewire over thunderbolt acting up. It's seamless.

Please actually look at the mac forums and Tomshardware, google groups, and other websites you will see that it's not uncommon to have problems.

http://www.phaseone.com/search/artic...6&languageid=1 Makes it seem to be all but seamless and smooth and is actually talking of the translation of the protocol I was referring to in my previous post

Due to the additional "translation" of the Firewire communication through the Thunderbolt Terminal, capture speed will suffer some performance.

this can also cause compatibility issues hence an other layer of drivers mucking everthing up.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!to...sc/wZjrAi2T1FY

https://discussions.apple.com/message/19901787

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1583154

https://discussions.apple.com/message/23919855

And in case you didn't know, the computer host that will use the thunderbolt to firewire adapter does need a host computer with the correct software drivers that are included in Lion and forward.


Basic Computing 101 here for you, every hardware pieces be it, pcie, firewire, usb, cpu, all need drivers always. That's what enables the translation of the protocol to what the mobo and OS and other software installed will be able to understand. They are either installed manually when you build the computer or as in the case with windows and Mac generic versions can be installed by the OS. And in this case, the driver is already part of ML, and not only that there are also firmware updates for thunderbolt for ML.

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1653

Anyways what I'm getting at here, is that since Firewire is an other protocol that is not dependent on the PCI buss usually (unless you are using a pci firewire card) then the pci drivers must convert the firewire protocol into a protocol it understands to make the device work. Hense having an other layer of drivers mucking up the scene. Now I may be wrong, but that's what I understand out of it.

[robertg]

Originally Posted by Emcha_audio

Please actually look at the mac forums and Tomshardware, google groups, and other websites you will see that it's not uncommon to have problems.

http://www.phaseone.com/search/artic...6&languageid=1 Makes it seem to be all but seamless and smooth and is actually talking of the translation of the protocol I was referring to in my previous post this can also cause compatibility issues hence an other layer of drivers mucking everthing up.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!to...sc/wZjrAi2T1FY

https://discussions.apple.com/message/19901787

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1583154

https://discussions.apple.com/message/23919855

And in case you didn't know, the computer host that will use the thunderbolt to firewire adapter does need a host computer with the correct software drivers that are included in Lion and forward.


Basic Computing 101 here for you, every hardware pieces be it, pcie, firewire, usb, cpu, all need drivers always. That's what enables the translation of the protocol to what the mobo and OS and other software installed will be able to understand. They are either installed manually when you build the computer or as in the case with windows and Mac generic versions can be installed by the OS. And in this case, the driver is already part of ML, and not only that there are also firmware updates for thunderbolt for ML.

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1653

Anyways what I'm getting at here, is that since Firewire is an other protocol that is not dependent on the PCI buss usually (unless you are using a pci firewire card) then the pci drivers must convert the firewire protocol into a protocol it understands to make the device work. Hense having an other layer of drivers mucking up the scene. Now I may be wrong, but that's what I understand out of it.

A couple of interesting things about these links you submitted.

One is that most of them seem to be a year old or more. Two, is that one guy chimes in and then 3-5 others say they "have no problems."

Do you honestly think that the major problems are never going to be fixed? Because in my experience with apple, while everything is never quite perfect on the onset, it becomes very much better given some time. While I did say "you will never find" - let me refine that to refer to something more recent.

And thanks for your little condescending "basic computing" aside. I know what a driver is.

[Emcha_audio]

Let me bold out the two assertions you made that I refuted.

Originally Posted by robertg

There There isn't any new "layer" or any "driver" issue to murk everything up.

There is an additional level of drivers that is translating the firewire protocol to pci, as I've pointed out and that can cause compatibility issues.

Originally Posted by robertg

You will never be able to find a case of firewire over thunderbolt acting up[/COLOR][/U]. It's seamless.

I have provided you cases where people have had problem, one of them as recently as June 2014 and the worst part, it's people (not just one) talking about their problems with their audio interfaces running on the firewire-thunderbolt adaptor.

You can remain fixed in your position that thunderbolt is perfect, but the facts shows that's it's not, it's not well implemented, it's not robust enough yet to be used in any audio professional settings and I do make a difference of professional setting here, and the cost is pretty much prohibitive for anything that would not require an adapter to work straight off the bat.

[robertg]

Originally Posted by Emcha_audio

Let me bold out the two assertions you made that I refuted.



There is an additional level of drivers that is translating the firewire protocol to pci, as I've pointed out.



I have provided you cases where people have had problem, one of them as recently as June 2014 and the worst part, it's people (not just one) talking about their problems with their audio interfaces running on the firewire-thunderbolt adaptor.

It doesn't mean that they won't fix them. Not everything is spot-on perfect at the onset. The fact remains that the implementation isn't a big show-stopper for the majority of people. Apple releases updates and fixes for its hardware to better interoperate with other vendor devices all the time.

[Emcha_audio]

Maybe they will, or Intel will come out with their next version by the time apple gets their act together with their own product featuring thunderbolt. But lets be real, we don't live 10 years in the future, we live in the now and the vast majority of users as you say won't even need 20 Gbps cables, but the professionals do need that data speed transfer and more just not out of one single cable, and the professionals are the one paying the hefty price tag at the moment if they are going down the Mac road, for something that is not well suited for their needs, but if they want to remain with a pure mac, they don't really have a choice. well they do, it's a hack or going to windows and at that game, it's not them that loses at the same time the NMP came out the power of the NMP was already obsolete and for a lot less, it remains a nice looking trash bin with a lot of effort in new technical design. It's apple that will loses out at that game but hey, they have already been pushing that way for years now.

[robertg]

Originally Posted by Emcha_audio

Maybe they will, or Intel will come out with their next version by the time apple gets their act together with their own product featuring thunderbolt. But lets be real, we don't live 10 years in the future, we live in the now.

I'm fine with some growing pains and bugs to work out in the name of progress. With obvious common sense such as not jumping on bleeding edge tech too quickly.

However, the mindset of "what we have is good enough so why change" is not good. The FireWire issues will get ironed out as well as they can until FireWire goes the way of the dinosaur along with all of the other old standards.

[Emcha_audio]

Originally Posted by robertg

I'm fine with some growing pains and bugs to work out in the name of progress. With obvious common sense such as not jumping on bleeding edge tech too quickly.

However, the mindset of "what we have is good enough so why change" is not good. The FireWire issues will get ironed out as well as they can until FireWire goes the way of the dinosaur along with all of the other old standards.

I'm not saying that they should ignore the tech, I'm saying that they shouldn't shove it down casual consumers (nor professional) throat without making sure it's well implemented first and without making sure they have other means to connect than to the thunderbolt port or through a shoddy adapter. That would have been the right thing to do, the smart thing to do, to leave the other ports also. So what that the laptop is 6 mm thinner, that the screen has gone down in size (which is a pain to edit and mix on without a secondary screen), fact is miniaturization for consumers is fine, not for professionals in most cases. I have no problem placing my laptop in it's flight case with other pieces of gear and be 99.9% sure that it's still going to be functional and unscratched when I take it out, vs it being light and small enough to fit into a carrying bag and having a lot more chances of it being damaged.