RE: [WinMac] Re: iMac

Curtis Wilcox(cwcx[at]uhura.cc.rochester.edu)
Thu, 04 Feb 1999 15:37:41 -0500

At 02:03 PM 2/4/99 -0600, Jeff Thorstad wrote:

>I find it interesting that USB was not _standard_ on ANY Wintel computer
>until about a minute after the iMac came out. So maybe it was available

Not standard? HP Vectras have had USB ports since at least the summer of
'97 (the file dates on the Windows95 with USB Support CD are 5/1/97). I
think a lot of other big vendors also had them but they've been languishing
because of the lack of devices. Also the patched USB support in Win95 is
supposedly not very good. They've certainly had them since Win98 started
being pre-installed, which was before iMacs were available.

As someone else mentioned the iMac seems to have been a kick in the pants
for many companies to start producing USB devices.

>first, but Apple still is the only company with the guts to really use
>new technology, whether they created it (IEEE 1394) or not (USB). Wintel
>companies have always been "wait until everyone does it, then try to do
>it cheaper". And what comes out is cheaper, not less expensive.

The problem with Wintel adoption of FireWire is Intel doesn't want to pay
to put it on their motherboards. OEMs don't want it unless it's on the
motherboard because otherwise they have to use the PCI bus to add it
themselves. Actually Intel wants to *make* money by adding FireWire but if
they have to pay Apple $1 and they tack on say, $1, that's another $2 that
separates them from alternate chip/board options like AMD which already
undercut Intel.

-- 
Curtis Wilcox          cwcx@ats.rochester.edu
Desktop Systems Consultant       716/274-1160
Eastman School of Music       Pager: x12-3290


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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Thu Feb 04 1999 - 12:45:15 PST