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by nielsbot 1893 days ago
I worked on the FireWire driver stack for OS X... and we encountered many incidents of managing to plug in the 6-pin connector upside down. Devices will actually catch fire. (FireWire carries up to 45W (!) at 30v)

Also, isochronous mode is great in theory, but in practice, at least in a desktop computer, the rest of the machine internals are not isochronous so you can still run into real-time delivery failures.
2 comments
emteycz 1893 days ago
> Devices will actually catch fire.

A rare case of successful naming, then.

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m463 1889 days ago
I know I shouldn't be surprised, but how can that keyed connector get forced in backwards? That is mind-boggling.
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nielsbot 1885 days ago
The metal shell of the 6-pin socket has a seam where it's closed, and that can open or loosen with use. That makes it easy (enough) to plug in a connector the wrong way.

Trivia: Pretty sure the 6-pin FireWire connector was inspired by the GameBoy link cable connector. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Link_Cable

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