RE: new HW/SW trend?

[Kim Flint <kflint@loopers-delight.com>]

At 01:04 PM 1/21/2003, Kevin Goldsmith wrote:
> >Cool! Too bad manufacturers aren't running to put ethernet ports in 
>their
> >devices yet, but USB could be a better way around this anyway, and the
> >HEINOUS (ahem) bandwidth and buffer limits of the MIDI hardware spec.
> >
>USB definitely gets around some of the latency, and USB 2.0 can deal with 
>the bandwidth, but both USB and Firewire are still working off more of 
>the 
>idea of a chain type mentality (I'm sure there are ways around it).  You 
>also can't share devices between two computers as you could with 
>Ethernet.  Plus, I'm not sure if devices on a firewire or USB chain can 
>address each other directly or if they have to go through the controller 
>(computer).

that is true for USB, but not Firewire. this is why USB was discarded as a 
choice for audio networking. One requirement needed was peer-to-peer 
operation, where any device on the network can directly communicate with 
any other device. Firewire works this way, like Ethernet. USB is not 
peer-to-peer, and requires a central device to manage the network (usually 
a PC).

This is a cost issue. With a peer-to-peer network like ethernet or 
firewire 
you greatly increase the complexity of each device on the network, since 
they all have to manage a lot more themselves. This increases the cost of 
those devices in terms of components, cpu cycles, memory, etc. It is 
totally inappropriate for something simple and cheap, like a mouse. The 
goal of USB was to create a cheap, fast way to add peripherals to a 
computer, and it was critical to keep the cost of the peripherals as low 
as 
possible. This meant centralizing the complexity in one device (the PC) so 
all the peripherals could remain simple and cheap.

(Since I spent quite a few years developing hardware in the PC industry, I 
also came to discover that this trend of centralization in the PC is 
Intel's usual goal in introducing new industry standards. They benefit if 
the central CPU needs to be faster and more powerful, so they always seek 
to centralize complexity there. That is the more cynical interpretation of 
the reason for USB 2.0's existence. There are numerous other examples of 
this, like AC-97 for audio on the motherboard. Interestingly, Microsoft 
tends to push the other way, and was long a proponent of firewire and 
rather cool towards USB 2.0.)

>One last reason why ethernet is better: WIRELESS!

I believe there has been movement towards wireless firewire, but I don't 
think it is commercialized yet. The basic wireless technology is all 
there, 
so I imagine it wouldn't be that hard to run firewire over it but I've 
never looked into it. A wireless studio would obviously be a great 
innovation!

kim


______________________________________________________________________
Kim Flint                     | Looper's Delight
kflint@loopers-delight.com    | http://www.loopers-delight.com