Re: [NTLK] OT New 12" PowerBooks

From: Norman Palardy (palardyn_at_shaw.ca)
Date: Sat Jan 11 2003 - 18:38:50 EST


On Saturday, January 11, 2003, at 04:09 PM, Martin Joseph wrote:

>
>
> On Saturday, January 11, 2003, at 01:21 :-), Norman Palardy wrote:
>>
>> If it were Firewire based I'd be more inclined to believe it would
>> just
>> plug in and work
> No, sorry, no web cam type item will work without drivers.

I dont think that's quite true. A IEEE1394 camera may. A USB camera
won't for sure (it's the nature of USB)
I have a Formac Studio which shows up as a "camera" device, with no
drivers ever installed under OS 9 or X
It properly reports as a Formac under both OS's
Hard drives using Firewire also show up properly without specific
drivers required.

The 1394 spec (as published by the 1394 Trade association) has the
commands for the various devices prespecified
A vendor building their hardware to this spec will operate properly in
a machine supporting firewire without drivers being required to take
advantage of the basic funcionality
More advanced functionality can be had. This is usually where a driver
may be required.

USB does not operate like this and this is why it requires a driver and
also why it's such a pain in the butt to write a generic USB device
controller to use any devices that do not have drivers for a particular
platform

> <snip>
>> Unfortunately with USB I won't hold my breath
> True,
> <Snip>
> Either way it does need drivers...

Not my experience or that of the hardware I have

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