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The purpose of this manua l is to introduce you to your 1394 CardBus
converter. It will guide you on how to setup the product for pr oper
operation in your Notebook computer. Please keep thi s ma nua l for
future reference.
IEEE 1394 is designed to func tion as both a cable-connecte d virtual
bus and as a backplane bus achi eves speeds up to 400 Mbps. Hig her
speed in the range of one gig abits-per-second are possib le in the
future. This type of performance has en abled many new PC
applications such as r eal-time digital v ideo.
When compared with older ser ial and parallel I/O buses , IEEE 1394
offers a rich set of advanced fe at ures, including live con nect ion /
disconnection of dev ices onto a 1394-based cable I/O system or on
boards into a 1394 - based back plane. The standard also suppor ts
both asynchronous and i sochronous forms of communication on t he
same system. Whereas isochronous communi cation can be used to
guarantee bandwidth for certain time-critical applications like
streaming video or audio, as ynchronous communicati o n is appropriate
for the typical PC peripher als such as printers or disk dr ives.
The topology of a IEEE 1394 network resembles a tree structure.
Each node on a IEEE 1394 net wor k functions as a repeater,
forwarding the signals on to the next node in the daisy-chain. As many
as 63 nodes can be configured o n a desktop and up to 64,000
devices in a 1394 network usin g bridges.
Because of its high-capacity b and width and advanced featur es , IEEE
1394 has the ability to consolidate many older standards and I/O
methods into one unified, high-pe r fo r ma n ce se r ial bus. Eventually,
expanding a 1394-base d computer system wi ll be as simple and as
easy as plugging an applianc e into an AC power socket. The PC will
provide instantaneou s com m unication on demand to the peripheral