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The FireWire™ port
FireWire™ is a serial PC interface similar to USB that was developed by Apple in 1995,
and which was originally intended for digital video data and for external mass storage
and audio devices. It has since been given many names that all refer to the same port: for
example, Sony calls FireWire™ “i.LINK?”, Texas Instruments refers to it as “Lynx?”,
and one also frequently sees the mysterious abbreviation “1394”. The latter designation
actually refers to the common IEEE 1394 standard, which is notable for its high data
rates (IEEE 1394a = 400 Mbps and IEEE 1394b = 800, 1600 and 3200 Mbps). (For
those of you who are sticklers for detail, IEEE stands for the US “Institute of Electrical
and Electronic Engineers”.)
Like USB, FireWire™ also supports hot plugging—in other words, you do not need to
shut down your computer to add or remove devices. However, you should take care not
to interrupt any applications that may be accessing the UF400e to prevent possible data
losses or blue screens. Also please note that it may take the operating system a while to
process the new situation—after all, machines are only human :-)
One standardtwo sockets
The socket on your PC can have two different forms, with either 4 or 6 conductors.
According to the standard, in the 6-pin version the two extra pins are used to supply
7.5 – 30V / 1.5A per port. Unfortunately, this is often not the case due to the poor
quality of some controllers that are unable to provide a constant operating voltage
—despite the requirements of the specifi cation. So if you’d like to avoid any
unexpected failures of the UF400e, please use the D.C. or USB port on UF keyboard
to supply power—better safe than sorry. If your computer “only” has a 4-pin port,
you must use the D.C. or USB port. To connect the UF400e to your PC in this case,
please use the adapter (6-pin to 4-pin).
UF400e Firewire Audio Expansion Board Users Manual