4 ms·

Thunderbolt in current and future laptops

22 points by icey 15y ago

kylec 15y ago
In addition to being able to reduce the size of laptops, I hope Thunderbolt will enable the next generation Cinema display to feature gigabit ethernet and firewire connectors, making it possible to connect a single cable (two, if you count the MagSafe) to seamlessly transform a laptop into an iMac.
- zdw 15y ago
  Thunderbolt (and Displayport, in v1.2) also supports a daisy chain topology, so even if it didn't, you could plug such a device between the display and the laptop..
- riobard 15y ago
  When Intel was demonstrating Light Peak and citing Apple as a collaborator, I was hoping that they could go with optical fiber embedded in the MagSafe power cord. Maybe it will be in the next generation of Thunderbolt.
- bengl3rt 15y ago
  I was actually hoping that they would build a small, low-power GPU into the Cinema Display so that I can daisy chain five off them off a Macbook Air and have each provide its own "graphics card" over Thunderbolt.
  - Groxx 15y ago
    There's an interesting idea... though I have no idea how well it would work. The bandwidth is still massively below what graphics cards typically need. With some OS changes and essentially half-remote-desktopping to a dumb terminal display, it could work, though... You have given me thoughts. Thanks :D
daimyoyo 15y ago
I'm excited to see what devices are created for Thunderbolt. It seems to me to be like the LED was: a solution in search of a problem and history seems to indicate that exciting things come from solutions in search of problems. For example, imagine being able to connect to FIOS directly through Thunderbolt for 10GB/s bidirectional speeds. You could livestream 4K video with bandwidth to spare. Welcome to the future, gentleman.
cloudwalking 15y ago
I hope somebody is planning an external graphics card.
- masklinn 15y ago
  Would be very slow, considering a thunderbolt channel is roughly similar to 1x PCI-E v3. I would also expect greater latencies than on internal PCI-E. While it would probably be nice for GPGPU cases where not (if mot all) the working set stays on-board, that's far from the general usage case for GPUs right now. Even for multiple-screen it would not be that useful: DisplayPort 1.2 handles chaining, and where you have two Thunderbolt ports you have two DisplayPort ports.
  - masklinn 15y ago
    Oh god, how did I manager to submit a comment containing "where not (if mot all)"? I, of course, meant "where most (if not all)". Sorry about that.
kingsidharth 15y ago
When exactly are we expecting new line of MacBook Pro's?
- joahua 15y ago
  http://guides.macrumors.com/Mac_Pro_Buyer%27s_Guide http://guides.macrumors.com/Mac_Pro_Buyer%27s_Guide is a reasonable resource (not sure if you're already aware of it?) Time since last update aside, I reckon a June release timed to coincide with that of the new version of Final Cut Pro ( http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/04/12/apple_unveils_new_64_bit_final_cut_pro_x.html http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/04/12/apple_unveils_... ) would make a lot of sense.
  - greattypo 15y ago
    Seems reasonable for the Mac Pros. But for MacBook Pros, they just updated the line, so the next revision is probably going to be a 2012 thing.
randall 15y ago
To be clear, is Thunderbolt the remains of LightPeak? Or is that still happening...
- cdmckay 15y ago
  Thunderbolt is LightPeak.
  - riobard 15y ago
    sans Light, though
    - whatusername 15y ago
      But when it moves from copper-->optical then it can become "lightning bolt"
  - namaxwell 15y ago
    So when are we ever going to see an optical version of some universal interface? Maybe the components are still too expensive?
gst 15y ago
From a security perspective Thunderbolt is one of the worst things that can happen. Imagine being a speaker at a conference where you use your own laptop for a presentation and where (at some point in the future) the projector only has a Thunderbolt interface. Are you going to connect your laptop? If you do the projector has basically full access to your laptops memory - and therefore full control over your laptop. Even if you use disk encryption this does not help, as the key is still stored somewhere in memory. I think that if there's one thing that we've learned in the past two decades it's that physical interfaces should try to provide a little bit of security. With Thunderbolt, all security is traded for a little bit of additional performance.
- eliben 15y ago
  What makes you think the projector "has access to all your memory" any more than any random card has? That's simply not true, and completely depends on the driver. Maybe the projector can get your computer to hang or crash, but it seems to me that building security feature into this isn't very hard, even without sacrificing performance.
  - gst 15y ago
    Because Thunderbolt is basically an extension of the PCI bus. This means that the protocol _is_designed_ to grant full memory access to external devices (in fact that's the way how the DMA data transfer in Thunderbolt works). With other protocols such as USB or DisplayPort you don't have those issues. Of course, a faulty driver could be used to compromise the system, but the protocol itself is secure.
- Groxx 15y ago
  Don't USB and Firewire both have DMA as well? This sort of attack has been possible for a long time: http://replay.web.archive.org/20090402130220/http://storm.net.nz/projects/16 http://replay.web.archive.org/20090402130220/http://storm.ne...
  - wtallis 15y ago
    DMA has historically been Firewire's one big advantage over USB, which even in the 3.0 revision doesn't do DMA.

22 points by icey 15y ago

kylec 15y ago

In addition to being able to reduce the size of laptops, I hope Thunderbolt will enable the next generation Cinema display to feature gigabit ethernet and firewire connectors, making it possible to connect a single cable (two, if you count the MagSafe) to seamlessly transform a laptop into an iMac.

zdw 15y ago
Thunderbolt (and Displayport, in v1.2) also supports a daisy chain topology, so even if it didn't, you could plug such a device between the display and the laptop..
riobard 15y ago
When Intel was demonstrating Light Peak and citing Apple as a collaborator, I was hoping that they could go with optical fiber embedded in the MagSafe power cord. Maybe it will be in the next generation of Thunderbolt.
bengl3rt 15y ago
I was actually hoping that they would build a small, low-power GPU into the Cinema Display so that I can daisy chain five off them off a Macbook Air and have each provide its own "graphics card" over Thunderbolt.
- Groxx 15y ago
  There's an interesting idea... though I have no idea how well it would work. The bandwidth is still massively below what graphics cards typically need. With some OS changes and essentially half-remote-desktopping to a dumb terminal display, it could work, though... You have given me thoughts. Thanks :D

daimyoyo 15y ago

I'm excited to see what devices are created for Thunderbolt. It seems to me to be like the LED was: a solution in search of a problem and history seems to indicate that exciting things come from solutions in search of problems. For example, imagine being able to connect to FIOS directly through Thunderbolt for 10GB/s bidirectional speeds. You could livestream 4K video with bandwidth to spare. Welcome to the future, gentleman.

cloudwalking 15y ago

I hope somebody is planning an external graphics card.

masklinn 15y ago
Would be very slow, considering a thunderbolt channel is roughly similar to 1x PCI-E v3. I would also expect greater latencies than on internal PCI-E. While it would probably be nice for GPGPU cases where not (if mot all) the working set stays on-board, that's far from the general usage case for GPUs right now. Even for multiple-screen it would not be that useful: DisplayPort 1.2 handles chaining, and where you have two Thunderbolt ports you have two DisplayPort ports.
- masklinn 15y ago
  Oh god, how did I manager to submit a comment containing "where not (if mot all)"? I, of course, meant "where most (if not all)". Sorry about that.

kingsidharth 15y ago

When exactly are we expecting new line of MacBook Pro's?

joahua 15y ago
http://guides.macrumors.com/Mac_Pro_Buyer%27s_Guide http://guides.macrumors.com/Mac_Pro_Buyer%27s_Guide is a reasonable resource (not sure if you're already aware of it?) Time since last update aside, I reckon a June release timed to coincide with that of the new version of Final Cut Pro ( http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/04/12/apple_unveils_new_64_bit_final_cut_pro_x.html http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/04/12/apple_unveils_... ) would make a lot of sense.
- greattypo 15y ago
  Seems reasonable for the Mac Pros. But for MacBook Pros, they just updated the line, so the next revision is probably going to be a 2012 thing.

randall 15y ago

To be clear, is Thunderbolt the remains of LightPeak? Or is that still happening...

cdmckay 15y ago
Thunderbolt is LightPeak.
- riobard 15y ago
  sans Light, though
  - whatusername 15y ago
    But when it moves from copper-->optical then it can become "lightning bolt"
- namaxwell 15y ago
  So when are we ever going to see an optical version of some universal interface? Maybe the components are still too expensive?

gst 15y ago

From a security perspective Thunderbolt is one of the worst things that can happen. Imagine being a speaker at a conference where you use your own laptop for a presentation and where (at some point in the future) the projector only has a Thunderbolt interface. Are you going to connect your laptop? If you do the projector has basically full access to your laptops memory - and therefore full control over your laptop. Even if you use disk encryption this does not help, as the key is still stored somewhere in memory. I think that if there's one thing that we've learned in the past two decades it's that physical interfaces should try to provide a little bit of security. With Thunderbolt, all security is traded for a little bit of additional performance.

eliben 15y ago
What makes you think the projector "has access to all your memory" any more than any random card has? That's simply not true, and completely depends on the driver. Maybe the projector can get your computer to hang or crash, but it seems to me that building security feature into this isn't very hard, even without sacrificing performance.
- gst 15y ago
  Because Thunderbolt is basically an extension of the PCI bus. This means that the protocol _is_designed_ to grant full memory access to external devices (in fact that's the way how the DMA data transfer in Thunderbolt works). With other protocols such as USB or DisplayPort you don't have those issues. Of course, a faulty driver could be used to compromise the system, but the protocol itself is secure.
Groxx 15y ago
Don't USB and Firewire both have DMA as well? This sort of attack has been possible for a long time: http://replay.web.archive.org/20090402130220/http://storm.net.nz/projects/16 http://replay.web.archive.org/20090402130220/http://storm.ne...
- wtallis 15y ago
  DMA has historically been Firewire's one big advantage over USB, which even in the 3.0 revision doesn't do DMA.