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I recently directly connected my 2020 MacBook Air to my iMac G4 in target disk mode… and it worked. I had to use a Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter, a Th

I recently directly connected my 2020 MacBook Air to my iMac G4 in target disk mode… and it worked. I had to use a Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter, a Thunderbolt 2 to FireWire 6-pin adapter and then FireWire 6-pin to FireWire 9-pin adapter. I was shocked that it worked so well.

SllX 5y ago
Apple might be the Mayor of Dongletown, but the dongles they do make are usually very good.
- bluedino 5y ago
  They stay away from complicated ones like port replicators. I'm convinced nobody can make a stable one of those for USB-C/ThunderBolt.
  - SllX 5y ago
    You make a very adulterous point.[1] [1] https://youtu.be/CcyXRsJFjuc https://youtu.be/CcyXRsJFjuc
eganist 5y ago
> I had to use a Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter, a Thunderbolt 2 to FireWire 6-pin adapter and then FireWire 6-pin to FireWire 9-pin adapter. I was shocked that it worked so well. This same setup also works for other FireWire peripherals, like camcorders, for what it's worth.
hawski 5y ago
Please, share a picture of the dongle chain :)
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
  Not OP, but imagine something like this https://postimg.cc/N53tdRDc https://postimg.cc/N53tdRDc (Which was just getting from standard serial port to some weird nonstandard RJ45 thingy for some weird SINIX terminal concentrator with the available technotrash(USB2Serial-> gender changer, etc)) :-)
stevenicr 5y ago
This gives me hope I will still be able to pull a bunch of digital 8 tape content off a cam with firewire output still. Even if I need to get a mac, it might still work! Now if someone can come up with a similar solution to get an ultra-wide scsi external HD to usb or whatever, I'll have a few great projects to get into.
- basilgohar 5y ago
  For what it's worth, I used to do exactly this with one or two programs on Linux. I think I had the most success with dvgrab. It even can control the Digital8 camera and rewind and whatnot. It should work with any Firewire card that works on Linux as well.
mschuster91 5y ago
> a Thunderbolt 2 to FireWire 6-pin adapter How in blazes does that one actually work?! Is it a PCI FireWire interface chip or does Thunderbolt have a FireWire alternate mode?
- bayindirh 5y ago
  FireWire standard mandates implementation of a fully capable controller behind every FireWire port. So it's a FireWire Card (sic) which talks PCI over TB at one end, with a single FW port. This is why FireWire was always very light on CPU utilization. It always did its work by itself. There was no WinModem magic behind.
  - bluedino 5y ago
    A Firewire CDRW was the only way I could reliably record CD's on my 2000's laptop. The USB ones were either 1.1 which barely had enough bandwidth, or the CPU usage went so high... As a bonus I could daisy chain a 40GB external HD off of it!
    - bayindirh 5y ago
      I still have a Maxtor USB/FW400 external 1TB drive. It's both handsome and worked wonderfully on a FW port. It also has daisy-chain capability. It worked so well for so many years.
bluedino 5y ago
I wonder if you can stick one of those old Firewire to SCSI adapters on the end of that

SllX 5y ago

Apple might be the Mayor of Dongletown, but the dongles they do make are usually very good.

bluedino 5y ago
They stay away from complicated ones like port replicators. I'm convinced nobody can make a stable one of those for USB-C/ThunderBolt.
- SllX 5y ago
  You make a very adulterous point.[1] [1] https://youtu.be/CcyXRsJFjuc https://youtu.be/CcyXRsJFjuc

eganist 5y ago

> I had to use a Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter, a Thunderbolt 2 to FireWire 6-pin adapter and then FireWire 6-pin to FireWire 9-pin adapter. I was shocked that it worked so well. This same setup also works for other FireWire peripherals, like camcorders, for what it's worth.

hawski 5y ago

Please, share a picture of the dongle chain :)

LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
Not OP, but imagine something like this https://postimg.cc/N53tdRDc https://postimg.cc/N53tdRDc (Which was just getting from standard serial port to some weird nonstandard RJ45 thingy for some weird SINIX terminal concentrator with the available technotrash(USB2Serial-> gender changer, etc)) :-)

stevenicr 5y ago

This gives me hope I will still be able to pull a bunch of digital 8 tape content off a cam with firewire output still. Even if I need to get a mac, it might still work! Now if someone can come up with a similar solution to get an ultra-wide scsi external HD to usb or whatever, I'll have a few great projects to get into.

basilgohar 5y ago
For what it's worth, I used to do exactly this with one or two programs on Linux. I think I had the most success with dvgrab. It even can control the Digital8 camera and rewind and whatnot. It should work with any Firewire card that works on Linux as well.

mschuster91 5y ago

> a Thunderbolt 2 to FireWire 6-pin adapter How in blazes does that one actually work?! Is it a PCI FireWire interface chip or does Thunderbolt have a FireWire alternate mode?

bayindirh 5y ago
FireWire standard mandates implementation of a fully capable controller behind every FireWire port. So it's a FireWire Card (sic) which talks PCI over TB at one end, with a single FW port. This is why FireWire was always very light on CPU utilization. It always did its work by itself. There was no WinModem magic behind.
- bluedino 5y ago
  A Firewire CDRW was the only way I could reliably record CD's on my 2000's laptop. The USB ones were either 1.1 which barely had enough bandwidth, or the CPU usage went so high... As a bonus I could daisy chain a 40GB external HD off of it!
  - bayindirh 5y ago
    I still have a Maxtor USB/FW400 external 1TB drive. It's both handsome and worked wonderfully on a FW port. It also has daisy-chain capability. It worked so well for so many years.

bluedino 5y ago

I wonder if you can stick one of those old Firewire to SCSI adapters on the end of that