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Apple sold the first widely-available computer with USB connections, the iMac G3. > To replace the removed ports, the iMac has Universal Serial Bus (USB) ports

Apple sold the first widely-available computer with USB connections, the iMac G3. > To replace the removed ports, the iMac has Universal Serial Bus (USB) ports, which were faster and cheaper than Apple Desktop Bus and serial ports but were very new—the standard was not finalized until after the iMac's release—and unsupported by any third-party Mac peripheral. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMac_G3#Design It would not be possible for them to jump on a bandwagon they started any earlier than they did. > The last Apple device with Firewire was produced in 2012 Thunderbolt supports the Firewire protocol in the transport layer. So this means that people who need to support a Firewire device need a dongle now. Apple used to sell the adapter, apparently it's been discontinued, but they're still manufactured by third parties, and the originals available on the secondhand market. Which, given that Firewire is dead and buried, and no one is making new Firewire stuff, is also where you'd need to go to get something expecting Firewire to begin with. I do not see this as the problem you seem to.

duskwuff 2y ago
> Apple sold the first widely-available computer with USB connections, the iMac G3. They were also, simultaneously, the first manufacturer to really go all-in on USB. Some PC manufacturers at the time were including one or two USB ports on their systems, but relied on legacy ports (PS/2, serial, parallel, etc) for most functionality. Their USB ports were mostly a show of "look, we have the new thing" - much in the same way that modern PC motherboards may have a single USB-C port on the back, actually.
- myself248 2y ago
  I interpreted it precisely the opposite. PC mobos were like "Look, you can use the new things if you have any, but we're not gonna make you throw out your PS/2 peripherals that you know and love, or even buy adapters for them, because all that stuff, and the support circuitry for it on the mobo, all works just fine." The all-in approach required a forklift upgrade and generated a ton of e-waste.
  - duskwuff 2y ago
    > The all-in approach required a forklift upgrade and generated a ton of e-waste. It really wasn't that bad. I lived through it. The iMac was pitched as an entry-level Internet computer for new computer users. Many buyers didn't have a computer at all previous to purchasing an iMac, or only had one which was old enough that its accessories would have been irrelevant (e.g. an external modem). Probably the most common USB accessory purchase was external floppy drives - and a lot of users ended up discarding those after they realized they weren't using them.
hatsix 2y ago
Maybe you missed the part where I said "this is fine". I don't have a problem with what they're doing, I have a problem with people saying that Apple doesn't do something that they very clearly do. Also, I thought I was fairly clear in my comment, but Apple removed support in MacOS 13 for Firewire Audio... so it doesn't matter what kind of dongles you have, as soon as you update to 13, your firewire camera no longer works. It's weird that Apple is removing driver-level support for a protocol. It's unexpected. It's also a dead tech that nobody cares about. The person I was responding to wanted an example of accessories that Apple stopped supporting, and "Anything with Firewire Audio" falls into that category. It is completely, utterly unusable with stock MacOS 13, though it's likely that some people have found a way to put it back in.

duskwuff 2y ago

> Apple sold the first widely-available computer with USB connections, the iMac G3. They were also, simultaneously, the first manufacturer to really go all-in on USB. Some PC manufacturers at the time were including one or two USB ports on their systems, but relied on legacy ports (PS/2, serial, parallel, etc) for most functionality. Their USB ports were mostly a show of "look, we have the new thing" - much in the same way that modern PC motherboards may have a single USB-C port on the back, actually.

myself248 2y ago
I interpreted it precisely the opposite. PC mobos were like "Look, you can use the new things if you have any, but we're not gonna make you throw out your PS/2 peripherals that you know and love, or even buy adapters for them, because all that stuff, and the support circuitry for it on the mobo, all works just fine." The all-in approach required a forklift upgrade and generated a ton of e-waste.
- duskwuff 2y ago
  > The all-in approach required a forklift upgrade and generated a ton of e-waste. It really wasn't that bad. I lived through it. The iMac was pitched as an entry-level Internet computer for new computer users. Many buyers didn't have a computer at all previous to purchasing an iMac, or only had one which was old enough that its accessories would have been irrelevant (e.g. an external modem). Probably the most common USB accessory purchase was external floppy drives - and a lot of users ended up discarding those after they realized they weren't using them.

hatsix 2y ago

Maybe you missed the part where I said "this is fine". I don't have a problem with what they're doing, I have a problem with people saying that Apple doesn't do something that they very clearly do. Also, I thought I was fairly clear in my comment, but Apple removed support in MacOS 13 for Firewire Audio... so it doesn't matter what kind of dongles you have, as soon as you update to 13, your firewire camera no longer works. It's weird that Apple is removing driver-level support for a protocol. It's unexpected. It's also a dead tech that nobody cares about. The person I was responding to wanted an example of accessories that Apple stopped supporting, and "Anything with Firewire Audio" falls into that category. It is completely, utterly unusable with stock MacOS 13, though it's likely that some people have found a way to put it back in.