FireWire devices tested at 1394 Trade Assn ‘Plugfest’

The 1394 Trade Association has announced the completion of its fourth successful Plugfest for 2001. The event took place at the Ritz-Landis Hotel in Taipei, Taiwan last week. 18 companies including Apple participated.

FireWire, or IEEE 1394, is the high-speed digital interface that’s been standard issue on Macs since Apple introduced the interface on its blue and white Power Mac G3 model in early 1999. Since then Apple and other computer manufacturers have widely adopted the standard to connect digital video cameras, scanners, CD-RW burners and other devices that demand high bandwidth.

The companies participating at the Taiwan Plugfest put 86 different FireWire devices through their paces, generating 509 testing results. At one point, noted the association, a total of 46 different devices were linked on an IEEE1394 bus — one short of the record 47 that were linked at another Plugfest event held in Tokyo, Japan earlier this year.

Although the ability to link and test dozens of devices simultaneously sounds trivial, 1394 Trade Association chairman Max Bassler said that these Plugfests have an important goal. “We continue to make significant progress on interoperability and compliance during these very successful Plugfest events. These are pivotal events for the future of the 1394 standard, and we welcome the participation of all of the companies that joined.”

In addition to Apple, the participants included Agere Systems, Bencent Tzeng Industry Co. Ltd., Billionton Systems Inc., DataFab Systems, Inc., DoTop Technology, Inc., Genesys Logic, Glory Mark Electronic Ltd., Joinsoon Electric Mft. Co. Ltd., Kouwell Electronics Corporation, LSI Logic, MacPower, Microsoft Corporation, NEC, NSTL/Allion Computer Inc., Procomp, Silicon Integrated Systems Group, Sony Japan, Texas Instruments, Unixtar Technology, VIA Technologies, Inc. and Visual Frontier Co. Ltd.

The next Plugfest is scheduled for February 11-13, 2002 in Los Angeles, Calif.