FirewireDirect.com announced its FireWire 800/1394b CardBus Adapter. It’s a two-port PCMCIA card compatible with the slots found on PowerBook G4s and other laptop computers. It uses Texas Instruments’ OHCI-Lynx chipset.
FireWire 800 first debuted on the Macintosh with Apple’s January introduction of the 17-inch PowerBook G4. The interface provides twice the available bandwidth of the original FireWire interface found on most Macs.
FirewireDirect.com’s new adapter sports a nine-pin FireWire 800 port and a 6-pin FireWire 400 port to provide connectivity for both new drives and older FireWire devices, as well. Each port is capable of supporting up to 63 devices. Attaching FireWire 400 devices to a FireWire 800 interface can slow the faster interface down, so by keeping each bus separate, there’s no penalty, according to the company.
The new FireWire 800/1394b CardBus Adapter is available now for pre-order for US$94.95. FirewireDirect.com anticipates delivering the card by the end of May.
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