London, England-based Miglia Technology on Friday introduced its Alchemy FW 800 CB, a laptop expansion card that lets most PowerBooks and PC Card slot-equipped Windows laptops use FireWire 800-based peripherals.
Based on a Texas Instruments-made chipset, the Alchemy FW 800 CB features two “bilingual” 9-pin FireWire 800 connectors that will connect to both FireWire 800 and FireWire 400 devices (using a converter cable). It also features a single 6-pin interface used to connect legacy FireWire 400 peripherals on their own. An optional power supply can be connected to an input jack on the side of the card, for peripherals that require bus-powering.
The Alchemy FW 800 CB ships on April 5, 2004 and will cost US$89, €79 or £59 excluding VAT. It requires a PowerBook G3 or G4 with free PC card slot, Mac OS X v10.2.5 or higher or Mac OS 9.1 or higher (Mac OS 9.1 only supports FireWire 400 speeds).