Author Topic: Firewire PCI card for G3 Power tower  (Read 6644 times)

Offline robbo007

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Firewire PCI card for G3 Power tower
« on: April 29, 2022, 09:05:45 AM »
Hi,
Just wondering what PCI card can I use for firewire in my G3 Power PC tower ? Will MacOS 9.1 support this?
Thanks,

Online IIO

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Re: Firewire PCI card for G3 Power tower
« Reply #1 on: April 29, 2022, 09:49:27 AM »
since OS 8.6 fw via PCI should work driverless.
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Offline robbo007

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Re: Firewire PCI card for G3 Power tower
« Reply #2 on: April 30, 2022, 02:28:25 PM »
ok thanks. So I can use any pci firewire 400 card?

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Re: Firewire PCI card for G3 Power tower
« Reply #3 on: April 30, 2022, 05:10:35 PM »
i can not assure you as i only had "mac edition" cards myself back in the days.

but you might just try it, you can still by new cards, starting around ~15 euros.

all i can tell for sure is that firewire is something with a close apple relationship, that the firewire API for devices is still supported from apple until today https://developer.apple.com/documentation/kernel/hardware_families/firewire and that there are even firewire drivers for windows 11 x64 which make your old devices work.

so i would be suprised when there are cards where the card itself would already need a driver to make it work in a mac.

if somebody knows better, shout out. :)
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Offline robbo007

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Re: Firewire PCI card for G3 Power tower
« Reply #4 on: May 17, 2022, 06:15:17 AM »
Purchased a firewire 400 card and it works fine. I think it was from a PC. Thanks for the help..

Offline chrisNova777

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Re: Firewire PCI card for G3 Power tower
« Reply #5 on: May 21, 2022, 11:59:11 AM »
would be alot more helpful if you could remark the exact name of the card +  upload a picture so that other people in a similar situation could use your solution this is supposed to be a community of people helping each other right?

im somewhat surprised that a generic pc card worked

Offline DrNo7

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Re: Firewire PCI card for G3 Power tower
« Reply #6 on: May 21, 2022, 10:44:20 PM »
im somewhat surprised that a generic pc card worked

FireWire being a lot less ubiquitous than USB, it is reasonable to assume that there wasn't millions of different controllers from different companies. That would have also the statistical consequence to reduce the risk/need for deviation from the spec just to cut costs. Leading to a reasonable base compatibility with a single OS driver (bootability being Mac-specific it is not surprising not to be as straightforward).
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