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[robbo007]

Hi,
Just wondering what PCI card can I use for firewire in my G3 Power PC tower ? Will MacOS 9.1 support this?
Thanks,

[IIO]

since OS 8.6 fw via PCI should work driverless.

[robbo007]

ok thanks. So I can use any pci firewire 400 card?

[IIO]

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.

[robbo007]

Purchased a firewire 400 card and it works fine. I think it was from a PC. Thanks for the help..

[chrisNova777]

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

[DrNo7]

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).