FireWire connector

FireWire connector (IEEE 1394)

The IEEE 1394 bus (named after the standard that applies to it) was released in late 1995 to provide a way to send data over a connection at high speeds. Apple gave it the brand name "FireWire", which has stuck. Sony released it as i.Link, while Texas Instruments called it Lynx.

FireWire is a port found on some computers for connecting peripheral devices (especially digital cameras) at very high speeds.

There are different FireWire connectors for each IEEE 1394 standard.

• The IEEE 1394a standard defines two connectors:
  
  • connectors 1394a-1995 :

    

  • 1394a-2000 connectors, called mini-DV, as they are used in some DV (Digital Video) cameras:

    

• IEEE 1394b defines two types of connector designed so that 1394b Beta plugs can be plugged into both Beta and Bilingual connectors, but 1394b Bilingual can only be plugged into Bilingual connectors:
  
  • 1394b Beta connectors:

    

  • 1394b Bilingual connectors:

    

Pins on a FireWire connector

The pins on a FireWire are as follows:

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