This Story Posted:
June 28th, 1999

[8:16 AM]
Orange Micro Announces 4 Important FireWire Products

Coming on the heels of the shipment of its HotLink PCI FireWire Cards, Orange Micro has added five new IEEE-1394 items to its FireWire product suite. They are the HotLink Repeater, HotLink FireWire PC Card, HotLink Hub, HotLink FireWire/SCSI Converter, and two maximum lengths FireWire Cables. According to OrangeMicro: The HotLink TM Repeater The IEEE-1394 specification limits peripherals to a 15 foot cable. The HotLink Repeater extends that distance at 15 foot increments, and can be combined to achieve up to 236 feet between a host system and the FireWire peripheral itself. The HotLink TM FireWire® PC Card This PC Card (also known as PCMCIA) was designed to provide FireWire to Mac PowerBooks and PC portables which have a PC Card Bus slot. It sports two 6 pin unpowered IEEE-1394 ports for all types of FireWire peripherals such as hard disks, DV still cameras, DV camcorders, and FireWire printers. The HotLink TM Hub When you have several FireWire devices in a daisy chain configuration, disconnecting one in the early sequence of the chain, interrupts the rest of them. But with the HotLink FireWire Hub, you eliminate the daisy chain effect and allow uninterruptable "hot plugging" of all your FireWire devices. The Hub has six IEEE-1394 ports. The HotLink Hub also provides 30 watts of additional power for those FireWire peripherals which require it. The HotLink TM FireWire®/SCSI Converter Apple will add FireWire to the iMac and its newest PowerBooks; and SCSI will be gone forever, wiping out your SCSI peripheral investment? Not with Orange Micro's innovative FireWire to SCSI converter. It easily connects to your FireWire port and converts all SCSI data from your SCSI peripheral - input and output. Some customers who have a Blue and White G3 are desperate for PCI slots. The HotLink can free up one slot by eliminating the need for a SCSI PCI card and the precious slot it takes up. The HotLink FireWire/SCSI converter is limited to a single SCSI device, however multiple HotLinks may be attached to the Mac's FireWire ports. The Fast SCSI data transfer rate is 10 Megabytes/second, and comes standard with a 25 pin SCSI connector and 6 foot FireWire cable. The HotLink Repeater will ship at the end of August, and carries a MSRP of US$49. The HotLink FireWire PC Card will ship early 4th quarter and will list for US$229. The HotLink Hub will list for US$99 and will ship at the end of August. OrangeMicro has not released pricing and availability on the HotLink FireWire/SCSI Converter. The Mac Observer Spin: Support for FireWire continues to mount and this is good news for the Mac community. With Apple pushing Firewire as the emerging standard, it's great to see companies like Orange Micro dive in headfirst with a slew of offerings to support the technology. Especially important here is the Hotlink FireWire to SCSI converter, which will allow users to migrate to new machines without replacing all their old SCSI-based peripherals. Orange Micro