FireWire and KVM: Cables that Defined History
The FireWire cable was not popular, but it should have been. It could do everything that USB 2.0 could, but better, though more expensively.
For your average user, they met the FireWire cable in their iPod box. Some of those old iPods came with the FireWire port for syncing with a Mac or a PC.
Apple made this connector, and one can hot-swap it, meaning you don’t need to turn off the computer before unplugging it.
Camcorders were a decently popular gadget in the 90s and early 2000s when there were no camera phones. Plenty of other gadgets started using the FireWire connection, like camcorders, cameras, etc. Even now, there are plenty of homes that regularly look at or digitize the footage they had taken on their camcorders.
The story of FireWire can be said to be similar to that of USB C. Apple wanted everyone to adopt FireWire with the gusto that it had, as it boasted of being able to do so much more than the USB cable. But FireWire was expensive and so while PC manufacturers also adopted the standard, it never got the same popularity as the USB cable.
Similarly, Apple tried to force USB C onto the industry by removing every other port from their laptops, but they had to walk back from that by giving back all the ports in their higher-end Macbooks. Their idea was that every gadget will include a USB C port and therefore will be able to connect with any Mac computer easily, with great speed and stability. But the industry was simply not ready to make that jump fast enough and everyone who wanted to use an Apple computer had to carry around a bag of cables, instead of only one cable, which was the company’s intention.
FireWire may be old and unused now, but you might want to connect your old camcorder or even your iPod to your computer. SF Cable stocks all versions of FireWire and the various adapters you will need for it.
Another old, but useful cable is the KVM cable. KVM stands Kernel-based Virtual Machine, a technology built into Linux. You can control multiple computers connected via the KVM cable with a single keyboard, mouse, and video monitor.
This is highly useful for racker servers, so that you can operate them all with one input-output device.
This reduces clutter and streamlines control in a space that doesn’t necessarily require multiple input devices simply to monitor things and keep the servers running.
This is not much of a consumer cable because it has a much more niche and specific use. SF Cable stocks all such specific cables and caters especially to businesses that need them.
Collectively, the technology industry is trying to move beyond cables but they are not that easy to get rid of. If you want to experience a connection that is speedy, lossless, and stable, you are going to have to rely on cables. Of course, there are plenty of areas where a wireless connection is more than sufficient, so you should use that, but you should always keep a few standard cables in your arsenal for the day that wireless simply does not cut it!
