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34 Chapter 3 Using Your Computer
FireWire
Your computer has one FireWire 400 and one FireWire 800 port ( ). With FireWire, you
can easily connect and disconnect external high-speed devices—such as DV cameras,
printers, scanners, and hard disks—without restarting your computer.
You can connect a standard 6-pin FireWire device directly to the FireWire 400 port. You
can use a 9-to-6-pin FireWire cable to connect the device to the FireWire 800 port. You
can also connect 9-pin FireWire devices directly to the FireWire 800 port, for even faster
connections. Both ports provide power to connected devices (so the devices don’t
need an additional power plug).
These are some of the things you can do with FireWire:
• Connect a digital videocamera and capture, transfer, and edit high-quality
video directly on your computer using video-editing software such as iMovie or
Final Cut Pro.
• Connect an external FireWire hard disk and use it to back up data or
transfer files.
• Start up from an external FireWire hard disk. Connect an external FireWire hard disk
(with a valid operating system installed on it), open the Startup Disk pane of System
Preferences, and click the FireWire hard disk. Restart your computer.
Using FireWire Devices
To use a FireWire device with your computer, connect the device to the computer and
install any software that came with the device. Your computer automatically detects
newly connected devices.
®
FireWire 400 port
(6-pin)
FireWire 800 port
(9-pin)
LL2507.book Page 34 Thursday, March 11, 2004 5:16 PM