CYBER FOX

This post is provided by Howstuffworks.com
by Jeff Tyson and Julia Layton

You have probably heard the term FireWire if you have any interest in digital video — or maybe you know it as Sony i.Link or as IEEE 1394, the offical name for the standard. FireWire is a way to connect different pieces of equipment so they can easily and quickly share information.
Originally created by Apple and standardized in 1995 as the specification IEEE 1394 High Performance Serial Bus, FireWire is very similar to Universal Serial Bus (USB). The designers of FireWire had several particular goals in mind when they created the standard:

Fast transfer of data
Ability to put lots of devices on the bus
Ease of use
Hot-pluggable ability
Provision of power through the cable
Plug-and-play performance
Low cabling cost
Low implementation cost

What is FireWire?

FireWire 400 sockets
FireWire is a method of transferring information between digital devices, especially audio and video equipment. Also known as IEEE 1394, FireWire is fast — the latest version achieves speeds up to 800 Mbps. At some time in the future, that number is expected to jump to an unbelievable 3.2 Gbps when manufacturers overhaul the current FireWire cables.
You can connect up to 63 devices to a FireWire bus. Windows operating systems (98 and later) and Mac OS (8.6 and later) both support it.

Let’s say you have your digital camcorder connected to your home computer. When your computer powers up, it queries all of the devices connected to the bus and assigns each one an address, a process called enumeration. FireWire is plug-and-play, so if you connect a new FireWire device to your computer, the operating system auto-detects it and asks for the driver disc. If you’ve already installed the device, the computer activates it and starts talking to it. FireWire devices are hot pluggable, which means they can be connected and disconnected at any time, even with the power on.

Basically the older version of the USB Cable!
for more info on how this works visit:
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/firewire.htm