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Thunderbolt

320 points| arnemart | 15 years ago |apple.com | reply

197 comments

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[+] hallmark|15 years ago|reply
I am delighted that Thunderbolt isn't reusing the USB plug form-factor. Early rumors showed Light Peak plugs that were the standard rectangular USB shape with fiber optic channels blended in: http://www.macrumors.com/2011/02/19/apple-to-introduce-light...

The outer rectangular, doubly symmetrical shape of USB is a usability nightmare! You know what I'm talking about. Good riddance.

[+] billybob|15 years ago|reply
Ever notice that an Ethernet jack is just the right height for a USB plug to go into it snugly? I got confused by that one day when I plugged something in without paying attention.
[+] sgt|15 years ago|reply
Yes.. 50% chance of getting it right every time, even though it feels like less than that! It doesn't help that some motherboards put the USB ports upside-down for some inexplicable reason, and when it's dark you can't see the little USB logo on the cable anyway.
[+] s00pcan|15 years ago|reply
With vertical plugs I always just plug it in whichever way I'm holding the plug first, then flip it as necessary. It's not like there's any standardization between motherboard manufacturers on this, so why bother trying to remember which way it goes?
[+] Derbasti|15 years ago|reply
Although, I still regularly try to plug in my mini DisplayPort connector the wrong way--just like you describe with USB. Apple is using the miniDP connector for Lightpeak/Thunderbolt.
[+] _delirium|15 years ago|reply
Pleasantly surprised that it's backwards-compatible with the mini-DisplayPort. Was expecting another round of buying dongles.
[+] sudont|15 years ago|reply
Since there's only one port, you'll most likely need a splitter to use both the data and video simultaneously, unless you want your existing monitor to be at the end of the daisy chain. (DP was brought to market for terminal devices, not pass-through like Firewire, any Thunderbolt devices will most certainly have two ports.)

I assume most monitors will transition from DP to a Thunderbolt pass-through quickly, but in a daisy-chain situation, the monitor would be disconnected the least, meaning it would need to either be the first in line, or split off, allowing the other peripherals to be removed without re-connecting the monitor.

[+] CrLf|15 years ago|reply
Technically it seems nice, but what's up with reusing the "high voltage" symbol for this? And "thunderbolt" is a very tacky name...
[+] sandipc|15 years ago|reply
So I guess the official branding of Lightpeak is Thunderbolt, even from Intel? And the standard connector (even outside of Apple products) is essentially Mini-Displayport?
[+] jordanroher|15 years ago|reply
I wonder if Apple will eventually replace the dock connector on the iPhone/iPad with Thunderbolt? That would be a compelling reason to upgrade: your music sync time would be freed of another bottleneck.

Of course, it kind of messes with the third-party accessory market, but I'm sure they'd love another reason to get people to buy new stuff.

[+] zppx|15 years ago|reply
Two questions:

Is it royalty-free?

If the answer is negative, what are the licensing terms?

[+] kayoone|15 years ago|reply
The problem with USB 3.0 is that it still isnt supported by Intel and probably never will since they developed Thunderbolt. If you want USB 3.0 today, you need an extra Chip on your board because its not integrated in any chipset. When Intel integrates Thunderbolt nativly the game is over for USB 3.0
[+] yread|15 years ago|reply
So the whole USB2.0/Firewire is going to repeat? Sigh.
[+] rudiger|15 years ago|reply
Thunderbolt aims to replace nearly every kind of single-use connectors (HDMI, DisplayPort, eSATA, USB, Ethernet). Unifying the connector for displays, peripherals, network and power is a great idea, so I can't complain if they're going up against USB 3.0.
[+] ugh|15 years ago|reply
I’m happily using my FireWire 800 port on my 2007 MacBook Pro. I don’t really have a problem with the competition.

(What’s nice for Apple is that this port isn’t exactly risky for them. If it doesn’t succeed their Macs have a glorified Mini DisplayPort with a lighting bolt symbol next to it. It might cost a bit more for them to add but that’s about it. It seems to me that only Intel has a problem if this fails.)

[+] tghw|15 years ago|reply
Seriously. As a non-Mac user, I really can't see going out of my way to use anything other than USB at this point, especially with USB3 being in the same ballpark in terms of speed.
[+] hop|15 years ago|reply
USB2 and FireWire were close to the same speed. Thunderbolt is twice as fast as USB3 and can push DisplayPorts, so I doubt it will be the same.
[+] spitfire|15 years ago|reply
So thunderbolt is PCI-E at the end of a cable, Cool. I can see people building neat, cheapo numa boxes with this. Think sgi altix on the cheap.

For those that don't know, the SGI Altix has a special chip that intercepts memory accesses and maps other systems memory to be seen as "local" on each system. If thunderbolt is just pci-e on a wire, you may be able to connect a few systems together and just map memory across systems. It'd take some trickery, and wouldn't be quite as fast as infiniband, but the thought of building a ghetto supercomputer would be useful to many people.

[+] DarrenLehane|15 years ago|reply
Anybody notice how it shares the name with HTC's 'ThunderBolt' 4G phone being released, and how it looks like both Intel and HTC have trademarks on the word?
[+] patrickyeon|15 years ago|reply
It's perfectly reasonable for two entities to have trademarks on the same word, so long as they aren't in the same business. In this case (without looking at the relevant legal paperwork), HTC could trademark 'Thunderbolt' with respect to phones, mobile devices, whatnot, while Intel may have the trademark with respect to peripheral data connections. Nobody (except maybe Monster Cable) would have an issue with that arrangement.
[+] pyre|15 years ago|reply
Is this peer-2-peer like FireWire was or it is a client-server model like USB? I see people talking about this being copper or fibre. If this is fibre, then it can't supply power to the device like USB? I don't see that catching on for most portable devices (e.g. hard drives). It's extremely convenient to just have one cable for a device that needs connectivity and power when it comes to portable devices.
[+] StudyAnimal|15 years ago|reply
You can always have one optical fiber for data, and a metal conductor for power, wrapped up in the same cable / connector.
[+] robin_reala|15 years ago|reply
It’s copper, for the time being at least. Intel’s document says it can transmit up to 10W of power.
[+] cal5k|15 years ago|reply
I can't seem to find an answer to this in the materials - is this optical or copper? Light Peak was supposed to be optical, but the Wikipedia page has unsubstantiated claims of it initially being copper.
[+] modeless|15 years ago|reply
It's copper for now. I haven't found any confirmation of this, but I believe Intel's strategy for optical is to have the lasers and light detectors built into the cable itself, so that the plug connection is still completely electrical.
[+] s00pcan|15 years ago|reply
Has anyone considered using an external video card with this? That would be a great use with desktop replacement laptops since it would actually be upgradeable.
[+] doron|15 years ago|reply
Can anybody shed light on the possibility of DRM or some implementation of Tilt-bits to restrict output from this port to high resolution screens etc?
[+] wmf|15 years ago|reply
DisplayPort already has two different flavors of DRM. Thunderbolt, being basically PCIe over a DisplayPort cable, doesn't add any additional DRM.
[+] frankus|15 years ago|reply
Not that it hasn't been possible strictly due to lack of a suitable interconnect technology, but I wonder if this could facilitate using your mobile device as a sort of "personality module" that could plug into a monitor with a built-in graphics chip and maybe some additional processing power (accessed via OpenCL).

Obviously the OS would have a long way to go to support that kind of thing, but I would be surprised if in five years your typical "home directory" isn't either entirely cloud-based or uses a scheme like this.

[+] marknutter|15 years ago|reply
How long before we can buy external graphics cards that utilize thunderbolt? It'd save me the hassle of having to build gaming PCs every couple years.
[+] tantalor|15 years ago|reply
Can a Thunderbolt device (eg display) expose USB to peripherals? With my current setup, I connect my display via USB and DVI to my MBP in order to connect USB peripherals via the display. I'd love to break that redundant USB connection with Thunderbolt.
[+] maggit|15 years ago|reply
Yes. It looks like you would have to implement USB on top of PCIe in the monitor, though.

> Intel's Thunderbolt controllers interconnect a PC and other devices, transmitting and receiving packetized traffic for both PCIe and DisplayPort protocols. Thunderbolt technology works on data streams in both directions, at the same time, so users get the benefit of full bandwidth in both directions, over a single cable.

http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/index.htm

[+] splatcollision|15 years ago|reply
It would be awesome if iPad2 had the same port... I say it's a possibility!
[+] jdavid|15 years ago|reply
i would love to have and iPad or TouchPad as a second display.
[+] hop|15 years ago|reply
Wonder how many monitors this can push. Also, what will happen to Apples 30pin connector on their iPods,iPhones... I guess we will know Tuesday. Are there any external hard drives with thunderbolt yet?
[+] maggit|15 years ago|reply
The bandwidth is apparently entirely unimpressive. DisplayPort is currently at 17.28 Gbps, so Thunderbolt can push ... 0.6 monitors? ;) (In the worst case, at least)

I have been excited about Light Peak/Thunderbolt for a year or so now, but in that time it seems the ambitions have become smaller, and the competition has developed as well.