7 ms·

Thunderbolt

320 points by arnemart 16y ago

splatcollision 16y ago
It would be awesome if iPad2 had the same port... I say it's a possibility!
- jdavid 16y ago
  i would love to have and iPad or TouchPad as a second display.
estel 16y ago
Intel's page sheds some more light on it, too: http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/index.htm http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/index.htm
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
smallegan 16y ago
Sounds like the sequel to Steve's Disney "classic" Bolt(2008).
sandipc 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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.
  - sammcd 16y ago
    Also remember that the doc connector is a revenue source. I'm having trouble finding a source right now, but if I am remembering right Apple sells the actual dock connectors to accessory makers.
    - modernerd 16y ago
      Pretty sure that Apple's dock connector is sold directly by JAE -- it's the 'DD1' listed here: http://www.jae-connector.com/en/general_en.cfm?series_code=DD1&contact_number=&s_height=&l_con=&r_con= http://www.jae-connector.com/en/general_en.cfm?series_code=D...
      - hop 16y ago
        You can't just get them from JAE, you have to license the male plug thru Apple and it's a big process. And Apple lets no one but Apple use the female 30 pin plug.
        Zak 16y ago
        License under what legal theory? It doesn't seem like a fairly ordinary plug would meet the standards for either patent or copyright.
        hop 16y ago
        I don't know, but there is a reason no other manufacturers use it. And its a massive legal and due diligence process to get into the Made for iPod program which gives you all the specs and supplies the connectors, along with charging royalties. http://developer.apple.com/programs/mfi http://developer.apple.com/programs/mfi
    - hop 16y ago
      Yep, Apple charges royalty on the 30 pin conector, which varies in cost depending on what it's used for. You have to be enrolled in Apple's MiFi program too. Apple makes money everywhere.
_delirium 16y ago
Pleasantly surprised that it's backwards-compatible with the mini-DisplayPort. Was expecting another round of buying dongles.
- sudont 16y ago
  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.
  - robin_reala 16y ago
    Display Port has allowed daisy chaining monitors since 1.2 at least, if not earlier back.
    - sudont 16y ago
      Apple's displays don't have that second port, but you are correct about the daisy chaining, I see.
    - masklinn 16y ago
      Sadly, Thunderbolt only supports 1.1a
      - pudquick 16y ago
        This is a bit of a moot point, as far as Apple is concerned. "[...] It is completely backward compatible with DisplayPort v1.1a and requires no new cables or other equipment [...]" - Bill Lempesis, VESA Executive Director. A 1.2 device will work as a 1.1a device. The features that you'll loose out on: * Driving displays in excess of 2560 x 1600 x 30 bpp @ 60 Hz (Apple LED Cinema Display tops out at 2560 x 1440 currently). * Multiple display daisy chaining (LED Cinema Displays only have a single Mini DisplayPort jack and as such cannot be daisy chained). * AUX channel data transport at 720 Mbps (beaten by the PCIe transport layer rates within Thunderbolt, which when driving a LED Cinema Display at full resolution leave about ~2Gbps available for data). * 3d stereoscopic display support (Aww, no Avatar 3D). * Additional audio format support (mostly related to Blu-ray, which Macs still don't do). It's sad, yes - but there's not much incentive for Apple (not sure about Intel) to support 1.2 currently. And since Apple is going to have exclusive use of the Thunderbolt interface until it starts showing up on other PCs in 2012, Intel only really has to meet Apple's requirements while they finish up the rest of the spec (optical cabling, etc). Maybe they'll find time to add in 1.2 support by then.
beaumartinez 16y ago
Codenamed Light Peak. Intel's page on Light Peak (not the same as theirs on Thunderbolt): http://techresearch.intel.com/ProjectDetails.aspx?Id=143 http://techresearch.intel.com/ProjectDetails.aspx?Id=143 Wikipedia has a very informative article on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_Peak http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_Peak
- tvon 16y ago
  It's not an implementation of Light Peak, it is what Light Peak is now called.
  - beaumartinez 16y ago
    You're right; Developed by Intel (under the code name Light Peak). (I've corrected my comment.)
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
joebananas 16y ago
Kinda cheezy name. Also, the plugs on the Intel site don't look like mini displayport. Is the Apple version proprietary?
- jeffb 16y ago
  The pictures I've seen look like mDP to me. Apple invented Mini DisplayPort, so mDP is proprietary, but it's licensed for free and VESA later adopted it as part of the DisplayPort standard. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini_DisplayPort http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini_DisplayPort
CrLf 16y ago
Technically it seems nice, but what's up with reusing the "high voltage" symbol for this? And "thunderbolt" is a very tacky name...
- sandis 16y ago
  I was surprised about the symbol as well. It's just a matter of time until someone gets hurt while trying to connect their peripherals to a transformer.
  - brk 16y ago
    Perhaps true, but how exactly would you mate the connector with a high voltage power source without a massive amount of kludgery?
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - bgruber 16y ago
      my sister recently plugged a usb cable into an ethernet port. don't assume that because something seems like a massive amount of kludgery to you that a user won't do it anyway.
      - ugh 16y ago
        I plugged a USB cable into an Ethernet port many times! Not intentionally, obviously, but I did it because the USB plug has just the right width to fit snugly in an Ethernet port. It’s easy to do when you are not looking. You should try it, it even feels sort of right in a very wrong way. There is no kludgery involved when plugging USB cables into Ethernet ports. They just fit perfectly.
        hitonagashi 16y ago
        I once plugged an Ethernet cable into a USB port...I was a lot younger, and I took a file to it because I was absolutely convinced I'd been shipped a cable that was too big.
zppx 16y ago
Two questions: Is it royalty-free? If the answer is negative, what are the licensing terms?
- capstone 16y ago
  Thunderbolt technology leverages the native PCI Express and DisplayPort device drivers available in many operating systems today. This native software support means no extra software development is required to use a Thunderbolt technology enabled product. http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/325136-001US_secured.pdf http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/325136-001US_...
  - ComputerGuru 16y ago
    Not enough. That's talking about support from developers, not whether hardware vendors need to pay for licensing to include this tech in their hardware. That said, Mini DisplayPort is free of hardware licensing fees... so there's a good chance.
    - capstone 16y ago
      The poster of the question is a developer. I answered to help get the information he asked for, not have my answer graded on completeness or lack thereof with a curt "Not enough".
      - nl 16y ago
        I think the "Not enough" was aimed at Intel, not you. But you seemed to have missed the point of the question. No hardware developer in the consumer space charges developers to access their hardware. Spec owners frequently do charge other companies to implement their specs, though. Intel has a mixed record on this - some specs - like USB - they have led but have been implementable licence free. Other things they consider their propriety interfaces and have sued over - see the recent lawsuits between Intel & Nvidia over their memory bus. So it is very reasonable to wonder if Nvidia and AMD are going to be able to implement this freely, or are they going to have to pay a tax to Intel. As far as I can see your answer doesn't address that question at all.
yread 16y ago
So the whole USB2.0/Firewire is going to repeat? Sigh.
- tghw 16y ago
  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.
  - Anechoic 16y ago
    > especially with USB3 being in the same ballpark in terms of speed. For some uses it's not just a matter of speed - USB2 and FW are similar in terms of speed but USB2 is pretty much unusable for multi-channel audio recording purposes.
    - bugsy 16y ago
      And so is FW unless you buy one of the very expensive interfaces that happens to have highly optimized fine tuned drivers. Source: personal experience finding the drivers of most FW audio interfaces under $1000 impose outrageous CPU loads when doing many channels and using more than one device on the supposedly daisy chainable FW bus.
      - __david__ 16y ago
        Funny, my experience is the opposite--FireWire drivers are generally very DMA oriented and require little to no CPU at all, while USB drivers tend to need more CPU for the protocol overhead. This is because FireWire is an address oriented bus and the hardware can map FireWire addresses to CPU addresses and DMA in and out with (literally) zero CPU overhead. A driver write would really have to go out of their way to make a FireWire protocol become CPU bound. I suppose the audio protocol is isochronous based which would be slightly different, but that is still DMA based in every FW implementation I know of. 8 channels of 24 bit/192KHz audio is only 2MB/s which is basically nothing. I'm very surprised that you would see any issues. I have about 3 or 4 devices in my FW chain (including disks and scanners) and my sub $1000 FW audio interface works just fine.
hop 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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.
  - hop 16y ago
    Well possibly, if it's in displayport mode using all four lanes in one direction, it can push that much bandwidth. How much bandwidth does a 27" apple display use?
    - TillE 16y ago
      Well, let's see: 2560 x 1440 resolution at 24 bits per pixel = 88,473,600 bits At 60Hz, that's 5,308,416,000 bits per second. So a little more than half the claimed 10Gbit bandwidth of Thunderbolt. I guess you're not going to be running two of them on the same port.
      - rapind 16y ago
        Depends on what you're using it for I guess. For my typical day coding / web browsing / etc. I'd rather run two at 16bit instead of one at 24bit. If I was editing movies it'd be a different story.
  - onedognight 16y ago
    It has two independent 10Gbps channels, so it can do 20Gbps.
dpapathanasiou 16y ago
Is this why Apple dumped FireWire a few years ago?
- ugh 16y ago
  All Macs except the low end plastic MacBook and the MacBook Air have a FireWire 800 port. So, no. (Also: Why would they dump FireWire without a replacement in place or even just the lab?) This will probably replace FireWire sooner or later.
  - dpapathanasiou 16y ago
    This is what I meant, but thanks for your downvote anyway: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/10/apple-quietly-k/ http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/10/apple-quietly-k/
    - robin_reala 16y ago
      A simple pin-adaptor turns a FW800 port into a FW400 port - they’re electrically compatible.
marknutter 16y ago
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.
- kbutler 16y ago
  If you're serious enough about your gaming hardware that you're currently building gaming PCs every couple of years, you're still going to be replacing your CPU and your graphics card every couple of years, whether graphics are inside the case or not. Besides, Thunderbolt = 10 G_b_ps, PCIe x 16 = 8 G_B_ps. No idea on latency/transfers per second, though. (http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/index.htm http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/index.htm, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express)
- damoncali 16y ago
  You can lease your card: http://cuttingedgegamer.com/ http://cuttingedgegamer.com/
  - rapind 16y ago
    Those prices aren't bad at all based on some newegg comparisons. I was expecting a massive markup.
skorgu 16y ago
What happens if I plug a PC into another PC via thunderbolt?
- nepenthe 16y ago
  Thunderstruck? Snarky I know but I just couldn't help myself.
  - skorgu 16y ago
    I sincerely hope there's a debug option that causes it to play AC/DC in some fashion.
- tianyicui 16y ago
  Something I really wanted is, when I connect my laptop to my home computer, my laptop can use the home computer's CPU, GPU and RAM and have an additional screen. I believe Thunderbolt will make this dream true, since the Intel page mentioned "workstation performance expansion".
- ugh 16y ago
  Hopefully the same as when you plug a Mac into another Mac via FireWire. (One of the Macs becomes the most expensive external HDD ever. This requires one Mac to reboot into the target disk mode. It would be nice if the same trick would be possible with Thunderbolt without rebooting.)
  - GHFigs 16y ago
    You don't have to use TDM. You can also use Firewire as a network interface.
  - irons 16y ago
    You have to boot into target disk mode for the same reason you can't plug one Firewire disk into two computers simultaneously. TDM is supported in Thunderbolt, to my great glee. Terrific Firewire feature.
83457 16y ago
For a moment I thought the device on the left side of the image was an apple version of this on its side ... http://gemsres.com/story/apr08/536976/ENGELBART_2.jpg http://gemsres.com/story/apr08/536976/ENGELBART_2.jpg
cal5k 16y ago
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.
- maggit 16y ago
  > Electrical or optical cables From http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/index.htm http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/index.htm I don't know what that means though. Does the newly released MBP support both or only one?
  - jlazarow 16y ago
    Light Peak right now is only copper. Optical will be added in the future most likely.
    - maggit 16y ago
      I'd like to read about this. Is there an available document explaining why? Or do you know the reason? (Not that I hate copper or anything, it is just that they designed it for fiber from the beginning and then suddenly bailed out)
      - gamble 16y ago
        Same reason why every interface standard that flirts with optical eventually ends up supporting copper: optical components are more expensive, and over short runs you can get acceptable performance with copper.
        cal5k 16y ago
        They're also not as flexible a copper...
    - frankus 16y ago
      A which point they'll call it Lightning? Nah, too obvious :)
tantalor 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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 http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/index.htm
  - __david__ 16y ago
    > It looks like you would have to implement USB on top of PCIe in the monitor, though. Isn't that basically UHCI?
ghc 16y ago
Five years ago I would have been eagerly anticipating this, but I can't really get excited anymore. USB3 has probably already won, and while I love the idea of monitors and other devices all using the same port, I don't think it will be enough to drive adoption.
- glhaynes 16y ago
  USB3 has probably already won Why do you say that? Are there more USB 3 things on the market than I'm aware of? With Intel and Apple behind it, I wouldn't say Thunderbolt is a sure thing, but it seems promising.
pyre 16y ago
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.
- robin_reala 16y ago
  It’s copper, for the time being at least. Intel’s document says it can transmit up to 10W of power.
- StudyAnimal 16y ago
  You can always have one optical fiber for data, and a metal conductor for power, wrapped up in the same cable / connector.
- fanf2 16y ago
  Peer to peer.
bugsy 16y ago
It really seems to me a lot of this is about making your current peripherals obsolete so they can sell you new ones.
- artaxerxes 16y ago
  It does USB, HDMI, Firewire, displayport et cetera... its one connector to rule them all (though there will need to be a few adapters!) No need to replace your peripherals.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- maggit 16y ago
  In the long run, Thunderbolt aims to replace USB, FireWire, Ethernet, DisplayPort/HDMI/etc, eSATA and be considered an external variant of PCIe. This is feasible and would be a good future, just like the future we live in now where USB has replaced serial ports, parallel ports and PS/2.
  - Semiapies 16y ago
    I for one don't miss serial, parallel, and PS/2 ports.
    - BCM43 16y ago
      I miss serial ports.
      - Semiapies 16y ago
        Why?
        ac-slater 16y ago
        Because serial is a trivial interface to implement in home brew electronics, just throw in a MAX232. Even many major consumer electronics are still developed via a serial console. Sure they have fancier connectors to talk to your PC and the network but serial is so simple it's practically idiot proof. So it breaks far less often, makes new hardware much simpler to bring up, and it allows you to debug the fancier interfaces without interfering with their operations.
doron 16y ago
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 16y ago
  DisplayPort already has two different flavors of DRM. Thunderbolt, being basically PCIe over a DisplayPort cable, doesn't add any additional DRM.
deleted 16y ago
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dnsworks 16y ago
Having just bought my third DVI adapter for my MBP, I am underwhelmed that Apple is building an external i/o bus around this connector. They wear out very quickly.
dnsworks 16y ago
Having just bought my third DVI adapter for my MBP, I am underwhelmed that Apple is building an external i/o bus around this connector. They wear out very quickly.
Goldstein 16y ago
no doubt it is a great innovation, but it is a Epic Fail with its logo or symbol or branding whatever you call it. it should be something special like USB, Ethernet, Sound symbol etc.
hallmark 16y ago
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-peak-high-speed-connection-technology-soon/ 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.
- sgt 16y ago
  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.
  - StavrosK 16y ago
    It's actually more like 33% chance. "Oh, wrong side. flip over Wrong again? Oh, I had it right the first time!"
    - rsl7 16y ago
      happens all the time.
    - electromagnetic 16y ago
      The bigger problem isn't so much that you've got a 50/50 chance just blindly plugging it in. With all considerations, 50% probability of connecting a device by just sticking your hand under your desk and jabbing randomly with a USB cord is actually fantastic compared to every other connection on a PC. However, the problem is that the USB ports have no guide to lead the USB in so they stick on the edge and no matter how hard you push it just sits on the edge and makes you think you have it upside down. You would improve usability greatly if the ports just readily allowed the plug to slide in. I've never had to make an effort to plug in a 3.5mm as the plug design complements the port design. You either miss or it's in.
DarrenLehane 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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.
  - cookiecaper 16y ago
    And what if a phone one day wants to support a Thunderbolt interface? I think that they're a bit too close to one another, both being parts of the consumer electronic space. Thunderbolt the phone, however, can be expected to have a much shorter lifespan than a new connector like this.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
patrickgzill 16y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if the 10Gbps chips are interoperable with 10Gbps Ethernet chips at some level.
kayoone 16y ago
i sense multiple external screens on a MBP :D
- whyleyc 16y ago
  That's already been possible for a few years - http://daggle.com/macbook-pro-multimonitor-4-monitors-at-once-1577 http://daggle.com/macbook-pro-multimonitor-4-monitors-at-onc...
  - potatolicious 16y ago
    Possible, but not great. The Matrox and Diamond solutions have always been a bit hacky - USB simply can't push bits fast enough and there are lots of cases where you will max it out and stutter. This is actual support for dual monitors, without compromises.
  - kayoone 16y ago
    i know, but the Matrox Solutions make your external monitors into one big monitor, so the dock and basically every new window that pops up will be in the middle and split between to monitors. Its not really that convenient. USB2DVI is nice but USB 2.0 is too slow. USB 3.0 is solving that problem already and thunderbolt will too, i am sure. DisplayLink is already working on USB2DVI for USB3.0 which makes stutter free 1080p playback etc over USB possible and thunderbolt is alot faster.
kayoone 16y ago
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
- ugh 16y ago
  “Intel fully supports USB 3 and plans to integrate it in the future.” — http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/24/intel-promises-native-usb-3-0-support-someday/ http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/24/intel-promises-native-usb...
  - kayoone 16y ago
    got me there. Seems like they see Thunderbold not as a competing technology and more like a successor of firewire. Fine by me then, but they havent integrated USB 3.0 yet into their chipsets!
s00pcan 16y ago
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.
ilmare 16y ago
Now the question is how long it would take market to catch up with adapters/hubs or updated hardware.
- cpr 16y ago
  No hubs--it's a chaining protocol.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
paolomaffei 16y ago
On another note the new MacBook Pro is nothing special: - still no SSD drive built-in (+$250) - still no 8GB of RAM built-in (+$200) - less battery duration than last generation
- whatusername 16y ago
  Are there any laptops with 8GB built in the default?
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
frankus 16y ago
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.
callumjones 16y ago
So if PCIe x16 is rated between 8GB/s and 16GB/s would it be possible for someone to come out with a PCIe enclosure so I could hook up a semi decent nVidia or AMD/ATI card to my MacBook?
reeses 16y ago
I might have missed it shooting through the threads, but has anyone announced a PCI express card with thunderpeak? I'd love to have 10gbit between my workstation and my NAS without having to buy multiple FC HBAs. In fact, I'd probably take all of my current DAS and add it to the NAS pool as well. It would make my home office much quieter if I could hide all the spindles in another room and still have fast storage access.
spitfire 16y ago
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.
jkahn 16y ago
Awesome. Two monitors on a MBP with Thunderbolt. Now, where the hell is the adapter to buy that will actually let you connect two monitors?
samic 16y ago
why not just improve usb?! how many cables hsould I have to live?!!

Thunderbolt

320 points by arnemart 16y ago

splatcollision 16y ago

It would be awesome if iPad2 had the same port... I say it's a possibility!

jdavid 16y ago
i would love to have and iPad or TouchPad as a second display.

estel 16y ago

Intel's page sheds some more light on it, too: http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/index.htm http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/index.htm

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

smallegan 16y ago

Sounds like the sequel to Steve's Disney "classic" Bolt(2008).

sandipc 16y ago

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 16y ago
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.
- sammcd 16y ago
  Also remember that the doc connector is a revenue source. I'm having trouble finding a source right now, but if I am remembering right Apple sells the actual dock connectors to accessory makers.
  - modernerd 16y ago
    Pretty sure that Apple's dock connector is sold directly by JAE -- it's the 'DD1' listed here: http://www.jae-connector.com/en/general_en.cfm?series_code=DD1&contact_number=&s_height=&l_con=&r_con= http://www.jae-connector.com/en/general_en.cfm?series_code=D...
    - hop 16y ago
      You can't just get them from JAE, you have to license the male plug thru Apple and it's a big process. And Apple lets no one but Apple use the female 30 pin plug.
      - Zak 16y ago
        License under what legal theory? It doesn't seem like a fairly ordinary plug would meet the standards for either patent or copyright.
        hop 16y ago
        I don't know, but there is a reason no other manufacturers use it. And its a massive legal and due diligence process to get into the Made for iPod program which gives you all the specs and supplies the connectors, along with charging royalties. http://developer.apple.com/programs/mfi http://developer.apple.com/programs/mfi
  - hop 16y ago
    Yep, Apple charges royalty on the 30 pin conector, which varies in cost depending on what it's used for. You have to be enrolled in Apple's MiFi program too. Apple makes money everywhere.

_delirium 16y ago

Pleasantly surprised that it's backwards-compatible with the mini-DisplayPort. Was expecting another round of buying dongles.

sudont 16y ago
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.
- robin_reala 16y ago
  Display Port has allowed daisy chaining monitors since 1.2 at least, if not earlier back.
  - sudont 16y ago
    Apple's displays don't have that second port, but you are correct about the daisy chaining, I see.
  - masklinn 16y ago
    Sadly, Thunderbolt only supports 1.1a
    - pudquick 16y ago
      This is a bit of a moot point, as far as Apple is concerned. "[...] It is completely backward compatible with DisplayPort v1.1a and requires no new cables or other equipment [...]" - Bill Lempesis, VESA Executive Director. A 1.2 device will work as a 1.1a device. The features that you'll loose out on: * Driving displays in excess of 2560 x 1600 x 30 bpp @ 60 Hz (Apple LED Cinema Display tops out at 2560 x 1440 currently). * Multiple display daisy chaining (LED Cinema Displays only have a single Mini DisplayPort jack and as such cannot be daisy chained). * AUX channel data transport at 720 Mbps (beaten by the PCIe transport layer rates within Thunderbolt, which when driving a LED Cinema Display at full resolution leave about ~2Gbps available for data). * 3d stereoscopic display support (Aww, no Avatar 3D). * Additional audio format support (mostly related to Blu-ray, which Macs still don't do). It's sad, yes - but there's not much incentive for Apple (not sure about Intel) to support 1.2 currently. And since Apple is going to have exclusive use of the Thunderbolt interface until it starts showing up on other PCs in 2012, Intel only really has to meet Apple's requirements while they finish up the rest of the spec (optical cabling, etc). Maybe they'll find time to add in 1.2 support by then.

beaumartinez 16y ago

Codenamed Light Peak. Intel's page on Light Peak (not the same as theirs on Thunderbolt): http://techresearch.intel.com/ProjectDetails.aspx?Id=143 http://techresearch.intel.com/ProjectDetails.aspx?Id=143 Wikipedia has a very informative article on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_Peak http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_Peak

tvon 16y ago
It's not an implementation of Light Peak, it is what Light Peak is now called.
- beaumartinez 16y ago
  You're right; Developed by Intel (under the code name Light Peak). (I've corrected my comment.)

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

joebananas 16y ago

Kinda cheezy name. Also, the plugs on the Intel site don't look like mini displayport. Is the Apple version proprietary?

jeffb 16y ago
The pictures I've seen look like mDP to me. Apple invented Mini DisplayPort, so mDP is proprietary, but it's licensed for free and VESA later adopted it as part of the DisplayPort standard. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini_DisplayPort http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini_DisplayPort

CrLf 16y ago

Technically it seems nice, but what's up with reusing the "high voltage" symbol for this? And "thunderbolt" is a very tacky name...

sandis 16y ago
I was surprised about the symbol as well. It's just a matter of time until someone gets hurt while trying to connect their peripherals to a transformer.
- brk 16y ago
  Perhaps true, but how exactly would you mate the connector with a high voltage power source without a massive amount of kludgery?
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - bgruber 16y ago
    my sister recently plugged a usb cable into an ethernet port. don't assume that because something seems like a massive amount of kludgery to you that a user won't do it anyway.
    - ugh 16y ago
      I plugged a USB cable into an Ethernet port many times! Not intentionally, obviously, but I did it because the USB plug has just the right width to fit snugly in an Ethernet port. It’s easy to do when you are not looking. You should try it, it even feels sort of right in a very wrong way. There is no kludgery involved when plugging USB cables into Ethernet ports. They just fit perfectly.
      - hitonagashi 16y ago
        I once plugged an Ethernet cable into a USB port...I was a lot younger, and I took a file to it because I was absolutely convinced I'd been shipped a cable that was too big.

zppx 16y ago

Two questions: Is it royalty-free? If the answer is negative, what are the licensing terms?

capstone 16y ago
Thunderbolt technology leverages the native PCI Express and DisplayPort device drivers available in many operating systems today. This native software support means no extra software development is required to use a Thunderbolt technology enabled product. http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/325136-001US_secured.pdf http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/325136-001US_...
- ComputerGuru 16y ago
  Not enough. That's talking about support from developers, not whether hardware vendors need to pay for licensing to include this tech in their hardware. That said, Mini DisplayPort is free of hardware licensing fees... so there's a good chance.
  - capstone 16y ago
    The poster of the question is a developer. I answered to help get the information he asked for, not have my answer graded on completeness or lack thereof with a curt "Not enough".
    - nl 16y ago
      I think the "Not enough" was aimed at Intel, not you. But you seemed to have missed the point of the question. No hardware developer in the consumer space charges developers to access their hardware. Spec owners frequently do charge other companies to implement their specs, though. Intel has a mixed record on this - some specs - like USB - they have led but have been implementable licence free. Other things they consider their propriety interfaces and have sued over - see the recent lawsuits between Intel & Nvidia over their memory bus. So it is very reasonable to wonder if Nvidia and AMD are going to be able to implement this freely, or are they going to have to pay a tax to Intel. As far as I can see your answer doesn't address that question at all.

yread 16y ago

So the whole USB2.0/Firewire is going to repeat? Sigh.

tghw 16y ago
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.
- Anechoic 16y ago
  > especially with USB3 being in the same ballpark in terms of speed. For some uses it's not just a matter of speed - USB2 and FW are similar in terms of speed but USB2 is pretty much unusable for multi-channel audio recording purposes.
  - bugsy 16y ago
    And so is FW unless you buy one of the very expensive interfaces that happens to have highly optimized fine tuned drivers. Source: personal experience finding the drivers of most FW audio interfaces under $1000 impose outrageous CPU loads when doing many channels and using more than one device on the supposedly daisy chainable FW bus.
    - __david__ 16y ago
      Funny, my experience is the opposite--FireWire drivers are generally very DMA oriented and require little to no CPU at all, while USB drivers tend to need more CPU for the protocol overhead. This is because FireWire is an address oriented bus and the hardware can map FireWire addresses to CPU addresses and DMA in and out with (literally) zero CPU overhead. A driver write would really have to go out of their way to make a FireWire protocol become CPU bound. I suppose the audio protocol is isochronous based which would be slightly different, but that is still DMA based in every FW implementation I know of. 8 channels of 24 bit/192KHz audio is only 2MB/s which is basically nothing. I'm very surprised that you would see any issues. I have about 3 or 4 devices in my FW chain (including disks and scanners) and my sub $1000 FW audio interface works just fine.

hop 16y ago

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 16y ago
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.
- hop 16y ago
  Well possibly, if it's in displayport mode using all four lanes in one direction, it can push that much bandwidth. How much bandwidth does a 27" apple display use?
  - TillE 16y ago
    Well, let's see: 2560 x 1440 resolution at 24 bits per pixel = 88,473,600 bits At 60Hz, that's 5,308,416,000 bits per second. So a little more than half the claimed 10Gbit bandwidth of Thunderbolt. I guess you're not going to be running two of them on the same port.
    - rapind 16y ago
      Depends on what you're using it for I guess. For my typical day coding / web browsing / etc. I'd rather run two at 16bit instead of one at 24bit. If I was editing movies it'd be a different story.
- onedognight 16y ago
  It has two independent 10Gbps channels, so it can do 20Gbps.

dpapathanasiou 16y ago

Is this why Apple dumped FireWire a few years ago?

ugh 16y ago
All Macs except the low end plastic MacBook and the MacBook Air have a FireWire 800 port. So, no. (Also: Why would they dump FireWire without a replacement in place or even just the lab?) This will probably replace FireWire sooner or later.
- dpapathanasiou 16y ago
  This is what I meant, but thanks for your downvote anyway: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/10/apple-quietly-k/ http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/10/apple-quietly-k/
  - robin_reala 16y ago
    A simple pin-adaptor turns a FW800 port into a FW400 port - they’re electrically compatible.

marknutter 16y ago

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.

kbutler 16y ago
If you're serious enough about your gaming hardware that you're currently building gaming PCs every couple of years, you're still going to be replacing your CPU and your graphics card every couple of years, whether graphics are inside the case or not. Besides, Thunderbolt = 10 G_b_ps, PCIe x 16 = 8 G_B_ps. No idea on latency/transfers per second, though. (http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/index.htm http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/index.htm, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express)
damoncali 16y ago
You can lease your card: http://cuttingedgegamer.com/ http://cuttingedgegamer.com/
- rapind 16y ago
  Those prices aren't bad at all based on some newegg comparisons. I was expecting a massive markup.

skorgu 16y ago

What happens if I plug a PC into another PC via thunderbolt?

nepenthe 16y ago
Thunderstruck? Snarky I know but I just couldn't help myself.
- skorgu 16y ago
  I sincerely hope there's a debug option that causes it to play AC/DC in some fashion.
tianyicui 16y ago
Something I really wanted is, when I connect my laptop to my home computer, my laptop can use the home computer's CPU, GPU and RAM and have an additional screen. I believe Thunderbolt will make this dream true, since the Intel page mentioned "workstation performance expansion".
ugh 16y ago
Hopefully the same as when you plug a Mac into another Mac via FireWire. (One of the Macs becomes the most expensive external HDD ever. This requires one Mac to reboot into the target disk mode. It would be nice if the same trick would be possible with Thunderbolt without rebooting.)
- GHFigs 16y ago
  You don't have to use TDM. You can also use Firewire as a network interface.
- irons 16y ago
  You have to boot into target disk mode for the same reason you can't plug one Firewire disk into two computers simultaneously. TDM is supported in Thunderbolt, to my great glee. Terrific Firewire feature.

83457 16y ago

For a moment I thought the device on the left side of the image was an apple version of this on its side ... http://gemsres.com/story/apr08/536976/ENGELBART_2.jpg http://gemsres.com/story/apr08/536976/ENGELBART_2.jpg

cal5k 16y ago

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.

maggit 16y ago
> Electrical or optical cables From http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/index.htm http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/index.htm I don't know what that means though. Does the newly released MBP support both or only one?
- jlazarow 16y ago
  Light Peak right now is only copper. Optical will be added in the future most likely.
  - maggit 16y ago
    I'd like to read about this. Is there an available document explaining why? Or do you know the reason? (Not that I hate copper or anything, it is just that they designed it for fiber from the beginning and then suddenly bailed out)
    - gamble 16y ago
      Same reason why every interface standard that flirts with optical eventually ends up supporting copper: optical components are more expensive, and over short runs you can get acceptable performance with copper.
      - cal5k 16y ago
        They're also not as flexible a copper...
  - frankus 16y ago
    A which point they'll call it Lightning? Nah, too obvious :)

tantalor 16y ago

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 16y ago
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 http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/index.htm
- __david__ 16y ago
  > It looks like you would have to implement USB on top of PCIe in the monitor, though. Isn't that basically UHCI?

ghc 16y ago

Five years ago I would have been eagerly anticipating this, but I can't really get excited anymore. USB3 has probably already won, and while I love the idea of monitors and other devices all using the same port, I don't think it will be enough to drive adoption.

glhaynes 16y ago
USB3 has probably already won Why do you say that? Are there more USB 3 things on the market than I'm aware of? With Intel and Apple behind it, I wouldn't say Thunderbolt is a sure thing, but it seems promising.

pyre 16y ago

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.

robin_reala 16y ago
It’s copper, for the time being at least. Intel’s document says it can transmit up to 10W of power.
StudyAnimal 16y ago
You can always have one optical fiber for data, and a metal conductor for power, wrapped up in the same cable / connector.
fanf2 16y ago
Peer to peer.

bugsy 16y ago

It really seems to me a lot of this is about making your current peripherals obsolete so they can sell you new ones.

artaxerxes 16y ago
It does USB, HDMI, Firewire, displayport et cetera... its one connector to rule them all (though there will need to be a few adapters!) No need to replace your peripherals.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
maggit 16y ago
In the long run, Thunderbolt aims to replace USB, FireWire, Ethernet, DisplayPort/HDMI/etc, eSATA and be considered an external variant of PCIe. This is feasible and would be a good future, just like the future we live in now where USB has replaced serial ports, parallel ports and PS/2.
- Semiapies 16y ago
  I for one don't miss serial, parallel, and PS/2 ports.
  - BCM43 16y ago
    I miss serial ports.
    - Semiapies 16y ago
      Why?
      - ac-slater 16y ago
        Because serial is a trivial interface to implement in home brew electronics, just throw in a MAX232. Even many major consumer electronics are still developed via a serial console. Sure they have fancier connectors to talk to your PC and the network but serial is so simple it's practically idiot proof. So it breaks far less often, makes new hardware much simpler to bring up, and it allows you to debug the fancier interfaces without interfering with their operations.

doron 16y ago

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 16y ago
DisplayPort already has two different flavors of DRM. Thunderbolt, being basically PCIe over a DisplayPort cable, doesn't add any additional DRM.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

dnsworks 16y ago

Having just bought my third DVI adapter for my MBP, I am underwhelmed that Apple is building an external i/o bus around this connector. They wear out very quickly.

dnsworks 16y ago

Having just bought my third DVI adapter for my MBP, I am underwhelmed that Apple is building an external i/o bus around this connector. They wear out very quickly.

Goldstein 16y ago

no doubt it is a great innovation, but it is a Epic Fail with its logo or symbol or branding whatever you call it. it should be something special like USB, Ethernet, Sound symbol etc.

hallmark 16y ago

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-peak-high-speed-connection-technology-soon/ 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.

sgt 16y ago
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.
- StavrosK 16y ago
  It's actually more like 33% chance. "Oh, wrong side. flip over Wrong again? Oh, I had it right the first time!"
  - rsl7 16y ago
    happens all the time.
  - electromagnetic 16y ago
    The bigger problem isn't so much that you've got a 50/50 chance just blindly plugging it in. With all considerations, 50% probability of connecting a device by just sticking your hand under your desk and jabbing randomly with a USB cord is actually fantastic compared to every other connection on a PC. However, the problem is that the USB ports have no guide to lead the USB in so they stick on the edge and no matter how hard you push it just sits on the edge and makes you think you have it upside down. You would improve usability greatly if the ports just readily allowed the plug to slide in. I've never had to make an effort to plug in a 3.5mm as the plug design complements the port design. You either miss or it's in.

DarrenLehane 16y ago

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 16y ago
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.
- cookiecaper 16y ago
  And what if a phone one day wants to support a Thunderbolt interface? I think that they're a bit too close to one another, both being parts of the consumer electronic space. Thunderbolt the phone, however, can be expected to have a much shorter lifespan than a new connector like this.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

patrickgzill 16y ago

I wouldn't be surprised if the 10Gbps chips are interoperable with 10Gbps Ethernet chips at some level.

kayoone 16y ago

i sense multiple external screens on a MBP :D

whyleyc 16y ago
That's already been possible for a few years - http://daggle.com/macbook-pro-multimonitor-4-monitors-at-once-1577 http://daggle.com/macbook-pro-multimonitor-4-monitors-at-onc...
- potatolicious 16y ago
  Possible, but not great. The Matrox and Diamond solutions have always been a bit hacky - USB simply can't push bits fast enough and there are lots of cases where you will max it out and stutter. This is actual support for dual monitors, without compromises.
- kayoone 16y ago
  i know, but the Matrox Solutions make your external monitors into one big monitor, so the dock and basically every new window that pops up will be in the middle and split between to monitors. Its not really that convenient. USB2DVI is nice but USB 2.0 is too slow. USB 3.0 is solving that problem already and thunderbolt will too, i am sure. DisplayLink is already working on USB2DVI for USB3.0 which makes stutter free 1080p playback etc over USB possible and thunderbolt is alot faster.

kayoone 16y ago

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

ugh 16y ago
“Intel fully supports USB 3 and plans to integrate it in the future.” — http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/24/intel-promises-native-usb-3-0-support-someday/ http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/24/intel-promises-native-usb...
- kayoone 16y ago
  got me there. Seems like they see Thunderbold not as a competing technology and more like a successor of firewire. Fine by me then, but they havent integrated USB 3.0 yet into their chipsets!

s00pcan 16y ago

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.

ilmare 16y ago

Now the question is how long it would take market to catch up with adapters/hubs or updated hardware.

cpr 16y ago
No hubs--it's a chaining protocol.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

paolomaffei 16y ago

On another note the new MacBook Pro is nothing special: - still no SSD drive built-in (+$250) - still no 8GB of RAM built-in (+$200) - less battery duration than last generation

whatusername 16y ago
Are there any laptops with 8GB built in the default?

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

frankus 16y ago

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.

callumjones 16y ago

So if PCIe x16 is rated between 8GB/s and 16GB/s would it be possible for someone to come out with a PCIe enclosure so I could hook up a semi decent nVidia or AMD/ATI card to my MacBook?

reeses 16y ago

I might have missed it shooting through the threads, but has anyone announced a PCI express card with thunderpeak? I'd love to have 10gbit between my workstation and my NAS without having to buy multiple FC HBAs. In fact, I'd probably take all of my current DAS and add it to the NAS pool as well. It would make my home office much quieter if I could hide all the spindles in another room and still have fast storage access.

spitfire 16y ago

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.

jkahn 16y ago

Awesome. Two monitors on a MBP with Thunderbolt. Now, where the hell is the adapter to buy that will actually let you connect two monitors?

samic 16y ago

why not just improve usb?! how many cables hsould I have to live?!!