
Thunderbolt - arnemart
http://www.apple.com/thunderbolt/
======
hallmark
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...](http://www.macrumors.com/2011/02/19/apple-to-introduce-light-peak-
high-speed-connection-technology-soon/)

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

~~~
sgt
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.

~~~
tygorius
Oh, it's not so bad once you take advertising sub-clause of the spec into
account. That's the hidden clause that states the USB logo will be on the top
of a properly-oriented plug _unless_ you're Microsoft or Logitech, in which
case your corporate name is allowed top-billing, so to speak.

Of course, if the slots are oriented vertically...

~~~
ZoFreX
Microsoft USB plugs all have a little nub on the "top" side, if memory serves.

~~~
tygorius
Interesting. The only Microsoft USB plug I have these days is one of the
wireless stubs, where the logo is the only clue. I have noticed that some
Logitech products have a concave top, presumably for the same tactile feedback
approach.

Of course, you can always just look at the end of the plug and orient it so
the white plastic key is on the bottom, but where's the fun in that?

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

~~~
sudont
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
Display Port has allowed daisy chaining monitors since 1.2 at least, if not
earlier back.

~~~
masklinn
Sadly, Thunderbolt only supports 1.1a

~~~
pudquick
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.

~~~
wladimir
Wasn't the original idea of light peak to be optical? Why didn't they deliver
on that promise, I want my future back, it's frickin 2011 now and we still
don't use optical connectors to connect our devices :)

(I guess they'll have a hard time with the 'Thunderbolt' icon when they go to
optical, it makes even less sense for optical than for a low-voltage
connector)

~~~
xuki
Because optical is expensive, less flexible, does not provide enough power for
devices (think portable HDD) and not many people use long cable.

Once the technology is widely used, the name doesn't matter anymore I guess.

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

~~~
sandis
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
Perhaps true, but how exactly would you mate the connector with a high voltage
power source without a massive amount of kludgery?

~~~
vietor
If you've ever done field tech work, freelance or otherwise, you'd know that
mere physical incompatibility isn't going to stop some people from plugging
nearly any connector into nearly any port.

~~~
radicaldreamer
Sad, but true.

------
sandipc
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
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
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.

~~~
hop
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.

~~~
moe
I heard apple charges $4 per unit.

------
zppx
Two questions:

Is it royalty-free?

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

~~~
capstone
_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_...](http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/325136-001US_secured.pdf)

~~~
ComputerGuru
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
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
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.

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

------
kayoone
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
“Intel fully supports USB 3 and plans to integrate it in the future.” —
[http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/24/intel-promises-native-
usb...](http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/24/intel-promises-native-
usb-3-0-support-someday/)

~~~
kayoone
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!

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

~~~
rudiger
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.

~~~
rorrr
Ha. Good luck to them. Thunderbolt will be lucky to replace firewire. There's
no way in the world it can replace USB, Ethernet or HDMI. Just think of the
number of devices out there with these ports.

It might replace SATA eventually, but it will have to fight against USB.

~~~
cwp
From the Apple page on Thunderbolt: "you can use existing USB and FireWire
peripherals — even connect to Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel networks —
using simple adapters."

So, twice as fast as USB 3.0 and compatible with existing devices. Doesn't
seem like much of a fight. USB won't disappear overnight, but it's already
obsolete.

~~~
nlogn
Thunderbolt may be technically superior in every single way, but unless other
manufacturers use it for their laptops/motherboards, Apple's 10ish% market
share is going to ensure that USB 3.0 "wins" ultimately. This will wind up
being just like firewire where aside from Apple's stuff and a select few
"Apple" manufacturers, nobody uses it and consumers either buy the more
expensive Apple stuff, or use a dongle and see 0 benefit from the superior
tech.

~~~
jimbokun
Apple also pioneered USB with the iMac. Because USB was the only way to
connect anything to the iMac, it served as a catalyst for device makers to
come out with USB devices, since they knew they had a captive market.

Once the number of USB peripherals reached critical mass, the general PC
market followed suit.

So, will Thunderbolt adoption more closely resemble that of Firewire, or USB?

~~~
nlogn
I believe the new macs still have USB ports, no? So what incentive do
peripherals manufacturers have to use Thunderbolt and target just the new
macbooks vs USB 3.0 and targeting everything?

------
spitfire
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
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
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
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.

------
pyre
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
You can always have one optical fiber for data, and a metal conductor for
power, wrapped up in the same cable / connector.

------
cal5k
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
> Electrical or optical cables

From <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
Light Peak right now is only copper. Optical will be added in the future most
likely.

~~~
maggit
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
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
They're also not as flexible a copper...

------
s00pcan
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.

------
beaumartinez
Codenamed Light Peak.

Intel's page on Light Peak (not the same as theirs on Thunderbolt):
<http://techresearch.intel.com/ProjectDetails.aspx?Id=143>

Wikipedia has a very informative article on it:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_Peak>

~~~
tvon
It's not an implementation of Light Peak, it is what Light Peak is now called.

~~~
beaumartinez
You're right; _Developed by Intel (under the code name Light Peak)_. (I've
corrected my comment.)

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

------
frankus
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
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.

~~~
damoncali
You can lease your card: <http://cuttingedgegamer.com/>

~~~
rapind
Those prices aren't bad at all based on some newegg comparisons. I was
expecting a massive markup.

------
tantalor
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
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>

~~~
__david__
> It looks like you would have to implement USB on top of PCIe in the monitor,
> though.

Isn't that basically UHCI?

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

~~~
jdavid
i would love to have and iPad or TouchPad as a second display.

------
hop
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
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.

~~~
onedognight
It has _two_ independent 10Gbps channels, so it can do 20Gbps.

~~~
maggit
That's not really relevant as long as you can't choose the directions for the
channels. You are only going to get one channel in each direction.

 _Edit: Whoa. I just re-read parts of the Intel documentation, and it seems
there are indeed two independent downstream channels. My bad. It also looks
like there is no provision for using both channels for a single device? I have
no idea._

~~~
GHFigs
2x10Gbps is still enough to drive two 2560x1600 displays at 60Hz, which is all
the prior DisplayPort implementation could do.

------
reeses
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.

------
ghc
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
_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.

------
83457
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>

------
kayoone
i sense multiple external screens on a MBP :D

~~~
whyleyc
That's already been possible for a few years - [http://daggle.com/macbook-pro-
multimonitor-4-monitors-at-onc...](http://daggle.com/macbook-pro-
multimonitor-4-monitors-at-once-1577)

~~~
potatolicious
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.

------
callumjones
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?

------
jkahn
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?

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

~~~
jeffb
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>

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

~~~
cpr
No hubs--it's a chaining protocol.

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

~~~
ugh
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
You don't have to use TDM. You can also use Firewire as a network interface.

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

~~~
maggit
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
I for one don't miss serial, parallel, and PS/2 ports.

~~~
BCM43
I miss serial ports.

~~~
Semiapies
Why?

~~~
ac-slater
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.

~~~
Semiapies
Ah, I see. I can definitely understand that.

Still not crazy about it as yet one more connector for mass-manufactured
devices, though.

------
dpapathanasiou
Is this why Apple dumped FireWire a few years ago?

~~~
ugh
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
This is what I meant, but thanks for your downvote anyway:
<http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/10/apple-quietly-k/>

~~~
robin_reala
A simple pin-adaptor turns a FW800 port into a FW400 port - they’re
electrically compatible.

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

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

------
paolomaffei
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
Are there any laptops with 8GB built in the default?

------
Goldstein
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.

