I'm sorry - you've misunderstood the intent of my post
Which one?
1) I have no idea what the exact licensing mechanism is for the "Thunderbolt" moniker, but I do know that Apple formally gave Intel rights on July 9th. What previous intentions were, are of course moot. Again the technology had always been Intel's and is implemented on Intel chipsets only.
This is what I have been trying to find out all along: Intel developed an optical I/O system called Light Peak and was joined in development by Apple, which provided the connector (mini DisplayPort) and very likely some IP to do with transmission over copper rather than optical fibre (Apple has plenty of serial bus expertise, and maybe patents too). So I dispute that the technology has
always been Intel’s; it’s been collaborative [at least] in the move to copper. I
know that the chipsets are made by Intel, John, as I have referred to in previous posts.
2) My expectation is that the first non-apple implementations of TB will be on socket 2011 mainboards - I'm sorry if you thought I was implying anything other than that....
I have
no opinion on what you were implying, or not implying—I simply said that
I did not understand it. I am most reluctant to make an inference when I am
baffled by a statement. Since I am a Mac user, I have little knowledge or interest in the naming of logic boards (we take what Apple gives us and enjoy it!
).
3) The ExtremeTech author is guilty of confusing TB with USB 3.0 - they are completely different, TB being a BUS interface.
I do not see that in the article at all, and USB is (of course) the acronym for Universal Serial
Bus; if it
looks like a bus,
walks like a bus,
quacks like a bus etc. it’s a bus! I really don’t know what you’re on about here.
The deal is this: Bus interfaces are implemented at the chipset level and are included in the chipset driver package supplied by the maker.
Not necessarily so: I have installed USB and FireWire PCI cards on computers which had
no hardware support for these serial busses on their main boards. Is it possible that PCI add-in cards with TB connectors will eventually be made available for older computers?
In the case of Win 8 - an article talking about what MS will or won't do with a beta O/S thats not even close to Release Candidate stage? Really?
Why not? MS should be making clear their intentions vis-a-vis Thunderbolt (only thing I could find yesterday was an old-ish reference to MS testing TB as a networking protocol). In the absence of confirmation, rumours abound.