Greetings:

I just came back from Japan, and every new model of ix86 notebook
I saw had a IEEE1394 (ILink/FireWire) interface port on it, while
none had USB-2.0 support.  USB-2.0 support was only available on
notebooks via a cardbus pcmcia card.

Considering that IEEE1394 is almost as fast as USB-2.0 (400Mbps vs
480Mbps); there are tons of IEEE1394 devices, including
still & video cameras, scanners, harddrives, DVD & CD drives, and
hubs; and that Microsoft is actively supporting IEEE1394 over
USB-2.0 in Windows-XP; and that the Linux i386 port has supported
it for a while (since the Linux 2.2 kernel):

	http://linux1394.sourceforge.net/

	If you have 1394 hardware you can now access it under Linux.
	The supported chipsets are Texas Instruments PCILynx/PCILynx2
	and OHCI compliant chips (produced by various companies). Not
	supported are the proprietary Sony chipset found in various
	Vaio systems or the Adaptec AIC-5800. Work has been done toward
	support for the Adaptec chip-based cards, but few have success-
	fully used it. Please note as well that not all Sony VAIO
	systems use the proprietary chip. Some contain the CXD3222,
	which is reported to be OHCI compliant.

what are the chances that we can get IEEE1394 support added to NetBSD
i386 anytime in the near future?  How hard or benefical would it be to
modify the Linux IEEE1394 code for NetBSD?  Unlike adding a driver to
an existing driver category (like adding a new driver for a PCI
ethernet card), I suspect that adding IEEE1394 support would entail
adding multiple new driver categories to NetBSD, like we have for USB
(uhub, umass, uaudio, ...), something that would likely require
involvement from the NetBSD core.

Alicia.