On Monday, December 16, 2002, at 05:31 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I think that you're confusing power and data here. USB is capable of > supplying > a small amount of electrical power to run devices from, in addition to > carrying > the data from these devices back to the iMac (that's where the power to > run your mouse and keyboard come from). Dennis has connected many > peripherals > to his iMac and the data goes through his USB hub and then through his > keyboard. > He does not use the USB to power his peripherals however, that is > provided > by the power supply for the USB hub, or by plugging the device into its > own, separate power supply. In your case the problem was down to your > superdisk > trying to take more electrical power from the USB cable than was > available, > causing your iMac to hang. > > >
Yeah, I am confused about the power issue. On the one hand, I thought usb peripherals didn't need the support of a hub and I thought the wording on the box of the superdisk implied that it didn't need an additional source of power to operate. When I bought it from the Apple store, the marketing of the product implied that one simply plugged it in and voila, it works. So I was naive on that account. I also thought that the purpose of usb hubs was to give one more ports and didn't realize that they are necessary as an intermediary device to power devices so that one could use the ports already built into the computer. The impression I've had is that people could even daisy chain devices without a hitch. The floppy drive clearly wasn't getting enough power from the keyboard port and the fact that it probably wasn't getting enough power directly from the iMac's usb port, causing the iMac to hang, seems to suggest I won't be able to use those ports without the support of a hub for anything more than my keyboard itself and the mouse. This doesn't seem to be everyone's experience, however, or as you say, I'm fundamentally confused. And now I suspect that the same is true of firewire ports? One has to have an intermediary device to use them? -- The iMac List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | - Epson Stylus Color 580 Printers - new at $69 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> iMac List info: <http://lowendmac.com/imac/list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/imac-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
