Fire-wire IEEE 1394  IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers
  Based on SCSI 

  Fire-wire name owned by Apple but fee free.
  i.Link named by Sony and encouraged as a friendlier name.

  Any two or more devices can be connected (no computer required).

  Auto-negotiation of bus master.
    Any device can be the master (no PC needed).

  1394a 100Mb/s, 200Mb/s, and 400Mb/s.

  63 nodes per card, daisy-chain or branch.
    If node is hub, hub can support 16 devices.
    Common interface cards have 3 nodes supporting 16 devices each.

  Supports up to 1023 bridged buses for total of 64000 nodes.

  1394A - 400Mb/s (50MB/s)

  1394B - 800Mb/s (100MB/s) Fire-wire 800 - future 3200Mb/s
    Supports glass and plastic fiber.

    Cat 5 cabling for long distances.
  
  Connector 6 wire, 2 power, (2 data, 2 clock) lines.
  Or 4 wire (Sony's i.Link). 

  Power 1.5 amps.

  1394B
    9 pin cabling.
  
    Self-healing loop.  Because no root hub, loops can occur.
      1394b can detect and correct.