Thunderbolt Technology: The Fastest Data Connection to Your PC Just Arrived

[Fourstaff]

The optical and electrical variants are incompatible (because ports on the devices and connectors on the cables have conventional electrical contacts). Once the electrical one is spread across the industry, Intel would have to redo everything all over again to get the optical variant out. Maybe Intel is sand-bagging, maybe the optical variant is better suited for enterprise IO for now, or maybe they got very close to achieving optical-like performance on electrical medium, and opted for electrical since it's more durable.

They can always add a dongle in front to convert the electrical signal to optical. I think that's possible anyway. Still, once you have the framework to deal with the Thunderbolt, there is relatively little to change from electrical to optical, just some signalling parts.

 

[HalfAHertz]

They can always add a dongle in front to convert the electrical signal to optical. I think that's possible anyway. Still, once you have the framework to deal with the Thunderbolt, there is relatively little to change from electrical to optical, just some signalling parts.

omg Intel will put LAZORZ inside your PC!!! Now you only need to add a fish tank and a trained shark and presto you've got yerself a shark with lasers! You're one step closer to becoming an evil scientist