Using Firewire and Thunderbolt 1.0 with Windows 7 x86 Professional

 Along about 2010 Firewire was beginning to be abandoned in favor of USB and faster alternatives in laptops. However there was still a good use for Firewire or IEEE1384 ports for connecting legacy hard drives, cameras and video capture equipment.

For a time laptops could still be found with Expresscard ports and used with Expresscard to Firewire / IEEE1384 ports but eventually those went away as well.

Sony Vaios, Lenovos, Dell and HP products initally had some laptops with "mini" IEEE1384 ports but they too disappeared.

Apple Macbook Pros eased the transition by including a Firewire 800 port and a Display port, and then replaced the Display port with the identical port on Macbook Retinas with a Thunderbolt 1.0 port.

It wasn't called Thunderbolt 1.0 but retroactively can now be referred to as Thunderbolt 1.0 since there were Thunderbolt 2.0 and Thunderbolt 3.0 versions later.

Thunderbolt 1.0 is basically a Display port connector with additional lines to support  PCIexpress connections in the same connector as the original mini Display port connector.

Thunderbolt 2.0 is essentially the same as Thunderbolt 1.0 using the same mini Display port connector with a logical speed boost from 10 Gbps to 20 Gbps.

Thunderbolt 3.0 uses a different connector (USB-C) and also supports a USB 3.0 mode as well as getting a speed boost to 40 Gbps.

Besides Apple, a few manufacturers also made early laptops with Thunderbolt 1.0 connectors. HP being one with the Spectre XT 15 Ultrabook line. These had one mini Display port Thunderbolt 1.0 connector. 

Designed for Windows 8 (and later upgradeable to 8.1 and 10) out of the box, they would only support Thunderbolt 1.0 devices certified for the Windows OS.. and would not support The Apple Firewire to Thunderbolt adapter.

However HP retroactively released a Thunderbolt 1.0 port configuration tool for their Thunderbolt firmware that could enable support "Any" Thunderbolt connected device whether it was certified with Windows or not. This enables Windows 8/8.1/10 to support the Apple Firewire to Thunderbolt 1.0/2.0 adapter.

Basically once this tool is run the Thunderbolt port is set to enable all Thunderbolt devices connected to its port. This is not the default because of the Intel specification barring support for certified devices for specific operating systems. Its rather nonsensical and unintuitive. Without doing this inserting the Apple Firewire to Thunderbolt adapter only adds six PCI to PCI bridge devices to the device manager tree and stops.. it does not enumerate the 1394 OCHI device on the other end of the adapter.

The HP Spectre XT 15 is based on the Intel IVY chip architecture which means it fully supports Windows 7 and has a Legacy CSM BIOS mode for booting from MBR partitions.. which means not only is Windows 7 x64 (64 bit mode) supported, but Windows 7 x86 (32 bit mode) is also supported.

Once the Thunderbolt port is configured "open" to support uncertified Thunderbolt connected devices.. this carries over if Windows 7 x64 is installed, even for Windows 7 x86.

What happens when the Apple Firewire to Thunderbolt adapter is inserted (hot swapped) into Windows 7 x86 (32 bit) is six PCI to PCI bridge devices are created attached to one of the PCI express root ports, off of one of those a 1394 OCHI device is enumerated, and then an AVC and AVC Tape device is created.. if you have a firewire video capture device like an ADVC Canopus video capture codec attached.

The default 1394 OHCI device driver is not best and should be swapped for the (Legacy) version for regular work.. but it works.. in 32 bit.

This is a pretty slick method of using a Thunderbolt port on a Windows PC to connect up a native Firewire device for video capture and feed that into many 32 Bit Non-Linear Editor workflows from the past.. like Sony Vegas, Adobe Premiere and so on.

This also worked for later HP Zbook and Folio Ultrabooks.. as long as you manually downloaded the HP tool for re-configuring the Thunderbolt port and opened it up.. for Thunderbolt 2.0 and Thunderbolt 3.0 later chip architectures however make it less compatible with older operating systems.

The HP Spectre XT 15 is a little unique in having the IVY chipset since in theory it can also support Windows XP .. a rare thing today.. if you need it. And it will be interesting to see if Thunderbolt 1.0 can be supported under XP in a native manner.. stay tuned.

What if we're Pinball Machines not Memory Machines?

 Thinking about thought.

We tend to categorize by like is like, associations.

So we think of our brain and our thoughts like a computer programming running on a central processor.

Its something we sort of intuitively understand, and is sort of like the machines we hold in our hands. Turn crank, procedural kinetic motion produces output.

Memory is a little more like referring to a pen and paper and referring to a book for past mechanical motions.. the results.. become memory.

And we think our memory is like a book, the end result of our past mechanical actions.

But what if its more like a result machine, not that it methodically copies and encodes inputs like writing on a strip of paper.. but more like a spikey soccer ball with lots and lots of spikes.. that the envionment twists and turns and tumbles and leaves it laying in a pseudorandom state.

Not in a methodical easy to copy and recompose manner.. but the end result of a wad of paper crumpled and torn, and shaped by endless unpredictable blows and interactions with its environment.

More like a 'pinball' in a pinball machine.. its not as much a copier of the inputs from the environment.. as it is a reactor machine that seeks merely survive to experience another day.. an endless purgatory machine endlessly suffering.. the best outcome is not to cease functioning.

To extract memories.. or something more portable to easy to download and upload then.

Might be much harder.

We might rather need to  subject this tumbling soccer ball to a virtual environment to observe how its current state 'reacts' to all of its past experiences and currently interprets that which we erroneously perceive as the 'past' at the present time.

In such a scenario then, the 'past' or 'memory' becomes an endless sense of partially true, but also partially self described recollections of what its been through.. its not so much what it remembers.. as it is how it dictates or understands as its current view of the past. So.. in order to 'recall' the past.. it must forma virtual environment.. a virtual machine inside its head.. and use its imaginary narrative pointer and point it at this virtual machine in order to play out scenarios.. sort of 'imagine its 10 years ago and I'm walking through my house.. what do I see?' Then the current brain or mind 'state' begins reacting to the virtual environment and feeding senses of sight, hearing, smell into its current inputs via virtual imaginary sensors and playing out the Theater as if it were a play.. and holding those experiences  in something akin to a temporary memory buffer in our heads.. much more akin to a linear computer memory buffer.. so we can use those experiences as a near term second set of senses that can act as a mini-brain in a virtual environment to model a scenario we are trying to solve for.. to predict a near term desirable outcome.. sort of a Monte Carlo situation where we try try again in our tiny version of minecraft to come up with a solution we think will be worth betting on an the real world with our bodies.

If true.. if you want to tap into that.

It might be to extract or copy a memory.. or make new ones by uploading.. you need to tap into the virtual machine used for near term temporary memory.. and the senses it uses for input and output.. be they real or imaginary.

The real senses.. using head gear and tactile feedback like mice our keyboards.. we kind of have a grasp upon.

The temporary virtual machine senses of near term memory, we kind of don't have a good grasp of.

Magnetic Induction, neuralink.. are pokes in that direction.. but until we have a more solid connection to the temporary memory virtual machine and can spawn a set of neuralink virtual senses which the brain will accept as 'like' those it creates on the fly for visualizing scenarios for solving problems.. it could be a tough road.

Video games and game console controllers are close, they can immerse a person in a world without physical contact.. even trigger an imaginary experience where we use our perceived memory of reaction based on our past experiences. In such a situation the first person shooter is literally building their own bridge to the outside world and reacting based on their memories.. downloading  in that scenario is akin to interrogating a player for what they recall.. in real time.. since their arms and legs.. can only move in real time.

But we know we can think much faster than physical action.. the effective bandwidth can be increased in a dream state.. abbreviating or hopscotching across a dreamscape to lessor or more important elements of the story.

And in fact we know we can Upload memories very easily.. by watching a movie. Again the brain finds a way to bridge the gap.

Given the way the brain uses glucose and oxygen.. it may be that a person can only upload and download at faster than real time in a subdued, physically inactive dream state.. in which they are paralyzed to optimize nutrients and oxygen and blood supply for the brain.