Macrumors claims LightPeak Known As ThunderBolt? Not so fast….

Here take a look at this image from MacRumors.com…

thunderbold! port

The rumor sites are just insane these days.  Now this is clearly the same port layout as the current generation of Macbook Pro’s.  How do I know?  I just glanced at it.

Now that could mean that it’s a perfectly good displayport there that someone photoshopped a Thunderbolt logo onto it, and thus, you now have “Thunderbolt”, the next generation LightPeak port…

But, take another look at the “Technical Specs”.  How can LightPeak support Mini DisplayPort devices?

tech specs

What I believe is being forgotten here is that DisplayPort also support data transfers.  Displayport is modeled on a micro data packet design, so at least in my mind, I consider it closer to a networking system, then a pure analog video stream.

  • Version 1.0 – 1.1 supported a maximum of 8.64 Gbit/s
  • Version 1.2, which was approved in December of 2009, increases the bandwidth up to 17.28 Gbit/s. This is the version that Apple has incorporated, directly supporting Mini-DisplayPort, and Monitor Daisy-chaining.

How much more likely is it that Apple will be making an adapter to allow Displayport to run an Firewire 400, 800, or Esata device?  This would allow Apple to clean up the legacy high-speed ports, and yet still have them available.  This could also mean that you could have a “DisplayPort” break-out box, that would allow multiple Displayport devices (eg, 2 external monitors, and a FW800 device) to be used at the same time.  Any non-video based communication is over the AUX “channel” on the DisplayPort bus.

And the proof is already here:

So the concept has been proven, the question is will Apple expand this to cover other high-speed data transfer protocols?

This doesn’t mean that LightPeak is not going to be announced, but I suspect that a technology that is already proven is more likely.

Update 2/24/2011:

At least Apple’s website is stating that Thunderbolt is a cross between PCI Express & DisplayPort.  There is no mention of LightPeak on the page.  So, it appears that everyone, to some degree was wrong… But intel’s page on Thunderbolt does specify that it was formerly known as LightPeak….  So in this case Occam’s Razor was wrong…

 

What do you think?

Page Updates –

  • Included v1.2 displayport information regarding monitor daisy-chainging, and the mini-displayport support.
  • Added the USB over Displayport information.