alt Hacker NewsAnd even that was 13 or 14 years after Apple shipped their last computer with a Firewire port - long enough that those computers weren't even supported by macOS 26. Apple dropping support for a largely obsolete technology, which they hadn't used for well over a decade, should hardly come as a great shock.
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It is actually shocking to no longer be able to access my data with literally no warning.
As in, not even a dialog saying "hey this drive isn't support anymore"... just... nothing.
What exactly is Apple gaining by dropping a (presumably) super stable driver??
Nice that you can dismiss this as "largely obsolete technology" tho.
You used to be able to chain three adapters:
Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 Thunderbolt 2 to FireWire 800 FireWire 800 to FireWire 400
to plug a modern Mac into an iMac G4 in Target Disk Mode
Now you need to add another layer: virtualizing old macOS on a modern Mac
I had one plugged into the FW800 port of my Cinema Display.
Only really used it as a scratch drive for junk but it was still handy.
Apple's Thunderbolt FireWire 800 adapter daisy-chained with their TB2-to-TB3 adapter should work on any modern system with Thunderbolt and FireWire support, as it just presents as a bog-standard PCI FireWire card.
So worst-case, you should be able to access your old drives on a modern Mac by booting from a FireWire-compatible OS (Asahi or older macOS) on an external drive.