18 March 2023, 23:30 | #2381 |
Registered User
Join Date: May 2017
Location: Munich/Bavaria
Posts: 2,426
|
From the back of my head:
(too lazy to look it up) The patent was originally filed for an interface of an Electron Microscope by the inventor. The inventor's company did not do very well, he died soon after and his widow accepted the offer of some patent lawyers .... The inventor was quite smart in how he generalized the use case of his patent, which becomes clear once you read the file ... it also becomes clear that his solution is very obvious, if you understand logical operators like XOR, which have been around as a concept since the days of Alan Turing (40s). There is an old mailing list entry (mid 90's) of an former NASA engineer, who said he published this method in NASA's magazine long before the patent was filed and he did not think such an obvious thing could be patented - and so he did not. But since he published it, ii was already common knowledge and the patent should not have been granted in the first place and would have been revoked if someone contested it with the provable prior art ... |
19 March 2023, 05:19 | #2382 |
Registered User
Join Date: Dec 2015
Location: USA
Posts: 2,972
|
I was just thinking about how bad a pizza box A2200 based on the CD32 motherboard would have been a spectacular failure since the CD32 was based on the A1200.
|
19 March 2023, 06:08 | #2383 |
Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2018
Location: Hastings, New Zealand
Posts: 2,742
|
|
19 March 2023, 08:00 | #2384 |
Registered User
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: london/england
Posts: 1,347
|
Option 2 has a 40mhz 68030 and option 1 has a 210mb hard disk to be fair.
Not sure how the prices compare with Amiga 4000/030 which also had Zorro III slot which was £999 in the UK. |
19 March 2023, 09:13 | #2385 | |
Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2019
Location: Germany
Posts: 3,316
|
Quote:
So the question really is on which basis CBM was thought to infringe that patent by the Amiga. Amiga sprites do not use double-XOR. However, the (original) layers.library uses a similar trick to exchange smart layer "backsafe storage" with screen content (it is a double xor trick). That was smart at times were the blitter was fast, but it was no longer the fastest possibility later on (thus, v45 layers which got rid of this). |
|
19 March 2023, 09:57 | #2386 | |
Registered User
Join Date: Apr 2017
Location: France
Posts: 652
|
Someone build a list a Commodore patents. For the memory I put it here. Source: Rick Melick blog.
Saturday, January 19, 2013 - The patents of Commodore... Quote:
|
|
19 March 2023, 10:05 | #2387 | |
Registered User
Join Date: Apr 2017
Location: France
Posts: 652
|
Part 2
Quote:
|
|
19 March 2023, 10:06 | #2388 | |
Registered User
Join Date: Apr 2017
Location: France
Posts: 652
|
Part 3/3
Quote:
|
|
20 March 2023, 04:35 | #2389 |
Registered User
Join Date: Dec 2015
Location: USA
Posts: 2,972
|
I was cutting off pieces of cheese today to make a sandwich. And the wedge of slightly greasy cheddar was getting smaller and I flopped it down. And I saw it, a shameful yellowed doorstop wedge A1200. I almost just ate the thing so I would know it was gone but I tossed it in a baggie and put it back in the fridge. It weirds me out a little bit that there is a reminder of how bad the A1200 was right in my cheese drawer.
|
20 March 2023, 06:24 | #2390 | |
HOL/FTP busy bee
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Germany
Age: 46
Posts: 31,999
|
Quote:
|
|
20 March 2023, 11:10 | #2391 |
Registered User
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Italy/Rome
Posts: 2,344
|
Ok, Aga, wasn't as complete as we wanted. But what about double-cas, 64bit bus? I loved it! We should have extended it to all chip-set, but...
|
20 March 2023, 11:20 | #2392 |
Registered User
Join Date: Nov 2021
Location: Utrecht/Netherlands
Posts: 338
|
Anybody knows how commodore/amiga infringed that disputed patent?
|
20 March 2023, 15:53 | #2393 | |
Registered User
Join Date: May 2017
Location: Munich/Bavaria
Posts: 2,426
|
Quote:
But definitely not the mouse-pointer, and as far as I understand the patent, it could be interpreted as only pointers/cursers are subject of this patented XOR trick... |
|
20 March 2023, 23:59 | #2394 |
Registered User
Join Date: May 2017
Location: Munich/Bavaria
Posts: 2,426
|
|
21 March 2023, 07:28 | #2395 |
HOL/FTP busy bee
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Germany
Age: 46
Posts: 31,999
|
|
21 March 2023, 09:50 | #2396 |
Registered User
Join Date: Apr 2017
Location: France
Posts: 652
|
|
21 March 2023, 10:46 | #2397 | |
Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2018
Location: Hastings, New Zealand
Posts: 2,742
|
Quote:
“Cadtrack was headed toward bankruptcy in 1983 when the head of licensing at IBM called to discuss the possible licensing of a patent from moving a cursor on a screen. In 1985, [Cadtrack CEO Eugene] Emmerich went to the board of his company and suggested that the company get out of the production business. The company then laid off all of its employees and concentrated on collecting revenues from its patent. By 1997, when the patent finally expired, he had signed deals worth about $50 million with 400 companies.This injuction would only be lifted if they paid a $100 million penalty. Commodore didn't actually infringe on the XOR patent because it was invalid (there was published prior art). But apparently Commodore's lawyers either didn't know that or weren't able to convince the judge. |
|
21 March 2023, 11:13 | #2398 |
Registered User
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: london/england
Posts: 1,347
|
Commodore's US sales were like 10%, Irving Gould's annual million dollar bonus checks from the measly profits were more destructive.
The patent would have expired in what 30 months anyway? What American would buy a CD32 for 3x the cost of a Sega/Nintendo superior console anyway? lol the games may have been cheap but that's because technically they were rubbish CD games or repackaged old games like Lotus Trilogy or Team 17 double packs on CD. You know what? Commodore was like a very sick human with multiple life-long/terminal illnesses and it was a race between them which of those afflictions would kill him first. Whatever happened the Amiga £400 price range machine had no goodies coming from engineering to keep up with fast byte per pixel VGA Mode H on PC and even worse PS1 was only £299.99/$299.99 in 94/95. Commodore were not going to make it past 1995 whatever they did, you could get a shop to build you a 486 for peanuts by 1995. In 1992 the A1200 rival was a 12/14mhz Amstrad floppy only based high street PC for £800 but by 1995 that had all changed, everyone wanted a slice of the 'family PC' market and the competition just ramped up exponentially for that £500 sort of price range. Escom were selling the same "7mhz" 68020 2mb Chip RAM only for £400. Commodore didn't keep the talented Los Gatos Engineers, their own engineers did nothing useful and kept cancelling good sellers like Commodore LCD of 1984/85 or Commodore 256 colour C65 in 1991 etc etc. You can only make so many mistakes, there was no miracles happening at Commodore despite what Dave Haynie branded Kool-aid would have you believe. AAA and Hombre were NEVER useful due to insane costs for a low end A1200 replacement, by 1995 the A1200 had done it's best but the fight was over and the slaughter from byte per pixel VGA and PS1 game engines had begun. Perhaps some key C= personnel knew this and started doing iffy things with buying/selling shares and then just filed for chapter 11, scavenging what they could from the 1994 already putrid "carcass" of Amiga as a viable format for the future (1995-2000 roadmap for low end Amigas was non-existent, the CD64 is bullcrap myth) rather than letting it rot until it was worthless. Grim, but this is business. Last edited by ImmortalA1000; 21 March 2023 at 11:24. |
21 March 2023, 12:38 | #2399 |
Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2019
Location: Germany
Posts: 3,316
|
Have you actually read the patent? There is more in it than just the double-XOR trick. In order to see what was actually thre reason to make CBM pay, one would need to read the coart files. I have not done that, but I read the patent claims.
|
21 March 2023, 13:51 | #2400 | |
Registered User
Join Date: May 2017
Location: Munich/Bavaria
Posts: 2,426
|
After reading the claims of this patent (again), I do not think some XOR-ing in Layers is the problem ... and also not the "smooth panning" or smooth scrolling as we would call it. It is implemented differently in the Amiga as far as I understand this patent.
But claim Nr. 12 might do the trick - this describes essentially "dual playfield": Quote:
Last edited by Gorf; 21 March 2023 at 14:03. |
|
Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 2 (0 members and 2 guests) | |
Thread Tools | |
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
A1200 RF module removal pics + A1200 chips overview | eXeler0 | Hardware pics | 2 | 08 March 2017 00:09 |
Sale - 2 auctions: A1200 mobo + flickerfixer & A1200 tower case w/ kit | blakespot | MarketPlace | 0 | 27 August 2015 18:50 |
For Sale - A1200/A1000/IndiAGA MkII/A1200 Trapdoor Ram & Other Goodies! | fitzsteve | MarketPlace | 1 | 11 December 2012 10:32 |
Trading A1200 030 acc and A1200 indivision for Amiga stuff | 8bitbubsy | MarketPlace | 17 | 14 December 2009 21:50 |
Trade Mac g3 300/400 or A1200 for an A1200 accellerator | BiL0 | MarketPlace | 0 | 07 June 2006 17:41 |
|
|