Re: Fwd: Re: Re: Re: intro

[KC5TJA <kc5tja@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> >> be released shortly; patents only last 17 years, then the idea is 
> placed
> >> in the public domain... :)
> 
> yep.  unless it was filed after june 1995.  in that case, it would have 
> a term of 20 years starting with the date of filing.  Patents are 
> useless, however, if the owner stops paying the maintenence fees.  

I believe the patent was filed before 1994; in fact, long before 1994.  It
was described in an IEEE Spectrum(??) magazine, in a biography of the REAL
inventor of the CPU (Ted Hoff I believe his name was), who worked at Intel
at the time.  "It was such an obvious design," I remember the quote, "I
didn't think of patenting it."  Whoops.

But then again, perhaps it is a GOOD thing that Intel doesn't have the
patent.. :)

> I agree.  I Let's talk more about creating circuits with laser printers.

And homebrewing your own stack-based CPUs... :)  But I guess there's a
dedicated mailing list for that, so perhaps I should join that list too?
:)

=============================================================================
"Tongue Tied and Twisted, Just an Earthbound Misfit..." - Pink Floyd

Long live the AMIGA!!                 HAM Radio: KC5TJA/6, Tech +, 146.730MHz
http://www3.axisinternet.com/~kc5tja                         Grid Square DM13

Project Leader: Dolphin Operating System (mailing list: ddg@axisinternet.com)

PGP block temporarily unavailable...  Another is coming soon.