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Dr. Ulf Bossel, organizer of the Lucerne Fuel Cell Forum, about his announcement that hydrogen will no longer be a topic of conversation at the conference

Please also note that because of the staggering loss of exergy, use of
electrolysis for bulk hydrogen apps is a really, really dumb thing to do.
It is the equivalent of exchanging two US dollars for one Mexican peso.

"Hydrogen power will dramatically reduce greenhouse gas admissions"
- Speaking on the topic of energy independence, Washington D.C., February 6, 2003 Or how about the mere announcement of spending "In 2003, President George Bush announced an $1.7bn investment to turn the US into the world leaders of hydrogen-powered automobiles."

Now....who ya gonna believe....Don Lancaster (who has more geek cred than most /. readers), Dr. Ulf Bossel, or some hack writers at Popular Mechanics and President Bush?

The classic example of why patents do not protect the little guy is Edwin Armstrong. He invented most of the important parts of modern radio. In particular, he invented FM. He had patents but couldn't protect them against RCA. He died a broken man. Patents haven't achieved their intended purpose for a long time. The idea that patents make it possible to attract individual creators to America is risable.

In order to reform the system and protect the little guy, they started granting automatic injunctions to patent holders. That's what enabled NTP to rob RIM of half a billion dollars. Tampering with the system doesn't fix it. It should be mostly junked.

http://www.wsone.com/fecha/armstrong.htm

For more information on why patents don't work for the individual creator, check out Don Lancaster:
http://www.tinaja.com/

The best writing advice I've seen is the writing chapter in Don Lancaster's book, The Incredible Secret Money Machine. His tips:

• Involve the reader. Instead of "the user" or "I", say "You".
• Avoid passive voice. Stay away from words like "that", "which", "can", etc.
• Keep it simple. Use the most basic language possible to get your point across.
• Most important: Words are only half the story. To do good technical communication, you need to learn how to prepare figures, graphs, tables and photographs. If you want to do great tech writing, you must master basic skills in drafting, art and photography.

The perspective of the rest of the book is a bit dated (it's pre-Internet), but the basic concepts of his writing chapter are still just as relevant today.

The Case Against Patents Classic Paper, by Don Lancaster (warnings: PDF, ads at the end).

You should read some Don Lancaster. http://www.tinaja.com/ He used to offer a prize to anyone who could name an individual who made real money off a patent. He claimed most inventors could make money by giving away samples and licensing stuff. Companies hate small patents holders, and will spend more money breaking a patent than it would cost to buy it, but they will license unpatented stuff. See also, Philo T Farnsworth.

One way to avoid bad engineering is to stay away from energy sinks into which bunches of time and money have previously been dumped with no visible effect. I like to call these engineering ratholes. Let's look at a few of the more popular examples coming over my voice helpline...

Stirling engines- Every few years somebody rediscovers the Stirling engine. They build a few prototypes which just barely fail to work, and then just barely go bankrupt. The promise here sure is enticing. A low delta-T engine which accepts anything from oily rags to sunlight. But there's two fundamental gotchas here. First, any engine designed for a low DT temperature differential is inherently inefficient. Carnot and all. More crucially, there is a key component to a Stirling engine that nobody - but nobody - has figured out how to build yet. It is called a regenerator. Any regenerator has to be long and thin and short and fat. Not to mention being an excellent insulator and a superb conductor.

[Also see Hardware Hacker May, 1993 http://www.tinaja.com/glib/hack64.pdf for everything you ever forgot about heat engines and thermodynamics.]

Wikipedia - Problems with Stirling Engines:

Stirling engines require both input and output heat exchangers which must contain the pressure of the working fluid, and which must resist any corrosive effects due to the heat source. These increase the cost of the engine especially when they are designed to the high level of "effectiveness" (heat exchanger efficiency) needed for optimizing fuel economy.
Stirling engines, especially the type that run on small temperature differentials, are quite large for the amount of power that they produce, due to the heat exchangers. ...
Power output of a Stirling is constant and hard to change rapidly from one level to another. Typically, changes in output are achieved by varying the displacement of the engine (often through use of a swashplate crankshaft arrangement) or by changing the mass of entrained working fluid (generally helium or hydrogen). This property is less of a drawback in hybrid electric propulsion or base load utility generation.
Hydrogen's lowest molecular weight makes it the best working gas to use in a Stirling engine, but as a tiny molecule, it is very hard to keep it inside the engine and auxiliary systems need to be typically added to maintain the proper quantity of working fluid. These systems can be as simple as a gas storage bottle or more complicated such as a gas generator. In any event, they add weight, increase cost, and introduce some undesirable complications.

U.S. Patents:

6,862,883 Kamen, et al. Regenerator for a Stirling engine

A regenerator for a thermal cycle engine and methods for its manufacture. The regenerator has a random network of fibers formed to fill a specified volume and a material for cross-linking the fibers at points of close contact between fibers of the network. A method for manufacturing a regenerator has steps of providing a length

One way to avoid bad engineering is to stay away from energy sinks into which bunches of time and money have previously been dumped with no visible effect. I like to call these engineering ratholes. Let's look at a few of the more popular examples coming over my voice helpline...

Stirling engines- Every few years somebody rediscovers the Stirling engine. They build a few prototypes which just barely fail to work, and then just barely go bankrupt. The promise here sure is enticing. A low delta-T engine which accepts anything from oily rags to sunlight. But there's two fundamental gotchas here. First, any engine designed for a low DT temperature differential is inherently inefficient. Carnot and all. More crucially, there is a key component to a Stirling engine that nobody - but nobody - has figured out how to build yet. It is called a regenerator. Any regenerator has to be long and thin and short and fat. Not to mention being an excellent insulator and a superb conductor.

[Also see Hardware Hacker May, 1993 http://www.tinaja.com/glib/hack64.pdf for everything you ever forgot about heat engines and thermodynamics.]

Wikipedia - Problems with Stirling Engines:

Stirling engines require both input and output heat exchangers which must contain the pressure of the working fluid, and which must resist any corrosive effects due to the heat source. These increase the cost of the engine especially when they are designed to the high level of "effectiveness" (heat exchanger efficiency) needed for optimizing fuel economy.
Stirling engines, especially the type that run on small temperature differentials, are quite large for the amount of power that they produce, due to the heat exchangers. ...
Power output of a Stirling is constant and hard to change rapidly from one level to another. Typically, changes in output are achieved by varying the displacement of the engine (often through use of a swashplate crankshaft arrangement) or by changing the mass of entrained working fluid (generally helium or hydrogen). This property is less of a drawback in hybrid electric propulsion or base load utility generation.
Hydrogen's lowest molecular weight makes it the best working gas to use in a Stirling engine, but as a tiny molecule, it is very hard to keep it inside the engine and auxiliary systems need to be typically added to maintain the proper quantity of working fluid. These systems can be as simple as a gas storage bottle or more complicated such as a gas generator. In any event, they add weight, increase cost, and introduce some undesirable complications.

U.S. Patents:

6,862,883 Kamen, et al. Regenerator for a Stirling engine

A regenerator for a thermal cycle engine and methods for its manufacture. The regenerator has a random network of fibers formed to fill a specified volume and a material for cross-linking the fibers at points of close contact between fibers of the network. A method for manufacturing a regenerator has steps of providing a length

Uhh - no. Hydrogen is a very bad idea to use for anything. It is not plentiful in its useable state on this planet and its use is a dumb idea. It takes more energy to produce and distribute than it yields: http://technoracle.blogspot.com/2005/12/hydrogen-a gain-tweedle-dumb-and.html http://www.tinaja.com/h2gas01.asp

I suggest reading all the articles on this page, but particularly "Guidelines for when to patent"

http://www.tinaja.com/patnt01.asp

ATP isn't an energy storage molecule - it's more like an energy transfer one. Fats are the main long term energy store.

IIRC fats do almost as well as Gasoline, which is very good indeed, 30x better than Lithium ion batteries.

http://www.tinaja.com/glib/energfun.pdf
http://hypertextbook.com/physics/matter/energy-che mical/

My back of the envelope calculation says that we should get 25x the energy density in fat based power source. Which is pretty impressive. Mind you, getting all the energy out of burning fat would be tricky. Plus, it's a nasty idea.

Personally, I like the idea of running laptops on butane or propane - you could buy lighter fuel like pressurised containers from a shop, and burn the contents in some suitable engine - maybe a gas turbine or a Stirling engine connected to a dynamo.

Hydrogen is not a more attractive fuel than fossil fuels (except in deep space) because it takes more energy to produce it than it delivers.

But here on the home planet no non-nuclear means is known to make terrestrial hydrogen that does not consume considerably more energy than it delivers.

Political arguments aside, hydrogen pollutes more not less because using it consumes more energy than it delivers.

Hydrogen is not a more attractive fuel than fossil fuels (except in deep space) because it takes more energy to produce it than it delivers.

But here on the home planet no non-nuclear means is known to make terrestrial hydrogen that does not consume considerably more energy than it delivers.

Political arguments aside, hydrogen pollutes more not less because using it consumes more energy than it delivers.

Personally, I don't think hand-coding your own PS routines to do something like that is really practical, but if you really want to do it, Don Lancaster has what you need. The guy is a (mad) genius with PostScript.

I think there is a variety of plausable reasons for a tech slowdown. Some are:

1) Why invent? Whatever job you have, if you're the sort that can invent, has a clause in your hiring contract ceding ownership to your company. Why bust your buns to make your employer richer?

2) If you don't have a clause in your employment contract allowing your employer to glom onto your widget, then it is pretty darn expensive and pretty time-consuming to get a patent. There's lotsa hoops to jump thru and lotsa $$$ to be sent to the patent office.

3) According to some, the patent system is broken to the point that it _only_ serves large corporations. See http://tinaja.com/patnt01.asp

I myself have what I believe to be a patentable mechanism to switch railway cars at speed, individually, to allow rails to be used in the manner of highways by individuals, but under computer control so it can be automated and therefore run at very high speed. Am I gonna patent it? Not for $3000 - $8000 and patent attorney fees and patent maintenance fees with extremely little chance for success unless I want to spend the rest of my life promoting it, which I don't.

and you can JFGI
also, Don Lancaster has been writing about it for over a decade

So basically you're using a small piston engine and an air tank instead of the capacitor bank and larger motor you'd need otherwise. That might be a sound strategy, but with those new fast-charging lithium ions you may be able to do away with the capacitors.

I can't help but think air hybrids would make more sense, since you can dump the electrical components entirely. But then of course you'd have emissions, especially if you used a 2-stroke.

Here's an obligatory energy density link.

So basically you're using a small piston engine and an air tank instead of the capacitor bank and larger motor you'd need otherwise. That might be a sound strategy, but with those new fast-charging lithium ions you may be able to do away with the capacitors.

I can't help but think air hybrids would make more sense, since you can dump the electrical components entirely. But then of course you'd have emissions, especially if you used a 2-stroke.

Here's an obligatory energy density link.

Compressed air doesn't hold a lot of energy by weight, you'd be better off buying a battery.

See more about energy density here.

Personally I would think a hand squeezer device like this would be ideal. It's a very natural motion.

Compressed air IS useful if you need to deliver a lot of force at once, like with compressed air tools, or if you want to avoid using electrical devices for some reason.

Legendary electronics hobbyist Don Lancaster has what I consider to be the must-read page on why patents never help the individual inventor: Patent Avoidance.

"Please also note that there is more hydrogen in a gallon of gasoline than there is in a gallon of liquid hydrogen."

Isn't Psuedoscience Fun? Don Lancaster is the master debunker. More energy stuff here.

Don was one of the techs who brought computers to the masses back in the 1970's. Check out his web site. http://www.tinaja.com/

"Please also note that there is more hydrogen in a gallon of gasoline than there is in a gallon of liquid hydrogen."

Isn't Psuedoscience Fun? Don Lancaster is the master debunker. More energy stuff here.

Don was one of the techs who brought computers to the masses back in the 1970's. Check out his web site. http://www.tinaja.com/

"Please also note that there is more hydrogen in a gallon of gasoline than there is in a gallon of liquid hydrogen."

Isn't Psuedoscience Fun? Don Lancaster is the master debunker. More energy stuff here.

Don was one of the techs who brought computers to the masses back in the 1970's. Check out his web site. http://www.tinaja.com/

"Please also note that there is more hydrogen in a gallon of gasoline than there is in a gallon of liquid hydrogen."

Isn't Psuedoscience Fun? Don Lancaster is the master debunker. More energy stuff here.

Don was one of the techs who brought computers to the masses back in the 1970's. Check out his web site. http://www.tinaja.com/

the Desktop Fabricator

I prefer to call it a Santa Claus Machine.

Okay, you want to make art: icons, and such. First, let me point out that I have found no graphics program to be as good or as quick as Deskpaint for the old,old macintoshes, by ZedCor. I think there also used to be a PC version of that program.

However, you probably can't get a copy of that program any more. So the next best bet is to get a copy of FuturePaint (freeware--do a web search) for Macs. But if you can't do that, get something that is reasonably quick, that can import and export different file types, that can scale graphics and change the number of colors gracefully, and that has some basic drawing tools.

(Sorry, Linux folks, GIMP just doesn't cut it. Nor do the K apps, which are slow and crash too much.)

Also, save your work using different file names at every step of the way. It isn't worth the time if you mess something up. Indeed, when I'm doing outlining, I like to save my work several times during that process ... just in case. Don't throw those files away, later, either, or the standardization notes. Archive 'em. You'll perhaps want them later.

Okay... now, step by step:

(1) find the dot size (like, 150 dots by 150 dots) of your desired icon. Quadruple that (600 x 600). Note that you'll have to do this whole process 4 times or so, if you have 4 different resolutions for a single icon. Don't skimp, or some of these will look lousy.

(2) Scan in a picture (a good hand drawing, or something from a magazine) of what you want. If what you want is not available, you can actually arrange picture pieces in a collage, and scan that in. I've done this to avoid copyright problems -- I can be sure that my work doesn't even look like the originals I used, because I cut a leg and turned it, cut an arm and turned that... you get the idea. Anyhow, scan it in so that it appropriately fills your quadruple-size area (600x600, above).

(3) Lighten the whole picture so that it uses only the 5/16 lightest colors. Now this will be your background.

(4) Select 2-3 standardized line sizes: for example, 5 pixels wide for outlines, 2 pixels wide for internal detail lines. Don't forget to multiply by 4, because we're working at 4 times the resolution (20, and 8).

(5) Now, using the line tool on black, draw all those lines with your sketch tool. Outline what you see, and make detail appropriately.

(6). Now print out what you have, then convert all light grays to white. Do that either by changing the color curves, or by using flood fill judiciously (which I prefer).

(6) Now, pick your colors. Again, standardize. (when I say standardize, I mean write the standards down on paper, and stick to them). Using lines of the selected colors, isolate patches and then flood fill them.

(7) You should now have an icon that is 4 times the size/resolution of what you want. Select it, and shrink it down to a quarter size. Your program should be able to handle merging (averaging) colors. If it can't, then save as a 256 color .bmp file, and let your own homebuilt program average sets of 4 colors. At this point, details that looked "not so good" will look better, even great.

(8) If appropriate, convert to 256 colors, 16 grays, or whatever.

(8) Retouch as necessary (probably won't be necessary).

Just as a note, I have found that I like my flood fill colors to always be in the lightest 16th of the palatte, whereas I like my lines to always be black. This makes the icon easy to see and identify.

Now... all that said... you seem to be having trouble making ends meet. Let me suggest a business website for you:

http://www.tinaja.com/

The guy also has an $8 book which is invaluable:
___The incredible secret money machine II____

To the extent which I was able to follow his advice, it created a good business for me (~17000-$30000 a year).

That said, the level of justice in our country is crashing

I used to religously read computer shopper, just for Don Lancaster's hardware hacker column. That's where I learned about Postscript programming. [Those last two links are to PDFs.]

I used to religously read computer shopper, just for Don Lancaster's hardware hacker column. That's where I learned about Postscript programming. [Those last two links are to PDFs.]

I used to religously read computer shopper, just for Don Lancaster's hardware hacker column. That's where I learned about Postscript programming. [Those last two links are to PDFs.]

Don Lancaster has an awsome site at The Guru's Lair
He wrote the 555 and ttl cookbook, used to have a Computer Shopper column on writing raw postcript, and has thousands of links and articals on DIY.

This is especially true since the patent office has the power to make legally binding decisions - while they can be overturned in court, doing so is too expensive for the common man to have a real chance of doing so.

Absolutely true. See this for some examples. Another way to look at it is that every patent is a new law. Why aren't these new laws subject to more strict oversight? It is sometimes said that every new law is an opportunity for a lawyer to make more money. There needs to be strong mechanisms in place to stop lawyers trying to make more money at the expense of the rest of the community.

Are you saying that you cannot patent something without there being prior art ? Or that you can patent something even if there is prior art ?

I was saying was that even if there is no prior art that does not mean that an invention is innovative and entitled to a patent.

---

It's wrong that an intellectual property creator should not be rewarded for their work.
It's equally wrong that an IP creator should be rewarded too many times for the one piece of work, for exactly the same reasons.
Reform IP law and stop the M$/RIAA abuse.

The answer to this is pretty simple, right?- you take a chance, just totally guess.

Of course that's bogus. You have to understand the market (and your product!), well enough to know how many you might sell. Selling hot dogs at a football game? Well, you can look at how many sold at the last 100 football games in the same stadium... If that info is not available, you plan for the worst case, which might be 2 hot dogs for every ticket sold... That's pretty simplistic, but you get the idea.

I should add, I do NOT believe "we can't anticipate the demand!" is a valid argument for arbitrary pricing models, except when dealing with new technology (curiously, software might fall into this category, but fortunately production costs are not tightly coupled to quantity shipped).

I have found Don Lancaster's site to be most helpful on these topics- his paper "The case against patents" is especially interesting. Check it out.

But it's a very poor storage method. Compare the volume energy density (watt-hours per liter):

• Diesel: 9700
• Gasoline: 9000
• Liquefied natural gas (LNG): 7200
• Liquefied propane (LPG): 6600
• Ethanol: 6100
• Methanol: 4400
• Liquid hydrogen: 2600
• Gaseous hydrogen (4500 psi): 750

I believe the fuels of the future will still be hydrocarbon liquids.

It is conceivable that Microsoft might start going after FOSS authors for patent infringement, but...

It is likewise conceivable that once they start doing this, every FOSS author could sue Microsoft as well. Remember the EOLAs case? $500 million from one patent.

The pendulum swings both ways. The thousands of FOSS developers could, regardless of actual merit, file so many lawsuits that the cost of MS defending their patents would be more trouble than its worth.

This is what is more likely to happen:

1. Microsoft sues FOSS developer for patent infringement, spending $500k in the process.
2. MS wins, gets the $12.57 in developer's bank acount. Developer files bankruptcy.
3. Someone else takes said developer's source code, modifies it a little, and re-releases it under a different name.
4. MS sues that developer, spends another $500k.
5. That developer declares bankruptcy...
6. Another developer comes along, takes some of the source code.... Repeat ad infinitum.

As Dan Lancaster's case against patents points out, patent enforcement is a farce. Yes, it does work when the litigants are large companies, but, more often than not, patent infringement suits are a waste of money. The plaintiff almost always pays as much or more than the patent is actually worth to win the lawsuit, and each lawsuit only stops that particular defendant. Dan points out how easy it is for a patent-infringing CEO to be sued into bankruptcy, only to turn around and start another company doing the exact same thing - after which, the lawsuit process must be started all over again!

He also points out how easy it is to get a patent declared invalid. If anyone can find any prior art, or even show that the invention was "obvious", there goes the plaintiff's case.

And Microsoft, I believe, won't pursue many cases against FOSS software. The reason is simple: they understand that the value of their product is derived primarily from the fact that it can connect to the internet, and that the internet is built primarily upon open standards. If a FOSS developers were to create and patent a better internet protocol - one which required a GPL-like license to use - they could effectively shut Microsoft out of the market simply by introducing an incompatibility between UNIX and Windows machines . In much the same way that Microsoft engineered incompatibilities into Windows so that Lotus wouldn't run, the UNIX world could shut Microsoft out of the market by refusing a connection from a Windows machine.

And the real rub - we could do it by creating a "secure" TCP/IP protocol - one that required a cryptographic handshake generated by a patented algorithm. Where would Microsoft be if using the internet meant that you had to run a Linux machine? (or FreeBSD, etc...)

Techies also hold the functionality of their tools very dear. Something thats simple, elegant, and works every time will move damn near all of us to tears*. Now we have a group of ham fisted jack booted bastards who want to fuck up our tools for a few extra pennies. The really sad thing is that whatever elegance our tools have will be completely buried under layers of DRM cruft and it still won't work. People will still find ways to copy their precious "content".

"They" will succeed in driving this industry (which BTW is way more money than the "content" industry) back into the garage and underground. 10 years from now we'll be trying to figure out how to make home clean rooms and chip fabs. There'll be little dishes and laser transmitters all over the place. We'll have to rebuild the network and the BBSes from the ground up too. And when they can't figure out how to make their crufted up DRM shit function anymore because they've beaten sharp knives into useless blugeons who are they going to turn to? I'll have a nice gesture waiting for them.

* I don't agree with the author's view of Unix but this is otherwise dead on.

I know we're wandering off topic, here, but moderators, go have a look at the figure on top of p 26 in http://www.tinaja.com/glib/elesimp.pdf before you mod me down. Isn't this sort of like Maxwell's demon? Is this even possible? If so, why aren't these things everywhere?

FWIW...

The fact that Microsoft gets themselves worthless patents doesn't mean we have to treat it as something that will have dire consequences for us, or any at all for that matter.

"Fact -- Prior art is not needed to bust any patent.

All you really have to do is show that the claims would have been reasonably obvious to any "practitioner in the field." That's all it takes."

Don Lancaster's Patent Avoicance Library

The way our laws are structured, the IPO goes to the investment houses. They get to buy at discount rates, and then sell the initial sales to their friends, who make 10-50% on the first day's rise.

If you want to invest in a company, you pretty much have to start one yourself. My advice, though, is that unless you want to donate a lot of time and free money to a bank, don't go the SB/SME route. Go with an incredible secret money machine. That is, start without capitalization, come up with a single product, expand your product line, reevaluate, and so on. Do it without external investment or loans.

The Case Against Patents

What does he say about NDA's? Publish your ideas in trade journals ASAP!

He's a wise old man. Go read his whole site. It will do you, and the economy good.

I found something on the use of car alternators as stepper motors (used at least once to drive a router as a "print head") at http://www.tinaja.com/glib/resbn46.pdf. But it's got no details. (The bizarre porn sites showing up in the results of my search have to be seen to be believed.) The stuff at tinaja.com seems to be the most relevant; if you are trying to sling a big print head over a large surface and you aren't too concerned with sub-millimeter accuracy, that's probably your best bet.

For most individuals and small scale startups, patents are virtually certain to result in a net loss of time, energy, money, and sanity.

One reason for this is the outrageously wrong urban lore involving patents and patenting.
A second involves the outright scams which inevitably surround "inventions" and "inventing".
A third is that the economic breakeven needed to recover patent costs is something between $12,000,000.00 and $40,000,000 in gross sales. It is ludicrously absurd to try and patent a million dollar idea.

If the patent works out to be highly successful (i.e. it is a good patent), you can sell additional licenses without a company owning the patent preventing you from doing so.

For most individuals and small scale startups, patents are virtually certain to result in a net loss of time, energy, money, and sanity. One reason for this is the outrageously wrong urban lore involving patents and patenting. A second involves the outright scams which inevitably surround "inventions" and "inventing". A third is that the economic breakeven needed to recover patent costs is something between $12,000,000.00 and $40,000,000 in gross sales. It is ludicrously absurd to try and patent a million dollar idea.

(1) Not Invented Here
(2) Good idea. We'll take it / steal it / burglarize it, and if you fight us, we'll ruin you.

This is the Granfaloon syndrome, and patents have nothing to do with any of it. It happens with or without patents (but item #2 happens more often with patents. Item #1 happens more often without.)

Either way, you don't make money.

Possibility #3, as suggested by electronics guru Don Lancaster (who also wrote The CMOS Cookbook): You develop one, and take lots of photos while you do it. You *publish* your idea in a related journal, thus triggering Granfallon Reaction #1, and immediately getting *some* profit, and *some* advertising. Then you start selling "consultation", "instruction booklets", "kits", and whatnot.

I read a few good points that Don Lancaster Made on his website. I have to admit that his audience is people who really has mastered a technology and can do something better than anyone else, for them putting out a patent is an invitation to theft. But it is also a good read for anyone thinking of patenting their good idea, it might be more sound to be beaten down in your shoes and walking away feeling like a looser than being talked into protecting something that wouldn't really hold on closer scrutiny.

The bottom line is that patents is really for corporations that can afford to be ripped of because they know that their legal legions are still going to be there and win the case in ten years time.

Personally I feel that on a global scale we should learn from history and admit that patent ripoffs is what made first america, then japan prosper. It's not a pure good thing, sure R&D must pay off but the things that pay's off in a limited time isn't all there is so lets just make sure it's limited and find other ways to advance.

An older reference to patents in general can be found at Don Lancaster's site Tinaja.com. There's a pdf of the original paper, and some e-book links. Don's been an active author in the technology world for several decades. His site has some other amusing opinion pieces as well. Enjoy!

I avoid SMT myself, since it's a pain in the butt if you don't have something to mount it to. But almost anything with DIP pins that isn't a One Time Programmable device (like PROMs, PALs, and windowless EPROMs) is potentially useful. And many of the programmable parts are socketed for easy removal. As for soldered chips, they're a pain to remove without proper tools (though the electric stove idea above sounds pretty cool), so I limit myself to just the most useful. Maybe I should seriously look into getting a proper soldering iron DIP head.

I started messing with TTL chips when I was a kid back in the late '70s, thanks to The TTL Cookbook. I even did mods to my TRS-80 (a Model I before they were called Model anything) back in the day, from which I learned the subtle art of piggybacking chips.

It is unfortunate that we've entered an era where almost everything is SMT and multi-layer boards, stuff that is too small and intricate to work with without lots of fiddling and expensive tools, and bus speeds so fast that you need SMT and multi-layer boards to make everything work. That's one reason classic video games are a hobby of mine. Because they date back to the era of DIP chips and double-sided PCBs, and are easy to hack.

As a programming language [PostScript] is quite primitive and incomprehensible

Really? It's fairly easy to test a printer by banging out a line or two...

echo '/Times-Roman findfont 72 scalefont setfont 1 72 mul 9 72 mul moveto (This is a test) show showpage' >/dev/lp0

I wouldn't call that incomprehensible. It loads 72-point Times Roman, moves to a point 1" to the right and 9" from the bottom, renders "This is a test", and tells the rendering device to print (or otherwise finalize) the page.

PostScript as a general-purpose language isn't even all that new a concept...Don Lancaster has been doing that for years, starting with an Apple IIe connected to a LaserWriter and moving up from there.