computer chip design isn't notable enough in their list of products to actually be included in such a short little blurb. So they patented an idea outside their main field... for what reason?
Because they used to design chips, but stopped in the mid-1990s. These patents date from 1992, when Intergraph were a chip designing company.
Problem is that Intel and company did not license and probably did not dig through the patent library to find this idea and benefit directly from Intergraph's research/think tank.
Actually, they did (or at least it's likely that they did). Intel and Intergraph worked very closely in the 1990s, and both shared IP under NDAs. Shortly after they stopped co-operating (1997) Intergraph sued Intel, and although Intel dragged it out for 6 years, Intergraph absolutely creamed them in court.
Integrating a part into a larger system doesn't make that system an infringer
No, I agree (although that's how the law is, I'm afraid). It's worth noting that Intel's payment did cover Gateway's liability, so someone somewhere was smart enough to get indemnity from Intel as part of their OEM deal.
I don't see how it helps your national economy or technology progress.
Well, if intergraph weren't allowed to patent their ideas, they wouldn't have paid anyone to sit around and think them up. And the latest generation of PCs wouldn't have a combined Cache/MMU controller, and therefore they would be less good.
CPU cacheing is no different that HDD mirrors of magnetic tape or even buffers on HDD.
But this isn't about basic CPU caching -- thats been about for years. This is the invention of a new device that makes standard caches far more versatile by the inclusion of the MMU within the cache.
That's novel, and no-one at Intel had come up with the idea before.
Having now read them, albeit briefly, I *think* that Intergraph's novel idea is a neat way of merging the onboard cache and the MMU.
Hate to rush against the tide, but that's a really great idea, that no-one prior to Intergraph had managed to come up with. It's also an actual invention, rather than just an algorithm, or an algorithmic expression of well-known mathematics.
I can't see any great problem with these patents, and welcome our new cache-management overlords.
Does this mean Linux Vendors can now charge their clients a per-seat licensing fee? (which as we all know is a revolutionary invention in software licensing, owned exclusively by Sun).
Especially not then. If you wish to appear non-geeky, referring to your own phone by it's model name is absolutely verboten.
Call it your "cell phone". Otherwise, you enter the dangerous realm of the boy racer who insists on giving the engine capacity and cylinder configuration of his car every time he mentions it.
I naturally started to use Borgish management methods... What are the most difficult hurdles for a manager geek to jump, and can our personality be used as an advantage in management?
Well, one of the most difficult challenges you face is stop using Star Trek references in every day speech. If you do that, and stop referring to your cell phone as a Communicator, you'll probably do just fine.
Ignore the preaching and propaganda: that's all just words... By accusing the US of hypocrisy you only expose your own naivety
Err. No. In your own admission, the US acts in a manner entirely at odds with the values it professes. It says its trying to promote liberty, but in fact is looking after its economic interests.
Now, regardless of whether that's a bad thing or not, I think you'll find that that's a pretty good definition of hypocrisy.
This article looks at some of the benefits of forking and flame wars through history.
Hey! Who remembers that crazy flame fest between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. Man, those guys were really wailing at each other on IRC. Lenin called Martov a lam3r, and then Kollontai said he was like totally quitting cos no-one respected his L33T SKILLZ!
Crazy.
Oh, wait, you meant "in the last ten years". My bad.
A sample population of one person who can beat out all the typists in the world is a fucking awesome sample, sorry.
The same methodology would result in me buying one of Michael Schumacher's Ferrari F1 racing cars in order to make the school run... He's the fastest, so who cares whether it suits *my* needs.
... and the benchmarks showing this are... let me guess... Nowhere? Speedier at doing what, anyway? It's hardlier going to be rendering, given that they use the same rendering engine.
Which leaves, what, startup?
And are you counting the overhead of starting KDE and all those unpleasant threads that KDE starts (which make ssh -X so unpleasantly hard to log out of). Course they're not.
Some people bring oxygen with them, but some don't
And all of them descend the mountain again within a few days.
There is a reason why heights above 7500m is called "The Death Zone". Every moment you stay with those reduced, you're closer to being dead. The very best, even among the Sherpa population, can't last more than a few weeks, at most.
Slashdot Mirror
And that means technology *has* progressed.
That's novel, and no-one at Intel had come up with the idea before.
Having now read them, albeit briefly, I *think* that Intergraph's novel idea is a neat way of merging the onboard cache and the MMU.
Hate to rush against the tide, but that's a really great idea, that no-one prior to Intergraph had managed to come up with. It's also an actual invention, rather than just an algorithm, or an algorithmic expression of well-known mathematics.
I can't see any great problem with these patents, and welcome our new cache-management overlords.
Intergraph's patents are numbers 4,899,275, 4,933,835 and 5,091,846.
Just don't ask me what any of that means...
Jef, requisition a new forename, or at least some additional consonants for the one you already have.
Does this mean Linux Vendors can now charge their clients a per-seat licensing fee? (which as we all know is a revolutionary invention in software licensing, owned exclusively by Sun).
Especially not then. If you wish to appear non-geeky, referring to your own phone by it's model name is absolutely verboten.
Call it your "cell phone". Otherwise, you enter the dangerous realm of the boy racer who insists on giving the engine capacity and cylinder configuration of his car every time he mentions it.
Nice catch. *polite applause*
Now, regardless of whether that's a bad thing or not, I think you'll find that that's a pretty good definition of hypocrisy.
Crazy.
Oh, wait, you meant "in the last ten years". My bad.
... and the benchmarks showing this are ... let me guess... Nowhere? Speedier at doing what, anyway? It's hardlier going to be rendering, given that they use the same rendering engine.
Which leaves, what, startup?
And are you counting the overhead of starting KDE and all those unpleasant threads that KDE starts (which make ssh -X so unpleasantly hard to log out of). Course they're not.
Newsweek!?! You're basing assertions on the consensus of scientific thought in the 1970s based on an article in a news glossy?!?
*snigger*
There is a reason why heights above 7500m is called "The Death Zone". Every moment you stay with those reduced, you're closer to being dead. The very best, even among the Sherpa population, can't last more than a few weeks, at most.
(Expect to see GWB stood in front of an iPod with a "Mission Accomplished" banner any time now.)