Sigh, I'm a moron, and was remembering backwards and slightly skewed: Nominal Semidestructor merged with Cyrix some time ago. It was NexGen that AMD bought out.
Probably not too many people remember, but about four or five years ago, AMD
acquired the twitching remains of Nationa l Semiconductor, a venerable CPU/IC
company that (among other things) was also making its own x86 clones at the
time.
One of the side-effects of that merger is that AMD and Intel have a very
comprehensive patent cross-licensing deal, which was "inherited" from National
Semiconductor. This is why Intel has not attempted to sue AMD for patent
infringement since the days of the K5 cpu. It's also the reason that Intel
forced the "Slot 1" bus architecture down the throats of most of the mobo
companies a few years back: it was "new" and thus not covered by the agreement.
Unfortunatly, it also turned out to be both a political and an engineering
mistake, leading to the current chilly relationship between Chipzilla and most
of the taiwanese mobo companies...
~
Probably not too many people remember, but about four or five years ago, AMD acquired the twitching remains of Nationa l Semiconductor, a venerable CPU/IC company that (among other things) was also making its own x86 clones at the time.
One of the side-effects of that merger is that AMD and Intel have a very comprehensive patent cross-licensing deal, which was "inherited" from National Semiconductor. This is why Intel has not attempted to sue AMD for patent infringement since the days of the K5 cpu. It's also the reason that Intel forced the "Slot 1" bus architecture down the throats of most of the mobo companies a few years back: it was "new" and thus not covered by the agreement. Unfortunatly, it also turned out to be both a political and an engineering mistake, leading to the current chilly relationship between Chipzilla and most of the taiwanese mobo companies...
I thought OpenStep on Solaris was killed because it's goals were too similar to Java's, and of course Java was Invented Here, and OpenStep was Not
Nah, the OpenStep initiative was dead and cooling in the grave long before Mr. McNealy started trying to save the world with coffee products. (Frankly, it was Dead On Arrival: Sun never put any particular effort into selling it.)
As for "easier migration path to non-sun hardware", isn't that exactly what Java gives you?
Only in the press release version. In reality, Java is every bit as platform-dependent as C. (Okay, that's something of an exaggeration, but just try taking a java executable of any significant magnitude and running it under Linux, Solaris and NT. Good bloody luck.)
It was called "OpenStep". It was a complete port of the NeXTStep API layer (the thing we now call "MacOS X", or at least 80% of it) onto the Solaris kernel. It was a tremendous flop, largely because after signing on with great enthusiasm, Sun killed the project (probably realizing that if people actually used openstep, they'd have an easier migration path to non-sun hardware), and damn near killed off NeXT in the process.
I feel safe predicting that Steve Jobs would sooner fly to Denmark to marry Bill Gates in a ceremony broadcast around the world than even consider inking such a deal with Sun again.
Another piece of tossed-off hackwork from Britain's answer to Piers Anthony. I suppose this certainly counts as "news for nerds", but how exactly is this "stuff that matters" except perhaps to whichever of Pratchett's children still needs his orthodontia paid for?
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So many x86 clone vendors, so few profits...
One of the side-effects of that merger is that AMD and Intel have a very comprehensive patent cross-licensing deal, which was "inherited" from National Semiconductor. This is why Intel has not attempted to sue AMD for patent infringement since the days of the K5 cpu. It's also the reason that Intel forced the "Slot 1" bus architecture down the throats of most of the mobo companies a few years back: it was "new" and thus not covered by the agreement. Unfortunatly, it also turned out to be both a political and an engineering mistake, leading to the current chilly relationship between Chipzilla and most of the taiwanese mobo companies... ~
Ugh, that was supposed to be a reply to the previous item...
One of the side-effects of that merger is that AMD and Intel have a very comprehensive patent cross-licensing deal, which was "inherited" from National Semiconductor. This is why Intel has not attempted to sue AMD for patent infringement since the days of the K5 cpu. It's also the reason that Intel forced the "Slot 1" bus architecture down the throats of most of the mobo companies a few years back: it was "new" and thus not covered by the agreement. Unfortunatly, it also turned out to be both a political and an engineering mistake, leading to the current chilly relationship between Chipzilla and most of the taiwanese mobo companies...
Nah, the OpenStep initiative was dead and cooling in the grave long before Mr. McNealy started trying to save the world with coffee products. (Frankly, it was Dead On Arrival: Sun never put any particular effort into selling it.)
As for "easier migration path to non-sun hardware", isn't that exactly what Java gives you?
Only in the press release version. In reality, Java is every bit as platform-dependent as C. (Okay, that's something of an exaggeration, but just try taking a java executable of any significant magnitude and running it under Linux, Solaris and NT. Good bloody luck.)
I feel safe predicting that Steve Jobs would sooner fly to Denmark to marry Bill Gates in a ceremony broadcast around the world than even consider inking such a deal with Sun again.
Another piece of tossed-off hackwork from Britain's answer to Piers Anthony. I suppose this certainly counts as "news for nerds", but how exactly is this "stuff that matters" except perhaps to whichever of Pratchett's children still needs his orthodontia paid for?