You could be charitable and assume he's just missed a zero off the end...
From what I remember* of 1980/1981 prices, and HP-85/86 was about 3k with interface cards, a Sharp MZ80B a few hundred quid, so for an Apple 2 (with a CPM card, which I can just about remember using) 1-2k sounds about right for 1980.
This isn't something that "the rest of the world" needs to do - if it's something that you should do if it's something that you feel strongly about (and everyone else that feels similarly).
From reading the patent, it isn't a patent for a "GUI", multiple screens or even multiple windows - all of those predate 1985. What it appears to be is a patent for is what became "Xerox Rooms" - which was eventually offered as a Windows add-on around the early '90s.
From the linked patent: "The user can invoke a switch between workspaces by selecting a display object called a door, and a back door to the previous workspace is created automatically so that the user is not trapped in a workspace".
It seems an odd patent to try and hit Redhat with, because I can't think of any current GUI that uses anything close to the "Rooms" model. Something close to the "standard" GUI was available on Xerox commercial workstations in around 1985-1986, before this patent was issued (I remember them from college).
The nearest that might qualify as "prior art" that I can think of is the display handling on some minicomputer workstations in the early 1980s (specifically Wang VS, but possibly others). You could just about make a claim for "multiple windows held in memory" and there being a "display object" which took you back the previous workspace. You'd struggle at calling it an "object-based user interface" though.
I don't think so. Unix virtual terminals do allow switching from one to the other (and obviously "what's on the other screen" is still held somewhere) but reading the (very obtuse) patent suggested that there's more to it than that - there's no link back to the previous workspace from the current one.
Maybe, but is there a more definitive date than Wikipedia's "early 1980s"? I don't remember coming across any SunOS 4 kit until much later (around '90 I think). The Wikipedia picture's from 2005.
Or an Apple II with a CPM card. Quite a lot of people used those...
Acorns (BBC Micros) with co-processors date from 1984-ish, CPM Apple IIs from earlier still. Someone below has already mentioned the DEC Rainbow from a similar timeframe.
The were probably other hybrids too - especially in the minicomputer area.
Yes, though the grammer and pronunciation are way different.
It depends on the accent of the speaker. I'm English, but can get by in Dutch in food and beer, and can usually follow what's on the radio / TV without too many problems.
In South Africa it was fairly straightforward to follow the SABC (state-owned; think BBC) Afrikaans news but had no chance whatsoever understanding what was said in bars in small towns.
Assuming that's a correct description (and it seems to fit the facts) it looks like there's been a (apparently now fixed) faux-pas on behalf of archive.org here to be caching the name of Demon's proxy in their cached static pages.
That doesn't mean that Demon's approach of "one page is on the blacklist; let's shove all accesses to the site through a proxy" is the right one either - that worked so well with Wikipedia, after all.
... and if that doesn't work he can stick all his photos and blog posts on a micro-sd card, tape it to the postcard, and get someone to update his blog remotely.
He didn't murder anyone's granny. The worst that he did was cost a very large number of people some time (he also created work for quite a few people reading the article, I suspect).
Many people reading this (perhaps you) write software for a living, and often it will "make business processes more efficient". This is usually a euphemism for "needing fewer people to do the same job" - where does that put you, on a scale between Mother Theresa and Bob Mugabe? There's certainly an argument that says that if $business can't survive all the other employees will be out of work too.
What this guy did was wrong - not evil, in the Pol Pot sense, but wrong - but are you quite as squeaky clean as you think?
That's actually standard (as far as the data on the device goes). The problem is that you're trusting code written by employees of a foreign company to do it.
Surely the answer is the one that's already in use for all potentially sensitive government communications - classify certain types of communication as only able to take place via certain paths.
If it's enquiring about the health of the presidential dog, then maybe a Blackberry is OK. If it's "Let's invade Canada", then maybe not.
The problem is that it's been a long time since you could "read X from memory location Y" to get the data that you wanted - somewhere along the line you're going to use an API (such as one for handling the filesystem).
The problem described here doesn't seem to be the use of an API as such but the use of one that is incompatible with the data's own storage.
Slashdot Mirror
That's one of the better ones? Oh dear.
But everyone knows that the British are prone to over-generalisation.
£100? I'm calling bullshit on that
You could be charitable and assume he's just missed a zero off the end...
From what I remember* of 1980/1981 prices, and HP-85/86 was about 3k with interface cards, a Sharp MZ80B a few hundred quid, so for an Apple 2 (with a CPM card, which I can just about remember using) 1-2k sounds about right for 1980.
*it was a long time ago.
Yes, let's go back to BCPL!
The point is, though, that someone needs to start...
OK, off you go, then.
This isn't something that "the rest of the world" needs to do - if it's something that you should do if it's something that you feel strongly about (and everyone else that feels similarly).
From reading the patent, it isn't a patent for a "GUI", multiple screens or even multiple windows - all of those predate 1985. What it appears to be is a patent for is what became "Xerox Rooms" - which was eventually offered as a Windows add-on around the early '90s.
From the linked patent:
"The user can invoke a switch between workspaces by selecting a display object called a door, and a back door to the previous workspace is created automatically so that the user is not trapped in a workspace".
It seems an odd patent to try and hit Redhat with, because I can't think of any current GUI that uses anything close to the "Rooms" model. Something close to the "standard" GUI was available on Xerox commercial workstations in around 1985-1986, before this patent was issued (I remember them from college).
The nearest that might qualify as "prior art" that I can think of is the display handling on some minicomputer workstations in the early 1980s (specifically Wang VS, but possibly others). You could just about make a claim for "multiple windows held in memory" and there being a "display object" which took you back the previous workspace. You'd struggle at calling it an "object-based user interface" though.
I don't think so. Unix virtual terminals do allow switching from one to the other (and obviously "what's on the other screen" is still held somewhere) but reading the (very obtuse) patent suggested that there's more to it than that - there's no link back to the previous workspace from the current one.
Maybe, but is there a more definitive date than Wikipedia's "early 1980s"? I don't remember coming across any SunOS 4 kit until much later (around '90 I think). The Wikipedia picture's from 2005.
That seems to be just the destinations map though? At least the first step of "book a flight from A to B" works without Silverlight.
I've no idea if this is the one that you're thinking about, but it's "something to do with football":
http://www.b3ta.com/links/227296
(and yes, that's b3ta rather than the Eye, but I'm sure the Eye will have covered it).
and in my job as a university lecturer, I grade essays that cite Wikipedia no higher than 2:2.
What? I got a 2:2 - you mean I could have stayed down the pub and nicked it all off Wikipedia (had it been invented at the time)? Kids today....
Not BART, Airtrain:
http://www.flysfo.com/web/page/atsfo/airtrain/map/
Some way up the thread someone said "trains at SFO and SeaTac", which I presume implied airports.
Not at SFO, they don't (and not on the DLR, as mentioned below).
Or an Apple II with a CPM card. Quite a lot of people used those...
Acorns (BBC Micros) with co-processors date from 1984-ish, CPM Apple IIs from earlier still. Someone below has already mentioned the DEC Rainbow from a similar timeframe.
The were probably other hybrids too - especially in the minicomputer area.
They probably just googled it.
I still don't see how CBS can make any money out of them, though.
Have you heard of this thing called TV? It's properly multicast and everything.
...or specifically, King Leopold II of the Belgians. The "Congo Free State" was a private venture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Free_State
Yes, though the grammer and pronunciation are way different.
It depends on the accent of the speaker. I'm English, but can get by in Dutch in food and beer, and can usually follow what's on the radio / TV without too many problems.
In South Africa it was fairly straightforward to follow the SABC (state-owned; think BBC) Afrikaans news but had no chance whatsoever understanding what was said in bars in small towns.
Yes, because nothing's ever been misleadingly labelled on a download site...
(although he did post AC, so that does make him a little bit paranoid)
Is linked to half-way down the comments page on the El Reg article.
http://groups.google.com/group/demon.service/msg/6d14597274f42ecd
Assuming that's a correct description (and it seems to fit the facts) it looks like there's been a (apparently now fixed) faux-pas on behalf of archive.org here to be caching the name of Demon's proxy in their cached static pages.
That doesn't mean that Demon's approach of "one page is on the blacklist; let's shove all accesses to the site through a proxy" is the right one either - that worked so well with Wikipedia, after all.
... and if that doesn't work he can stick all his photos and blog posts on a micro-sd card, tape it to the postcard, and get someone to update his blog remotely.
he wrote adware.
He didn't murder anyone's granny. The worst that he did was cost a very large number of people some time (he also created work for quite a few people reading the article, I suspect).
Many people reading this (perhaps you) write software for a living, and often it will "make business processes more efficient". This is usually a euphemism for "needing fewer people to do the same job" - where does that put you, on a scale between Mother Theresa and Bob Mugabe? There's certainly an argument that says that if $business can't survive all the other employees will be out of work too.
What this guy did was wrong - not evil, in the Pol Pot sense, but wrong - but are you quite as squeaky clean as you think?
...some type of self destruct feature...
That's actually standard (as far as the data on the device goes). The problem is that you're trusting code written by employees of a foreign company to do it.
Surely the answer is the one that's already in use for all potentially sensitive government communications - classify certain types of communication as only able to take place via certain paths.
If it's enquiring about the health of the presidential dog, then maybe a Blackberry is OK. If it's "Let's invade Canada", then maybe not.
The problem is that it's been a long time since you could "read X from memory location Y" to get the data that you wanted - somewhere along the line you're going to use an API (such as one for handling the filesystem).
The problem described here doesn't seem to be the use of an API as such but the use of one that is incompatible with the data's own storage.