baum@Apple.COM (Allen J. Baum) (07/08/88)
[] >In article <7650002@vx2.GBA.NYU.EDU> spector@vx2.GBA.NYU.EDU (David HM Spector) writes: >The articles I have seen cite 1974 patent applications... IBM applied for a patent in 1957, managed to get it granted in 1974, and now has a virtual monopoly on anything resembling a modern computer system (well, for another 2 years anyway). The Christianson (sp?) patent is about 1000 pages, and covers such necessities as cycle stealing, and DMA. Its VERY tough to avoid this patent, and its the standard one that IBM uses to clobber competitors who come to them saying "You're violating our new patent". IBM merely hands them this stack of paper and says "You're violating a bunch of ours. Want to cross license?". Back in the days of anti-trust, IBM had to be nice. These days, they are coming after people without prompting. -- {decwrl,hplabs,ihnp4}!nsc!apple!baum (408)973-3385