

XOR patent ended CD32, and Commodore-Amiga (1994/2005) - gokhan
http://xcssa.org/pipermail/xcssa/2005-February/002587.html

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mfukar
I generally don't agree or like RMS, but if founding the FSF is going to help
a single little bit into avoiding charades such as this, I'm backing it up.

Thankfully, the situation is not as bad in the EU, but there's a lot of
pressure to the Commission (mainly from US/JP corporations - Fujitsu &
Microsoft are some recent examples) to promote additional laws that ease
patent issuing and enforcing them.

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acqq
I think you missed the point, it's issuing and enforcing the software patents
that is bad for anybody but the biggest companies.

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DavidSJ
Software patents often harm the really big companies too, due to the existence
of patent trolling companies which exist for no other reason than to horde
patents and sue big companies.

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WildUtah
Actually this helps big companies. They can afford to pay off the trolls and
continue but bogus patents can kill off their smaller competitors who don't
have money for lawsuits.

That's why Microsoft, for example, pays off billions in patent lawsuit
winnings and then hires expansive lobbyists to keep them coming. It's peanuts
to big companies but the freedom from upstart competition they get is
priceless.

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ig1
The US was never a major market for Commodore Amiga, and CD32 wasn't a great
success in any of the Amiga's major markets (albeit better than the CDTV and
the Phillips CD-i). So it's unfair to blame their failure on the patent.

While I'm sure most people here agree that software patents need fixing,
saying they were to blame for the Commodore Amiga's failure is inaccurate.

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MC27
Yeah, Amiga was very strong in Europe. Although, it does demonstrate how risky
it can be to sell to the US market.

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esschul
I bought the sx-1 extension to the amiga cd32, to make it into a beast of an
amiga. I really loved every bit of it, and it's sad that this is what brought
it down. Someone should really pay.

Since Hyperion and Amiga Inc finally have agreed that the os can be enjoyed on
other hw now, maybe I can get that feeling back.

Don't you just hate lawyers and greedy people messing up a consumers right to
have fun? Great post, I always thought I knew everything about this story.

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dedward
You'll be chasing that feeling forever, friend..... about all you can do is go
buy some old amiga gear and/or emulate and play your old games and whatnot.
That magic you remember was a combination of the times, place, market, and age
of computing when you had that equipment, and I pine for it daily :)

The thing is... the stuff we have access to now is enormously faster and more
powerful in all respects - so what do we need to get that magic feeling back?

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dhimes
I'm not buying it. The patent involved is substantial; the blinking cursor is
not. They could have implemented a blinking cursor without XOR. However, if
their entire graphics strategy was essentially a duplicate of this patent,
then that would be a problem.

I really, really don't like software patents, but solving this problem
(flicker in animation) in 1978 may be one of the cases that would be worth it.
Link to patent courtesy of pvg <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1545347>

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rbanffy
Can we get more specifics? The patent number would be a nice info to have

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pvg
[http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=lz4UAAAAEBAJ&dq=4...](http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=lz4UAAAAEBAJ&dq=4,197,590)

That's the patent. Commodore was already in difficulties, both due to both
problems of their own making and strong competition. The patent issue can't
have helped but it's unlikely it's the primary or even a major factor in their
demise.

