On 6/25/2010 6:39 AM, Mike Raiford wrote:
> On 6/24/2010 9:31 AM, Invisible wrote:
>>>> You *can* do stuff with it, but it's very unreliable.
>>>
>>> Sounds like perfect Windows emulation to me!
>>
>> Heheh. What, you mean like this?
>>
>> http://www.slimeland.com/winsim/
>>
>> I would say, Win 3.x was quite reliable (then again, it doesn't *do*
>
> Windows 3.x was stable? LMAO ... back then I only used windows when I
> absolutely had to. Very crash prone.
>
If you had all the patched dlls, it was. The problem was, you had no way 
to "prevent" old ones from being installed, if you installed an older 
application than the one you last did, which broke things **badly**, and 
no way to tell it was going to, or tell it to not do it. But, if you got 
the latest patches, you where generally OK. You just didn't want to 
*dare* install anything older after. ;)

-- 
void main () {

     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> > If it's a clear cut software-only or algorithm-only with no physical 
> > application it will be rejected, in fact you'd be dumb to waste the 
> > money trying to apply for a patent, no legal firm would advise you to do 
> > this.
> > 
> > *But*, if it applies to some physical object that can actually be made, 
> > then the algorithm/program *can* be patented.  For example a novel image 
> > processing algorithm for improving display quality on a display is fine, 
> > or a control program for a crane, that sort of thing.
> > 
> > As you can imagine though, there is a huge grey area in the middle, so 
> > probably some things get through that wouldn't be enforceable in court.

> That's the same rules we have here in the USA.

  Clearly it isn't. Something like patenting LZW would never happen here.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>> That's the same rules we have here in the USA.
>   Clearly it isn't. Something like patenting LZW would never happen here.

Unfortunately, our courts have been acting for a long time as if a computer 
with a specific program on it *is* a new device. It's only recently that 
they decided that the device has to be "special purpose", and now that's 
going to go thru all the courts again.

In other words, it's the same titular rules (at least in terms of software 
patents), but the lawyers have managed to argue that they mean something 
different. That's why our patents all have wordings like "A method of 
turning X into Y by applying this computerized algorithm."

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    C# - a language whose greatest drawback
    is that it's best implementation comes
    from a company that doesn't hate Microsoft.

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