They are here! M$ and a new trick!

[DethKnight]

ould you still like Amiga/compatibles if their respective makers sunk as low as MS tactics?

Only if it was for money to advance the "alternatives" to M$

and if they proved beforehand they desperately needed the money, then I could forgive them.

until they didnt desperately need the money

[jeffimix]

Bah! Just tell me ho long till OpenFAT (the liposuction, I mean err) the FAT compatible file system is out. 50 to 1 wouldn't be any more illegal than WINe.

[Dalamar]

Yup.  This is exactly what is pushing me back to non M$ platforms.  Between this and "Paladium" or whatever it's called now, I really am just wanting to have to use their stuff less and less.  Given that my work revolves around a lot of M$ products, I can honestly say that I'm sick of it all.  I remember when computers in general were fun, and M$ has taken all of the fun out of mainstream computing for me.  

That leads me here.   :-D   Ahhhh Amiga......

[Twin]

American Patents last approx. 20 years. If I remember correctly, the owner of the patent also has first dibs at re-purchasing it. If they don't do so in the alloted time, which is BEFORE the said patents expire, they are put on the market to be purchased by the highest bidder.

I work in the Industrial Property industry and US Patents last 20 years. After which as far as I am aware you can't repurchase it, they just lapse.

The patents listed in the article were all taken out in the mid 90's so MS still has at least ten years left in them.

As to Amiga holding the patent to Autoboot CD's, does anyone know anymore about it? I might look into it out of interest?

[QuikSanz]

@ Dalamar,

Welcome home. Of all the operating systems I've used this one is the most user friendly.

Chris

[Waccoon]

Boy, this is harsh.  You really only have a choice between FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, or NTFS if you want to talk to Windows.  Besides, any dependence on a Windows filesystem means paying Microsoft a fee.  You can't use NTFS, because MS will charge for that, too.  What, are you supposed to FTP everything or use embedded IP interfaces with HTML interfaces?  What a mess.

You also have to think about all the Kiosk machines that are based on other operating systems.  Will every public terminal have to pay Microsoft, too?  Then again, I haven't seen a Kiosk in a LONG time that didn't run Windows.  I remember when Kodak used Macs for all their Kiosks, and now they all run WinNT/2K.

Matt_H:  Amiga has had this command forever. I'm sure it's been patented somewhere. Just got to find someone willing to prove it in court.

Don't most UNIX shells have that command, too?  I thought they had more than just the mount command.

MikeyMike:  Does it matter after the whole Mickey Mouse trademark/copyright?

Ah, ownership.  If you take a photograph of an old painting, you can charge a license fee for the right to use the photo, because the photo is copyrighted, even if the painting is not.  Hence, all art history books have full credits for museums and private owners, usually including the term, "graciously provided by..."  :-)

MikeyMike:  Would you still like Amiga/compatibles if their respective makers sunk as low as MS tactics?

Who says they haven't?  Putting a ROM chip on the AmigaOne instead of an EEPROM for copy protection purposes is sinking pretty low as it is, and OS4 will probably be cracked from day 1, anyway.

Twin:  I work in the Industrial Property industry and US Patents last 20 years.

Ah, I thought it was 14 years.

Anyway, I wish more people understood the differences between a copyright, a trademark, and a patent.

QuickSanz:  Welcome home. Of all the operating systems I've used this one is the most user friendly.

And the most unique.  I'm sick of Linux imitating everything Windows does while using glossy Mac graphics.  Everyone else just clones UNIX, 80-column displays and all.  I see no point in making an alternative OS unless you write a unique graphics system and completely re-work the interface.

[Twin]

Ah, I thought it was 14 years.

Although I work in Australia, as I understand it a Utility patent last 20 years and a design patent last 14 years in the US.

[iamaboringperson]

Coder wrote:
Hi,

Yup M$ is at it again. From now on companies that make camera's have to pay M$ 25 dollar cents for each sold camera. The payment is for the FAT filesystem. Also the creators of memory cards have to pay. And you have some others products that use it and will be next up.

Coder

I have nothing against the collection of royalties for your patents, however, why can't these companies just use different file systems?

I don't have memory cards here, however can't I just format them to a different file system?

[Dalamar]

@QuikSanz

Thanks!  I'm a little distressed at the downward direction of things Amiga, but I have hopes.   It's good to be back into things once Commodore.   :-)

@ iamaboringperson

Tis true you could format the card in another format, but devices (digital camera's and such) will write in the format they were programmed to, and since the mass consumer uses M$ mostly, guess what format everything will write in. :-(

[Roj]

I'm probably missing something, but isn't this remotely like purchasing a license for OS3.9, and then having to pay another license fee for every device you happen to use FastFileSystem with? It seems to me if you've already purchased a license for Windows, that license should extend to its software without having to pay for licenses with third party equipment.

[Jope]

bloodline wrote:
I've just remembered that all PC BIOS chips use FAT to read the boot disk... this really is a bad bad thing...

Whu..?

The PC BIOS code reads the first sector of the media, which in turn contains the bootloader that loads the OS.

Either the bootloader can know FAT (grub) or it can just know the sectors it needs to read to find the OS image (LILO).

If the bootloader doesn't know FAT, then the OS is finally the one that may or may not be able to read FAT disks.. Depending on the OS and it's configs of course.

Basically you can boot a PC without it knowing a thing about FAT, if you use LILO and leave FAT support out of the Linux kernel.

On a PC, the bootblock (boot sector) always takes control of the entire machine once it's loaded and run.. On the Amiga, multitasking is already going by the time the OS starts thinking about searching for a boot volume.

Some PC BIOSes might have the ability to fix themselves by reading the BIOS image in from a FAT formatted disk, but that's a special case and isn't in any way related to the booting procedure.

[CodeSmith]

@Waccoon:

Who says they haven't? Putting a ROM chip on the AmigaOne instead of an EEPROM for copy protection purposes is sinking pretty low as it is, and OS4 will probably be cracked from day 1, anyway.

I would say that protecting themselves from pirates in a way that is 100% transparent to legit users is not "sinking" to any level.  What level are you sinking to when you lock the door to your house?  those poor burglars have starving kids too, you know.

If you're suggesting that the pirate protection is to keep Pegasos users from using AmigaOS4, well you can thank Bill Buck for choosing the nastiest dongle ever: the Marvell Discovery chipset, which is 100% incompatible with the Articia S, the only PPC chipset that AmigaOS4 knows how to talk to.  If someone can demo a working copy of OS4 on a Pegasos 2, I will be very impressed indeed.

[Wolfe]

Dalamar wrote:
Yup.  This is exactly what is pushing me back to non M$ platforms.  Between this and "Paladium" or whatever it's called now, I really am just wanting to have to use their stuff less and less.  Given that my work revolves around a lot of M$ products, I can honestly say that I'm sick of it all.  I remember when computers in general were fun, and M$ has taken all of the fun out of mainstream computing for me.  

That leads me here.   :-D   Ahhhh Amiga......

Yes,  another M$ Borg returns home after freeing his mind from Winblows.  

Celebrate . . .  :pint:

[Coder]

@iamaboringperson

I have nothing against the collection of royalties for your patents

Oh I agree. But for such a big company as M$ they could just leave it as it is and create some goodwill (if that is possible) amongst us users. If it was a small company that wanted to do that I could understand.

Coder

[Coder]

@Waccoon

I'm sick of Linux imitating everything Windows does while using glossy Mac graphics.

I agree so much on that. I remember when Linux was fun but now I have to admit it's turning into a Windows clone. Because that is what will attract the non-geeks they think. It got to stop.

Coder

[bloodline]

Jope wrote:

bloodline wrote:
I've just remembered that all PC BIOS chips use FAT to read the boot disk... this really is a bad bad thing...

Whu..?

The PC BIOS code reads the first sector of the media, which in turn contains the bootloader that loads the OS.

Either the bootloader can know FAT (grub) or it can just know the sectors it needs to read to find the OS image (LILO).

If the bootloader doesn't know FAT, then the OS is finally the one that may or may not be able to read FAT disks.. Depending on the OS and it's configs of course.

Basically you can boot a PC without it knowing a thing about FAT, if you use LILO and leave FAT support out of the Linux kernel.

On a PC, the bootblock (boot sector) always takes control of the entire machine once it's loaded and run.. On the Amiga, multitasking is already going by the time the OS starts thinking about searching for a boot volume.

Some PC BIOSes might have the ability to fix themselves by reading the BIOS image in from a FAT formatted disk, but that's a special case and isn't in any way related to the booting procedure.

Boot linux, and format a floppy using ext2 file system.

Now put the standard MSDOS shell command.com on that disk.

pop that floppy disk in the drive and rest your machine. it will come up with an error.

Now format the disk using FAT12  and put the command.com program on there... now rename the program foobar.com.

Reset the machine, and when it boots, it will promt you for the file name of the command interpreter... which can be entered and it will boot.

 Hense the BIOS can read the FS...

But more interestingly, tell me more about this booting from a disk if the BIOS is dead?