[Coco] Gidday Fellow coconuts. This will be an interesting read

[jdaggett at gate.net]

On 13 Aug 2012 at 20:48, brian palmer wrote:

> Who knows if Tandy got the patent. James from this list very much doubts
> Tandy got the patent. But there is nothing stopping Tandy from using ideas
> from the RMS chipset and putting them in a new LSI custom chip. By a
> reference i read in the undercolor magazine. after Motorola pushed back
> the release date for another 6-9 months as the second batch run of the RMS
> had too many bugs. Tandy decided to go it alone and design the new Chip
> for the OS-9 Model 9 which turned out to be the coco 3. Also this
> reference mentions tandy poached some of the designers from Motorola who
> worked on the RMS to do the new LSI custom chip for Tandy!

I doubt that Tandy has any patents on the GIME chip and I also think that there maybe little 
that was patentable on it. I doubt that a contractor would have his name on a patent without 
Tandy's name on it if it were used in their products. Even cantractors that worked for 
Motorola did not have patents exclusively in their names. I strongly believe that if there were 
patentable ideas in the GIME chip then Tandy's name would be on it also. The only way that 
Tandy would not appear as the Assignee would be they bought something off the shelf and 
had their part number markings. Then it is a matter of deciphering would did the work on the 
chip and research that avenue. 

I actually have half of a mind to decap a chip and see if there were something on the die that 
could give hints as to who designed it. I would love to get my hands on a dead 1986 and 
1987 chip to do thant with.  

In the 1980's Motorola had a bad habit of announcing new products way to early. Making ICs 
back then was a black art so to speak. Almost always the yields on the first pass of silicon 
were low. Sometimes as low as 25% off a wafer. I can remember seeing a first pass wafer 
that had 300 ICs on it and all but 30 of them were black dotted signifying that they had failed 
one or more tests. It would not surprise me in the least if Motorola rush to announce the RMS 
chip to early. 

On patents you have to read the claims section! That is what is the heart of the patent. It 
usually tells what is different from previous work or what is new and novel to existing public 
knowledge. 

james