#1329 Re: [osFree] Microsoft's file system patent upheld
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Tom Lee Mullins
2006 Jan 16 2:37 PM
Davey Brain wrote:
> Kenn Yuill wrote:
> > Well, other companies with vested interests and governments should
> > fight this ruling, as ISTR that Digital Research used the FAT system in
> > their later versions of DR-DOS. If this usage was allowed by Microsoft
> > without protest, it should invalidate their claim IMHO, but I am not a
> > patent attorney.
> > Also, my experience with the PTO in the 1980's was quite mixed in
> > their failure to recognise 'prior knowledge in the art'. In my
> case, it
> > involved pyrotechnic formulations.
>
> Hi all,
> Disclaimer: I am not an attorney of any sort; I'm a computer tech that
> has had some sort of computer for about 27 years.
>
> Correct me if I'm wrong but but the 8" flexible disk drive (FDD) was
> invented at IBM by Alan Shugart in 1967; in 1976, the 5 1/4" FDD was
> developed by the same Alan Shugart for Wang Laboratories because they
> wanted a smaller floppy drive to use with their desktop computers. If
> I'm reading my history correctly I understand that by the mid-70's FDDs
> used some file system very similar to the FAT system. Also, it is my
> understanding that CP/M used a type of FAT file system by 1975 or 1976.
> It seems this was part of the "prior art" argument for this case.
>
> As far as whether M$ "thought up" the FAT file system in 1976 - well
> that is plainly a lie. In fact M$ BOUGHT MS-DOS (called QDOS) in 1980
> (and never did pay the full amount owed to Seattle Computer Products)
> then re-released that as PC-DOS 1.0 with the launch of the first IBM PC
> (see the MS-DOS history below). So this whole case is based on total BS.
> This is just further proof that with enough money one can buy anyone in
> the USA government.
>
> And Tom, about your questions:
>
> AFAIK JFS was fully developed by IBM for use in both AIX (IBM's UNIX)
> and Warp Server for e-Business (WSeB) and then adapted for use in Warp
> 4.5 and Linux. It is NOT based on FAT So that is safe from M$ (although
> that is part of the basis of the SCO-vs-IBM case).
>
> HPFS was jointly developed by IBM (about 20%) and M$ (about 80%). NTFS
> is HPFS with a few minor changes, hence NTFS reporting HPFS partitions
> as "corrupted NTFS". There are many cross-licensing fees between IBM &
> M$ in OS/2 and I don't know the details of the HPFS fees. As far as an
> open-source HPFS that is a question for a patent attorney and I am not
> one.
>
> It is my opinion that this case is NOT settled yet and that it will go
> on for a long time. The patent was filed "retroactively" which is stupid
> from the start. Plus there is just overwhelming evidence of prior art
> and that any FAT patent is obvious due to the prior art. If, because of
> making the proper payments to the proper people it is never overturned
> then I say to just flick-off M$ and move to JFS on ALL storage even if
> we have to develop a 12-bit JFS.
>
> --------
> From "DOS History" <
http://members.fortunecity.com/pcmuseum/dos.htm#>
> (watch for javascript pop-up ads):
>
> 1973
> Gary Kildall writes a simple operating system in his PL/M language. He
> calls it CP/M (Control Program/Monitor). (Control Program for
> Microcomputer)
>
> 1979
> February
> Apple Computer releases DOS 3.2.
> July
> Apple Computer releases DOS 3.2.1
>
> 1980
> April
> Tim Patterson begins writing an operating system for use with Seattle
> Computer Products' 8086-based computer. Seattle Computer Products
> decides to make their own disk operating system (DOS), due to delays by
> Digital Research in releasing a CP/M-86 operating system.
> August
> QDOS 0.10 (Quick and Dirty Operating System) is shipped by Seattle
> Computer Products. Even though it had been created in only two
> man-months, the DOS worked surprisingly well. A week later, the EDLIN
> line editor was created. EDLIN was supposed to last only six months,
> before being replaced.
> September
> Tim Patterson shows Microsoft his 86-DOS, written for the 8086 chip.
> October
> Microsoft's Paul Allen contacts Seattle Computer Products' Tim
> Patterson, asking for the rights to sell SCP's DOS to an unnamed client
> (IBM). Microsoft pays less than US$100,000 for the right.
> December
> Seattle Computer Products renames QDOS to 86-DOS, releasing it as
> version 0.3. Microsoft then bought non-exclusive rights to market 86-DOS.
>
> 1981
> February
> MS-DOS runs for the first time on IBM's prototype microcomputer.
> July
> Microsoft buys all rights to DOS from Seattle Computer Products, and the
> name MS-DOS is adopted.
> August
> IBM announces the IBM 5150 PC Personal Computer, featuring a 4.77-MHz
> Intel 8088 CPU, 64KB RAM, 40KB ROM, one 5.25-inch floppy drive, and
> PC-DOS 1.0 (Microsoft's MS-DOS), for US$3000.
> --------
> And from "MS-DOS History"
> <
http://www.nukesoft.co.uk/msdos/dosversions.shtml>
>
> The history of MS-DOS is surprisingly long. It started off as QDOS
> (Quick and Dirty Operating System) which was developed by Seattle
> Computer Products to run on IBM's new PC. This list is fairly
> comprehensive although a number of the more obscure versions of DOS have
> been omitted.
>
> Version Date Comments
> 1.0 1981 The original version of MS-DOS. This was a
> renamed version of
> QDOS which had been purchased by an upstart company called Microsoft.
> 1.25 1982 This added support for double-sided disks.
> Previously the
> disk had to be turned over to use the other side
> 2.0 1983 This added support for IBM's 10 MB hard disk,
> directories and
> double-density 5.25" floppy disks with capacities of 360 KB
> 2.11 1983 Support for foreign and extended characters was
> added.
> 3.0 1984 Support for high-density (1.2 MB) floppy disks
> and 32 MB hard
> disks was added.
> 3.1 1984 Network support was added.
> 3.3 1987 This release was written to take advantage of
> IBM's PS/2
> computer range. It added support for high density 3.5" floppy disks,
> more than one partition on hard disks (allowing use of disks bigger than
> 32 MB) and code pages.
> 4.0 1988 This version provided XMS support, support for
> partitions on
> hard disks up to 2 GB and a graphical shell. It also contained a large
> number of bugs and many programs refused to run on it.
> 4.01 1989 The bugs in version 4.0 were fixed.
> 5.0 1991 This was a major upgrade. It allowed parts of DOS
> to load
> itself in the high memory area and certain device drivers and TSRs to
> run in the unused parts of the upper memory area between 640K and 1024K.
> This version also added support for IBM's new 2.88 MB floppy disks. An
> improved BASIC interpreter and text editor were included, as was a disk
> cache, an undelete utility and a hard-disk partition-table backup
> program. After the problems with MS-DOS 4, it also provided a utility to
> make programs think they were running on a different version of MS-DOS.
> 5.0a 1992/3 This was a minor bug fix which dealt with
> possibly
> catastrophic problems with UNDELETE and CHKDSK.
> 6.0 1993 This was a catch-up with Novell's DR-DOS 6. It
> added a
> disk-compression utility called DoubleSpace, a basic anti-virus program
> and a disk defragmenter. It also finally included a MOVE command, an
> improved backup program, MSBACKUP and multiple boot configurations.
> Memory management was also improved by the addition of MEMMAKER. A
> number of older utilities, such as JOIN and RECOVER were removed. The
> DOS Shell was released separately as Microsoft felt that there were too
> many disks.
> 6.2 1993 Extra security was built into DoubleSpace following
> complaints of data loss. A new disk checker, SCANDISK, was also
> introduced, as well as improvements to DISKCOPY and SmartDrive.
> 6.21 1993 Following legal action by Stac Electronics,
> Microsoft
> released this version which had DoubleSpace removed. It came with a
> voucher for an alternative disk compression program.
> 6.22 1994 Microsoft licensed a disk-compression package
> called
> DoubleDisk from VertiSoft Systems and renamed it DriveSpace, which was
> included in this version.
> 7.0 1995 This version is part of the original version of
> Windows 95.
> It provides support for long filenames when Windows is running, but
> removes a large number of utilities, some of which are on the Windows 95
> CD in the \other\oldmsdos directory.
> 7.1 1997 This version is part of OEM Service Release 2 and
> later of
> Windows 95. The main change is support for FAT 32 hard disks, a more
> efficient and robust way of storing data on large drives.
> --------
>
> WarpDavey
> --
> Davey Brain
> All I really want is a president who is smarter than I am...
>
> "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit
> atrocities." - Voltaire
>
> This OS/2 uptime is 0 d 13 h 30 m 33 seconds
>
>
Thanks for the information. It is appreciated.
TomLeeM / BigWarpGuy * *
http://tomleem.homestead.com * *
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