decoration decoration
Stories

GROKLAW
When you want to know more...
decoration
For layout only
Home
Archives
Site Map
Search
About Groklaw
Awards
Legal Research
Timelines
ApplevSamsung
ApplevSamsung p.2
ArchiveExplorer
Autozone
Bilski
Cases
Cast: Lawyers
Comes v. MS
Contracts/Documents
Courts
DRM
Gordon v MS
GPL
Grokdoc
HTML How To
IPI v RH
IV v. Google
Legal Docs
Lodsys
MS Litigations
MSvB&N
News Picks
Novell v. MS
Novell-MS Deal
ODF/OOXML
OOXML Appeals
OraclevGoogle
Patents
ProjectMonterey
Psystar
Quote Database
Red Hat v SCO
Salus Book
SCEA v Hotz
SCO Appeals
SCO Bankruptcy
SCO Financials
SCO Overview
SCO v IBM
SCO v Novell
SCO:Soup2Nuts
SCOsource
Sean Daly
Software Patents
Switch to Linux
Transcripts
Unix Books

Gear

Groklaw Gear

Click here to send an email to the editor of this weblog.


You won't find me on Facebook


Donate

Donate Paypal


No Legal Advice

The information on Groklaw is not intended to constitute legal advice. While Mark is a lawyer and he has asked other lawyers and law students to contribute articles, all of these articles are offered to help educate, not to provide specific legal advice. They are not your lawyers.

Here's Groklaw's comments policy.


What's New

STORIES
No new stories

COMMENTS last 48 hrs
No new comments


Sponsors

Hosting:
hosted by ibiblio

On servers donated to ibiblio by AMD.

Webmaster
A made-for-TV lawsuit: MIT sues television makers over digital sets | 361 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
BASIC Instincts
Authored by: Ian Al on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 03:10 AM EDT
Please make allowances; I haven't programmed in BASIC or machine code for
years.

10 VariableA=4
20 VariableB=6
30 VariableC=VariableA + VariableB
40 IF VariableC > 5
50 THEN GOSUB (FunctionA)

I know the syntax is all over the place, but I have a simple question. Is BASIC
a virtual processor? Our first thought is too rude and fails Groklaw comment
rules, but is that because the instructions have symbolic references instead of
numeric values?

BASIC interpreters convert the symbolic references to tags which are commonly
fixed at two bytes in length IIRC. The algorithms that implement the functions
are found by looking them up in an index or offset table. For that reason, one
can view the BASIC interpreter run-time as having a pre-processing step that
converts the symbolic references to functions, into sixteen bit numeric values.

If you study each line with your microprocessor hat on, lines 10 and 20 are
loading literals into registers, line 30 is the addition of two registers and
lines 40 and 50 are a conditional jump, although I believe most microprocessor
conditional jumps are based on a greater than '0' test.

The conversion of symbolic references to 16 bit numeric values is carried out
within the BASIC run-time environment at run-time. Does it infringe on Patent
'104?

---
Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid!

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

IPv6 Launch Day - June 6
Authored by: JamesK on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 01:11 PM EDT
Internet Society announces World IPv6 Launch day for June 6

IPv6 is coming and many web sites and carriers are already supporting it. For example, Google and openSUSE, among many others currently support it. I have been running IPv6 on my home network for over 2 years and am seeing more & more IPv6 ready sites.

---
The following program contains immature subject matter. Viewer discretion is advised.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

AP reports: Strong quake kills at least 4 in northern Italy
Authored by: Gringo_ on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 01:28 PM EDT
Quick - sue the geologists! That will stop the carnage.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

A made-for-TV lawsuit: MIT sues television makers over digital sets
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 21 2012 @ 12:39 AM EDT
MIT yesterday sued two TV makers for refusing to pay licensing fees on digital-television patents it was granted in the 1990s.

In lawsuits against Funai - which makes Philips, Magnavox, Sylvania, Emerson, Funai, and Symphonic products - and Vizio - MIT says it held four patents at the heart of American digital television and that it's owed licensing fees and penalties because the two companies refused to buy licenses for the technologies, unlike other makers of TVs and Blu-ray players.

Adam Gaffin, Universal Hub

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Carly Fiorina: Nurture innovation, don't regulate it
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 21 2012 @ 10:28 AM EDT
Here.

As they say, read the whole thing...

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

U.K. Police Capturing Suspects' Cell Phone Data
Authored by: JamesK on Monday, May 21 2012 @ 12:44 PM EDT
A controversial new policy has been rolled out on the streets of London that involves capturing the mobile phone data of anyone held for questioning by police, even if the suspect isn't charged with a crime, according a BBC report.

---
The following program contains immature subject matter. Viewer discretion is advised.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Groklaw © Copyright 2003-2013 Pamela Jones.
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners.
Comments are owned by the individual posters.

PJ's articles are licensed under a Creative Commons License. ( Details )