Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!cbmvax!daveh
From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: NuBus (was: More Commodore Details)
Message-ID: <8268@cbmvax.UUCP>
Date: 25 Oct 89 15:24:53 GMT
References: <685@ncs.dnd.ca>
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 31

in article <685@ncs.dnd.ca>, bacic@ncs.dnd.ca (Eugen Bacic) says:
> Keywords: Amiga 3000 rumours, standard bus, NuBus

> If my memory serves me correctly, NuBus is an IEEE standard 

Yes, but...

> and available to anyone who wishes to use it.  It does not BELONG
> (thankfully) to anyone.  

Well, the fact that it's an official IEEE specification means that you can
go to an independent organization, the IEEE, and get a spec.  If anyone 
builds a NuBus board, they're not building it correctly unless it conforms
to that spec.  That's what the IEEE gets you.  It also means that you can't
have one vendor making secret changes to NuBus in order to get an edge up
on the competition.  With a privately controlled bus such as, for example,
the IBM Microchannel bus, IBM could easily make changes in their backplanes
that let them get an edge on other competing MCA backplanes.

However, just being an IEEE spec says nothing about who _owns_ the
technology.  In the case of the NuBus, Texas Instruments owns several patents
that you must liscence before you can build a NuBus board.  TI charges for
this, something like a one time fee of $5000.  In this case it's very much 
like MCA, which for which IBM owns the patent rights and will charge you
whatever their going rate is.

> 							emb
-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Systems Engineering) "The Crew That Never Rests"
   {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh      PLINK: hazy     BIX: hazy
                    Too much of everything is just enough