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From: cw@vaxwaller.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Cloning the new IBMs without violating copyrights
Message-ID: <766@vaxwaller.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 15-Apr-87 19:38:14 EST
Article-I.D.: vaxwalle.766
Posted: Wed Apr 15 19:38:14 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 17-Apr-87 23:42:39 EST
Organization: Varian, Walnut Creek CA
Lines: 40
Keywords: silicon compilers reverse engineering

IBM has come out with some new computers that they hope will be unclonable
at least partly because they use custom chips.  My understanding is that
somebody could examine the chips to see how they worked and then make their
own, I think this is called "reverse engineering".  The problem with this is
that it would violate IBM's copyrights.

A comparable problem was with the BIOS on IBM's pcs.  Eventually, companies
hired programmers who had never seen the BIOS to write a BIOS that performed
the same functions and this was considered a legal thing to do.  I suppose
therefore, that a company could design chips from scratch that would perform
the same way as IBM's chips.

I am a software type and may be hopelessly naive about what's involved.  I've
read that silicon compilers and other design tools are making it easier and
easier to design chips, is this kind of project still unthinkably difficult?

Also, it's been suggested that IBM may have put features in the chips that
they aren't telling anyone about, so that if somebody sweated blood and came
out with chips that performed the known functions, suddenly IBM would announce
new capabilities.

Maybe one party has to look inside the chips to see what else may be there,
and then advise another party what kinds of things to check out, without
being so specific that they would violate copyright info, the second party
would then analyze the chips as black boxes before trying to roll their own.

Another clone discouraging factor is supposed to be that IBM has designed
their new computers so that it can make them very cheaply, however the price
seems to be high.  I suppose this is so IBM has a lot of latitude for price
cutting if necessary.

I guess, what I'm wondering is, "how unclonable are the new IBM's?".  I've never
owned or worked with any IBM computers, or even clones of IBM computers, but
I am interested in how the micro-computer market and products may evolve.  I
have this vague feeling that it would be a bad thing (or is a bad thing) that
one company should dominate a market or industry too much.  That's a subject
for a different article however.

Regards,
Carl Weidling