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Gold/Mining/Energy : Oil Sands and Related Stocks -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: insitusands who wrote (9864)	5/14/2006 2:56:42 PM
From: - with a K	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25575

OT: Gates invented DOS? No, he bought DOS from IBM for the grand total of $50,000. His parents were successful in business and knew executives of IBM which is how he got his "in". That's not exactly true. Bill Gates senior was in law, not business, and his mother Mary was a teacher before starting a family. She later served as a regent for the UW in Seattle. She was the first female president of King County’s United Way, the first woman to chair the national United Way’s executive committee, and the first woman on the First Interstate Bank of Washington's board of directors. But this was much later, after Bill and Paul Allen had started Microsoft. In 1980, IBM first approached Bill Gates and Microsoft, to discuss the state of home computers and Microsoft products. Gates gave IBM a few ideas on what would make a great home computer, among them to have Basic written into the ROM chip. Microsoft had already produced several versions of Basic for different computer system beginning with the Altair, so Gates was more than happy to write a version for IBM. As for an operating system (OS) for the new computers, since Microsoft had never written an operating system before, Gates had suggested that IBM investigate an OS called CP/M (Control Program for Microcomputers), written by Gary Kildall of Digital Research. Kindall had his Ph.D. in computers and had written the most successful operating system of the time, selling over 600,000 copies of CP/M, his OS set the standard at that time. IBM tried to contact Kildall for a meeting, executives met with Mrs. Kildall who refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement. IBM soon returned to Bill Gates and gave Microsoft the contract to write the new operating system, one that would eventually wipe Kildall's CP/M out of common use. The "Microsoft Disk Operating System" or MS-DOS was based on QDOS, the "Quick and Dirty Operating System" written by Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products, for their prototype Intel 8086 based computer. QDOS was based on Gary Kildall's CP/M, Paterson had bought a CP/M manual and used it as the basis to write his operating system in six weeks, QDOS was different enough from CP/M to be considered legal. Microsoft bought the rights to QDOS for $50,000, keeping the IBM deal a secret from Seattle Computer Products. Gates then talked IBM into letting Microsoft retain the rights, to market MS DOS separate from the IBM PC project, Gates proceeded to make a fortune from the licensing of MS-DOS. In 1981, Tim Paterson quit Seattle Computer Products and found employment at Microsoft. inventors.about.com

To: insitusands who wrote (9864)	5/14/2006 3:57:28 PM
From: was Michelangelo7	Respond to of 25575

My understanding is that although THAI uses combustion as the primary driver, the patent includes the use of other drivers such as steam or solvents in this well/pressure sink configuration. "Up to this point, the invention has been described with reference only to a combustion process. As previously stated, an important feature of the invention is that the properly oriented, open horizontal leg of the production well functions to directionally guide and stabilize the advancing displacement front. There is a likelihood that this feature could beneficially be used with a steam, partially miscible gas drive or miscible solvent gas drive to control and stabilize the advancing displacement front which is functioning to reduce the viscosity of the oil directly in front of it. "Therefore, in broad terms, the invention is a process for reducing the viscosity of oil in an underground reservoir and driving it to a production well for recovery, comprising: providing a well, completed relatively high in the reservoir, for injecting a gaseous fluid into the reservoir to form an advancing, laterally extending displacement front operative to reduce the viscosity of reservoir oil; providing at least one open production well having a horizontal leg completed relatively low in the reservoir and positioned substantially perpendicular to and in the path of the advancing front; injecting the fluid through the well and advancing the displacement front along the leg; and producing the production well to recover oil from the reservoir." m7

To: insitusands who wrote (9864)	5/15/2006 12:48:16 AM
From: Bread Upon The Water	Respond to of 25575

My knowledge of the THAI process is not complete enough to comment as to its efficacy, but I do grasp that you are saying that this process is not replicated closely without violating the patent. To take issue with this assertion I would have to know more than I do. Having said that, I would like to say this patent appears to me, as a layman, to contain many generic elements (that is things that of in of themselves are not patentable--in very simplified terms drilling holes, blowing aire down them and fanning a fire) and it appears to me, that it is only the combination of all the elements that may be unique. Therefore, it may be possible for other companies to drill holes, blow aire down them, and a fan a fire to achieve approximately the same results although not done in the same precise manner as THAI (MAC's friend's "Fireflooding" comes to mind). This, however, is my untested opinion, and if you know intrinsically that this can not be done--in other words that THAI really is unique--and has to be done in the manner so prescribed in order to work--then I will defer to your greater knowledge of the subject. Bill