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Technology Stocks : 3DFX -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Patrick Grinsell who wrote (7781)	9/30/1998 5:20:00 AM
From: Simon Cardinale	Respond to of 16960

Patrick: API call Someone posted some info on DX that led me to believe that the call was pretty basic. This jibes with what I know about DX in general. Its basic concept is to support all hardware, regardless of the particulars. The card's specific DX driver does the work of translating the requests into action, or simply ignoring the request if it can't use it. But this discussion may be moot (and this may be your point), because 3Dfx may have patented such a simple "method and apparatus" that even if the API calls aren't a problem, finding an alternate method to respond to them may be. I spent some time looking at the patent a while back (I'm not a real techie but I play one on TV) and it looks like they've patented taking a separate texture from each of two or more TCU's and doing any kind of math to combine them. This sounds very close to the definition of single-pass multitexturing. The only logical response is to do multi-pass multi-texturing (which any card can do today) using multiple independent TCUs (which only the TNT can do, and that poorly.) Or hope you win in court, I guess. Sticky Note Thoughts: What if everyone had been wondering when someone would figure out how to put glue on the back paper for a couple of years prior to the invention of Post-It notes. Would 3M still have been able to get a patent? Although here's something to think about. When you peel off that note, how does the glue know which piece of paper to stick to? :) There was more to it than glue and paper, just as there was more to single-pass multitexturing than doing algebra on the textures. You have to build the damn thing. Simon Does anyone else read long posts?

To: Patrick Grinsell who wrote (7781)	9/30/1998 8:53:00 AM
From: Scott Garee	Respond to of 16960

Why are we stuck on Post-It's? (Excuse me. :) Post-It's aren't paper with glue. They're paper with a glue that sticks repeatedly without leaving residue, including on the writing surface of the Post-It it was originally stuck on top of. This isn't some small feat. It was a great idea, 3M thought of it and executed. They applied for a patent and got one. That's how it works. They did the same for tape, green glow lights, etc. Some things are small steps, some are big, but if it includes new methods (manufacturing processes, API's, etc.) or apparatus (chemical formulae, circuits, packaging, etc.) you can get a patent and make money with it.