JPEG patent threat

[Terry Blunt]

/me wonders if he has any relevant scraps of schoolbooks from the
1970s.

I seem to recall the basics were discussed in an early BBC Micro user
82-83? That's not just prior art, it publication as well.

 

[Nick Maclaren]

|>
|> > So Postscript users in 1989 were aware of it... )
|>
|> Err I claim prior art.

Join the queue. It's a long one

|> From 1978 to 1981 I worked on computational biology (what now gets
|> called bioinformatics). There's a hell of a lot of similarity in
|> sequences of DNA so to cope with storage capacity of the PET, Sirius,
|> Apple IIe and even the Cyber that I was using it was necessary to pack
|> the data into as small a place as possible. So I used RLE only at the
|> time I didn't call it RLE becuase I hadn't seen any name recorded for
|> what I was doing.
|>
|> I thought it was a neat trick, I didn't think it was patentable. In fact
|> it probably wasn't in the UK.

It wasn't. It shouldn't have been in the USA. Someone tried it
on and got away with it but, as far as I know, it was too obviously
bogus for even the extortionists to want to use it.

As I said, I could prove that it was use in the 1960s. For example,
it was used in SPSS and in the values specifiable in a DATA statement
in Fortran II (I can't speak for original Fortran, as I never used
it). Other people could go back further.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

 

[Qercus editor]

Luckily the relevant versions of DrawWorks were just called
'Millennium' not 'Bi-Millennium', otherwise we'd be in trouble ;-)

You could have just mis-spelled Millennium like everyone else... ;-)

 

[Dave Higton]

In message <[email protected]>

Nope. That's violation of the patent, right there. You need to demonstrate
that people were doing the same thing before the patent was granted

Before the patent was applied for, isn't it?

Dave

 

[C A Upsdell]

Before the patent was applied for, isn't it?

Didn't the Romans RLE their numbers? V = IIIII, XXX =
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

 

[Martin Dann]

In message <[email protected]>

XXX = IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

And arabic notational can be a RLE of Roman, e.g.
30 = XXX
80 = LXXX

Martin.

 

[Toby A Inkster]

Didn't the Romans RLE their numbers? V = IIIII, XXX =
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

That's more like LZW than RLE.

 

[Neil Ellwood]

You could have just mis-spelled Millennium like everyone else... ;-)

Surely it would have been Tri-Millenium as we are now in the third
millenium.

 

[David Holden]

You could have just mis-spelled Millennium like everyone else... ;-)

Nah, I never make spelling mitsakes.

 

[David Holden]

That's more like LZW than RLE.

Don't open the GIF can of worms again, please :-(

 

[Mark Parnell]

Nah, I never make spelling mitsakes.

So you never need a spill chucker?

 

[John Cartmell]

Surely it would have been Tri-Millenium as we are now in the third
millenium.

Was that deliberate? ;-)

 

[Rich Daley]

So you never need a spill chucker?

Bad spelers of the world, untie!

*cough* (too early in the morning)

~ Rich

 

[Tim Haynes]

Don't open the GIF can of worms again, please :-(

So how do you pronounce it, like `gift' without a `t', or what used to be
cleaning fluid stuff, then?

~Tim

 

[Nick Kew]

So how do you pronounce it, like `gift' without a `t', or what used to be
cleaning fluid stuff, then?

Basisically like the kind of gi... er person who makes such bad jokes.

 

[John Williams (News)]

So how do you pronounce it, like `gift' without a `t', or what used to be
cleaning fluid stuff, then?

I remember reading that the originator(s) used the soft 'g' despite it
standing for 'graphical' - so it's 'what used to be cleaning fluid stuff'.

A google on 'how to say gif' reveals differences of opinion, though:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=how+to+say+GIF

but my assertion is supported in some of them, eg:

http://www.xent.com/FoRK-archive/july97/0045.html


John

 

[Neal]

So how do you pronounce it, like `gift' without a `t', or what used to be
cleaning fluid stuff, then?

I pronounce it "gee-eye-eff", and no one gives me any crap about it.

 

[Richard Kettlewell]

C A Upsdell wrote:

That's more like LZW than RLE.

I don't think it's very much like either. In both cases you need an
instance of the repeated thing to appear somewhere before you can say
it's repeated (in RLE, with a count; in LZW, with a reference and an
additional symbol).

 

[C A Upsdell]

I don't think it's very much like either. In both cases you need an
instance of the repeated thing to appear somewhere before you can say
it's repeated (in RLE, with a count; in LZW, with a reference and an
additional symbol).

An X is two I's crossed, so I is repeated, with an implied count of 10.
Indeed, all the roman numerals contain I's at angles to each other, each
with an implied count:

I V X L < I> /\/\ ;-)

 

[Robert Newson]

....
An X is two I's crossed, so I is repeated, with an implied count of 10.
Indeed, all the roman numerals contain I's at angles to each other, each
with an implied count:

I V X L < I> /\/\ ;-)

And don't forget the extra flat I: -
M