Don Lancaster's More on magic sinewaves Stepper motor driver chips Tech Musings Another patent horror story Mid-range Mensch computer October, 1995 PCMCIA plug-in card resources just got yet another letter from journals, shows, and technical pubs, all of the hassles involved is more somebody trying to "protect" and who (c) has thoroughly done all like a gross of forty million. the "idea" they have "invented" their homework, generating (d) full Trying to patent any million dollar I by getting a patent. As is typical production artwork and real working idea is, of course, ludicrously insane. nearly 100 percent of the time, their models currently in an advanced beta In all my many years of running a idea simply was not worth protecting. test of (e) a genuinely and stunningly helpline and developing hundreds of Their product has been available off new product that has a (f) gross sales real-world products, not once have I the shelf from a high profile major potential of at least $12,000,000.00. ever found any individual or smaller supplier for several decades. Actually that twelve mil figure is startup that has genuinely profited Yet they never heard of the leading sorta low. That's only the theoretical from the patent system. company in the field! Nor the trade breakeven. It is based solely on what Yet I have thousands of examples journals involved. Nor did they do an percentage of final profits you are of individuals very badly done in by economic analysis of who would buy going to spend subsidizing attorneys patents. Even murdered by them in their product how. Or check into the and the patent system. The level at heart-attack-during-litigation cases. excessive regulations in their target which a patent may start to overcome Putting my money where my mouth market. They also did not pick up on the fact that lots of potential buyers would prefer a zero cost all-software 3.838 MHz (+5 volt dc source) solution instead. The patent, if issued, could end up internal 9vdc 0.5amp NiCad cells input totally worthless. First, their concept 65C265 Charger & involves a completely obvious safety CPU Regulator lockout device. Forgetting that you could buy one off the shelf, there are volume centuries of prior art involved. Not to mention being completely obvious to Internal speaker any practitioner in the field. Almost Audio certainly, hundreds of other patents Amplifier would encroach on the claims. Headphone jack And it's not in the least clear what purpose their patent would serve once they actually got one. It would 55256 Modem serial I/O in no manner offer any "protection". 32Kx8 RAM Urban lore appears to confuse the Printer serial I/O words "patent" and "product". These two are totally unrelated. 27C256 A patent is a sheet of paper which 32Kx8 ROM Keyboard serial I/O gives you the right to sue someone. Like a stock option, it is worthless Host computer serial I/O unless exercised. A product is the 65C22 useful item that goes out the door and PIA makes a profit for you. Sega game controller I/O Patents have nothing whatsoever 240H x 128V LCD to do with today's successful product output connector 65C22 development! In any way, shape, or PIA form. Most often, they are a totally 4-Meg PCMCIA card slot unneeded sideshow. Guaranteed to cost you time, money, and sanity. 8-Meg PCMCIA card slot At least for most individuals and smaller startups the overwhelming Internal expansion connector majority of the time. Do not even think about a patent unless you're (a) a long term industry insider person who is (b) aggressively Fig. 1 ± INTERNAL ARRANGEMENT of the Mensch Computer. This one is subscribing to all the relevant trade easily customized for a wide variety of mid-range needs. Copyright c 1996 by Don Lancaster and Synergetics (520) 428-4073 www.tinaja.com All commercial rights and all electronic media rights fully reserved. Reposting is expressly forbidden. 93.1 Tech Musings but you could easily use the PCMCIA slots for data acquisition, industrial control, or CAD/CAM. An expansion connector is also provided. I/O 1.5 When two pole filtered, Magic Sinewave The Sega is reprogrammable. $0080 700F 81F1 F87F E3FF 0FFE has an So, there's lot of ways to pick up a amplitude of 0.84 and a total harmonic few extra data lines. distortion (3-17) of a mere 0.034%. The black and white LCD display provides a 240 H by 128 V resolution. 1.0 Even when totally unfiltered, the third Which is enough for fairly interesting harmonic distortion is only 0.024% and graphics or 16 lines of 40 characters the fifth ends up pretty much negligible. each. With some sneakiness, you can extend this to 21 lines of 60 smaller 0.5 characters. Or mix the two. PERCENT DISTORTION One recommended keyboard is the Spacemate by Key Tronic. Full size and 85 keys, but no numeric keypad. 0.0 Any serial comm keyboard or 0.00 0.25 0.50 0.75 1.00 keypad could be used instead. FUNDAMENTAL AMPLITUDE Any old stock 12 volt, 0.5 amp ac supply adaptor provides power. An "adding machine" thermal printer is Fig. 2 ± SOME PRELIMINARY 384-BIT MAGIC SINEWAVES which combine an extra cost option. high efficiency and really low harmonic distortion. No video, color, floppies, or hard is, a free ISMM II if you can find me of KIM-1 and Apple IIGS thrown in. drives. Purposely. any exception. Figure one shows details. The 16-bit CPU is a 65C265, a 6502 For a check list of when patents The computer itself is a sturdy descendant having a 16 meg address and patenting may make sense, look 1-1/2 by 7-1/2 by 10 inch block. Three space having exceptionally powerful at WHEN2PAT.PDF you will find on pounds worth. Most of the weight is addressing modes. Also internal to www.tinaja.com For lots of working from the rechargible battery. There's the computer is 32K of EPROM and and proven real world alternatives, four telephone-style serial ports. For 32K of system RAM. Up to 12 megs pick up my Case Against Patents. keyboard, printer, modem, and a host of additional memory can be picked PC programming link. up in the PCMCIA slots. The Mensch Computer Two PCMCIA card slots might get The rest of the internal circuit is What do you use when the BASIC used for additional memory, as data mostly two parallel interface chips. Stamp is too wimpy and a laptop PC recorders, for floppy disk substitutes, Plus the usual "glue" items such as a is clearly gross overkill? There's lots modems, or even a GPS receiver. speaker amplifier, charger, regulator, of emerging uses for a no-nonsense A game paddle port for the Sega and a low batt detector. and easily customized experimenter's compatible six-button arcade pad. An Battery use is optional. There's an mid-range computer. Especially one internal speaker, volume control, and automatic recharge every time you that can be battery powered. headphone jack. A 20-pin connector plug the Mensch into the wall. Enter that new Mensch Computer for the removable stand-alone LCD The micropower CPU firmware has from Western Design Center. Sort of text and graphics display. several battery saving modes. Battery a reincarnated AIM-65 with touches There are no parallel ports as such, life is mostly set by the display activity and the peripherals. Development work is easiest done 1. Pick the number of bits per word. 384 is often a good choice. using assembly tools already in place for the Apple IIGS. Development by 2. Pick an amplitude n based on the number of ones per word. cross-porting from a PC is possible. 3. Pick a desired number of efficiency-setting transitions. Fairly extensive subroutine libraries 4. Calculate the number of clumps k. This is one-half the number are built into the firmware. of transitions for even solutions. The quantity pricing for the Mench 5. Generate a list of all possible sums of k integers that total n. computer by itself is well under $200. The computer lists for $365. Or $895 6. For each entry on the list, fit it to a n(1-sine) function. Then select the one with the lowest classic Fourier series distortion. including display and keyboard. Western Design Center has a very 7. Optionally "anneal" the final clumps by jittering their positions. aggressive developer program. They 8. Compile and plot the results. definitely welcome your designs and suggestions. Free literature packages are available. Fig. 3 ± THE ALGORITHM that I'm now using to find magic sinewaves. Be sure to give them a call. 93.2 Copyright c 1996 by Don Lancaster and Synergetics (520) 428-4073 www.tinaja.com All commercial rights and all electronic media rights fully reserved. Reposting is expressly forbidden. October, 1995 frequency and amplitude. Along with its sequence up in a table and shove This Month's Contest harmonics that are either zero or of it out a port. The frequency can be I am not sure exactly what I'll be tightly controlled low values. separately set by picking a suitable doing with my Mench computer just Compared against traditional PWM dwell time between output bits. Most yet. Improving my helpline data base pulse width modulation, these magic of the job is easily done by a dollar (now mostly a humongous notebook), sinewaves can be far more efficient, PIC or other low-end micro.