[Ti] Re: Mactel powerbooks coming...when?

[Chris Olson]

On Nov 15, 2005, at 11:29 AM, kalirhe at umdnj.edu wrote:

> Didn't AMD start out by **reverse-engineering** Intel's chips??

Reverse-engineering is not illegal or unethical when it does not  
violate patents or copyrights.  Reverse-engineering is how  
applications such as Pages and AppleWorks have compatibility with  
Microsoft Word and Excel documents.  The very software (Samba) used  
in Mac OS X that provides interoperability with Windows networks is  
reverse-engineered unpublished information about how Windows file  
sharing works, so that non-Windows computers can emulate it

AMD's first microprocessor was a reverse engineered clone of the  
Intel 8080 using the x86 instruction set and it violated no patents  
or copyrights held by Intel.
In 1982 AMD signed a contract with Intel becoming a licensed second- 
source manufacturer of the 8086 and 8088 cpu's.  AMD later produced  
the 80286 under the same arrangement, but then Intel cancelled the  
agreement in 1986, and refused to hand over technical details of the  
i386 part.

AMD filed suit, and subsequently won under arbitration in 1991 when  
the Supreme Court of California sided with AMD, and forced Intel to  
pay over $1 billion in compensation for violation of contract.

-- 
Chris

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