Money for Old Rope - FAT Chance

Capt'n Midnight

http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/tech/fat.asp

M$ are now offering licenses to preformat USB memories / Flash cards with FAT - for 0.25c each.

The FAT file system is now supported by a wide variety of operating systems running on all sizes of computers, from servers to personal digital assistants.
Why not use one of these instead ???

The patents
Long File names 5,579,517 Reynolds , et al. November 26, 1996
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5,579,517.WKU.&OS=PN/5,579,517&RS=PN/5,579,517
I was using long filenames on a VAX a decade earlier...

Reading either the long or short name 5,745,902 Miller , et al. April 28, 1998
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5,745,902.WKU.&OS=PN/5,745,902&RS=PN/5,745,902

These two are about a common name space for long & short names.
5,758,352 Reynolds , et al. May 26, 1998
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5,758,352.WKU.&OS=PN/5,758,352&RS=PN/5,758,352

6,286,013 Reynolds , et al. September 4, 2001
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,286,013.WKU.&OS=PN/6,286,013&RS=PN/6,286,013

an_taoiseach

Cap'n,

'suppose when times are hard like now poor Bill has to make ends meet some how


DONT IT MAKE YA SO SICK



An T

OfflerCrocGod

Does that cover FAT32?, maybe it will help spread alternative FS ( Linux/Unix ones:D ), but I doubt it.

Capt'n Midnight

No specific mention of FAT32 on the site.. (or FAT12 or FAT16)
But the Long filename patents were for Long File Names

Hang about - preformatted media wouldn't use LFN's 'cos it would have no files - and anyway you can have LFN's on FAT 12 (eg: floppy disks )

So as far as I can tell anyone buying rights to preformat media would not benefit from the patents 'cos they would not be using file names long or short .....

Looking at the patents again:

The first and fourth specifical use the (c) issuing an Interrupt 21h instruction; so their use would be restricted to DOS/Windows
The second one mentions that setting a volume label tag on the filename prevents CHKDSK trashing it...