From: nospam@needed.invalid   
      
   On Sat, 1/31/2026 9:09 AM, John wrote:   
   > On Wed, 28 Jan 2026 13:22:14 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver"   
   >  wrote:   
   >   
   >> On 2026/1/28 8:50:44, John wrote:   
   >>   
   >> []   
   >>   
   >>>  I have a dead Casio watch that could have antique value. It's closing   
   >>   
   >> LED? (I _think_ I did have one in that era - no idea if I still do though.)   
   >   
   >  Hmm, I think LCD though it was one of the first ones sold in UKland.   
   > So far as I know, it should still work if compatible power packs are   
   > still sold.   
   >   
   >>   
   >>> in on being fifty years old or so.   
   >   
   >  Going on 50. Sometime in the very early 1980's.   
   >   
   >> I also have, somewhere one of their   
   >>> original portable calculators. Same vintage. Neither is worth lifting.   
   >>>  Unless someone out there is a collector?   
   >>>   
   >> My one of those was more green gas-discharge tube (didn't half eat   
   >> batteries [cells]).   
   >   
   >  My calculator almost certainly is LED. That, too, ate power like a   
   > drunken M.P. at a party.   
   >   
   >> FX-411 I think - had the a b/c way of doing   
   >> fractions, which I think was exclusive to Casio then,   
   >   
   >  That *seems* to be familiar though I'm not sure. I *could* charger   
   > her up and find out but I'm upstairs, the box isn't and I doubt   
   > whether compatible power packs have been sold at any time during this   
   > Millennium.   
   >   
   >> though I've   
   >> noticed it in cheap ones in the last few years, so the patent must have   
   >> lapsed or a way round it found.   
   >   
   >  It's circuitry and software, if fifty thousand hackers hadn't cracked   
   > it two weeks after Casio first sold one then I'd be terribly   
   > disappointed in the species. Whether anyone commercial *cared* enough   
   > to copy Casio is another discussion. :) Was the slash format a great   
   > selling point?   
   >   
   >  But you're totally right: the reason courts are full of cases   
   > claiming patent infringements is because workarounds are plentiful and   
   > easy. Once you build a Stardrive, the Klingons get one within a week.   
   >   
   >  Nothing amenable to the scientific method of enquiry can *ever* be   
   > secret for long. It's a pity Apple and Microsoft's marketing and   
   > leadership prats never seem to grasp that.   
   >   
   >  I could make a rounded 'phone shell in my kitchen from ready-meal   
   > trays. It wouldn't be nice but it *would* be rounded and it would hold   
   > the guts - temporarily. I might need some sticky-backed plastic, too.   
      
   If you make a verbatim copy of my product (a look alike made   
   of the same plastic), I will slap you with my mold patent.   
   We used to apply for mold patents at work. It's definitely   
   one of the lower life forms in the patent business, but the   
   employee who files it, likely gets the same compensation   
   as one of the people doing a "science patent", which in reality   
   amounts to working for minimum wage, if you work out the   
   hours it takes to hone a science patent.   
      
   So if you're reading a resume and the resume says "I has patents..."   
   then you do not take the claim at face value, as it could be   
   a stack of useless mold patents.   
      
      Paul   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)