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Giles Goat

@kenshirriff One question that may sound really stupid but "I really cannot understand", you reverse engineer those IBM chips ... But .. does it mean IBM has lost all the lore about them or they don't want to make it publicly available ? Why ? And if that's the case "why they don't come after you for exposing it ?". I mean it's all super cool, super clever, "tremendous exercise" but does it mean "original documentation is lost forever" ?? 🤔

16 July at 19:11 | Wall-to-wall | Open on toot.wales
2 comments
Ken Shirriff

@gilesgoat That's an interesting question. Companies never expose the full details of their chips. The one exception that I know of is that someone talked Intel into releasing the masks for the 4004 processor: 4004.com/mcs4-masks-schematics

16 July at 19:35 | Open on oldbytes.space
Dianora (Diane Bruce)

@kenshirriff @gilesgoat There is a story of a Russian chip that obviously reverse engineered a TI chip since the TI logo is on the chip. There is also a story of a RE chip (PDP-11 I think?) with a Russian something to the effect "steal from the best"
Later chips and the piracy race made it much harder ...

16 July at 20:42 | Open on ottawa.place
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