March 6, 2000

2:48 AM

History lesson time.With all the Amazon patent hubbub, I thought it'd be nice to remind people that the same thing happened in the beginning of the automobile industry. (6th paragraph) Let's hope history repeats itself again, and a few large corporations are put in cha . . oh wait.
posted by alan (2 comments total)

Yes, but:
A gasoline powered car is at least assembling old tools in a new way. Using cookies to reference user information for 1-click access was not. A better analogy would be patenting a gasoline powered car which is red and then suing anyone who makes red cars.
posted by y6y6y6 at 6:58 AM on March 6, 2000

Same thing happened at the beginning of the home console scene. Magnavox held patents with it's Odyssey. I never got to try it, but I did try the Odyssey 2. It had some cool games like Pick-axe Pete, Quest for the rings, and Take the money and run.

Check out emuunlim for a nice history of computer games.
posted by john at 10:33 AM on March 6, 2000