Microsoft patents double-click.

[Mzo]

So what game system had a built-in hard drive and ethernet before the Xbox?

The Saturn had a hard drive, and you could buy a net-link for it.

The Dreamcast had the built-in modem.

[Dyne]

all of them you bought seperately. i think the innovation is that they came with the system.

i will say Live is pretty damn innovative in its current form. sure all the bits and pieces have been done, but to roll them all up in one easy to use package.

i dont get how this patent will come into play. why would they need to do this?

[cka]

So what game system had a built-in hard drive and ethernet before the Xbox?

THE PHANTOM

[Diff-chan]

The Saturn had a hard drive, and you could buy a net-link for it.

The Dreamcast had the built-in modem.

You could buy a multitap for the SNES, but that doesnt stop people from thinking that Nintendo was omginnovative with the 4 controller parts (which they werent, as there were four ports on the 5200 I think).

Couldn't a game controller already come into play for prior art on this one, though? There have been games where the amount of presses of a button or holding it down / not holding it down had different results. I'd also argue that a mouse button, which is hardware, would still count for this.

Noo... from the Slashdot discussion:

""Time based hardware button for application launch"

Interesting, as it seems to be getting at the idea of launching different applications based on how long you hold down a hardware button, rather than how long you click and hold on the screen. This ties in with the sentence further on which pertains to it being relevant to devices with limited resources, i.e. not very many buttons.

While I can see that this will get people's backs up if it impedes on double clicking, I don't think it does. I think it's aimed more along the lines of Apple's iPod interface controller patent - it's trying to carve out a control method for mobile devices."

With a mouse, you click but along with the click you got the coordinates. With a game controller, the function would vary from game to game. Microsoft is probably working on a music player or something where clicking it once opens it, holding it down puts it in the queue, and double clicking does I dont know, delete it or something.

[Dyne]

yessir

[gameoverDude]

RTFA

It has to do with a hardware button that has multiple functions, on a PDA - like, you click the button for one function, you hold it down for another, and you double click it for three. You people are almost as bad as Slashdot.



So what game system had a built-in hard drive and ethernet before the Xbox?

X68000 did with regards to the hard drive. Even if it had no ethernet card, it still was the KING of game machines in the late 80's - although prohibitively expensive for some, since it was a high-end computer.

[Damian79]

So what game system had a built-in hard drive and ethernet before the Xbox?

A gaming pc?


As for the topic. It is a tad ridiculous. You may aswell start patenting sub menus, ALT f4, and the Enter key.

It is ironic that MS is doing thing when they themselves completely ripped off the macintosh gui with windows.

[Diff-chan]

Damian, didnt I just explain it to you? They didnt patent double click. They did not patent double click. THEY DID NOT PATENT DOUBLE CLICK. Read my brilliant posts next time and educate yourself.

[Damian79]

I know, but it is still ridiculous. Patenting functionality is simply wrong. Good functionality should be copied, similar to the point & click gui system. It is like patenting voice recognition instead of the software code for it. Mankind would still be in the stone age if we didn't learn new things and build upon them, which is what these kinds of patents are preventing.