Re: Sharing the Family PC is Patent-Pending

[Barry Margolin]

In article <aab17256.0405071318.3344c3ec@posting.google.com>,
 dan@tobias.name (Daniel R. Tobias) wrote:

> theodp@aol.com (theodp) wrote in message 
> news:<e7946e7b.0405062017.53513bd1@posting.google.com>...
> > While Mainframe and Unix users are unlikely to find it novel that
> > Windows XP allows several family members to share a PC while enabling
> > each to have personalized settings and folders, that's not stopping
> > Microsoft from seeking a patent for 'Methods and arrangements for
> > providing multiple concurrent desktops and workspaces in a shared
> > computing environment,' the USPTO disclosed Thursday.
> 
> Aren't all the mainframe timesharing systems, some of which were
> around 30 or 40 years ago, which maintain separate user sessions each
> with their own environment, prior art for this?  As I recall, the APL
> system actually called saved environments "workspaces".

30 years ago, computers didn't even have "desktops", so I don't see how 
they could be considered prior art.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA