5. AMIGA meldet Patent für neuartige Multiprocessing-Technologie an

AMIGA hat am 10. August ein Patent für eine neuartige Multiprocessing-
Technologie angemeldet. Es trägt die Bezeichnung 'US5935230: Multiprocessor 
arrangement including bus arbitration' und wird wie folgt beschrieben:

'At least two clusters of CPUs are present in a multiprocessor
computer system. Each CPU cluster has a given number of CPUs, each CPU 
having an associated ID such as an ID number. An additional ID number, not 
associated with a CPU in the same cluster, is associated with the opposite 
CPU cluster that appears to the original cluster as a "phantom" processor. 
A round-robin bus arbitration scheme allows ordered ownership of a common 
bus within a first cluster until the ID reaches the "phantom" processor, at 
which time bus ownership passes to a CPU in the second cluster. This 
arrangement is preferably symmetric, so that when a CPU from the first 
cluster requests ownership of the bus, it is granted bus ownership by 
virtue of the first cluster's appearance to the second cluster as a 
"phantom" CPU.'

Eine ausführliche Beschreibung mit Skizzierungen kann in Form von 16 GIF-
Grafiken auf http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US05935230__ 
heruntergeladen werden.

Wenige Tage später ist bekannt geworden, dass AMIGA in diesem Jahr bereits 
17 weitere Patente angemeldet hat.