From: James Gustave <speth@cats.UCSC.EDU>
Subject: LAW and TECH: Glove Emulator Idea
Date: 13 Apr 92 17:16:12 GMT
Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz


Here's a question that I've had for a while...

I have a PowerGlove communicating with my Mac through an HC11 interface.
I would like to make it emulate a commercial glove.
What proprietary rights does a glove manufacturer (such as VPL) have on their
glove communications standards??

Here's a hypothetical scenario:
  Big VR Company, Inc. makes a product, SuperGlove, which sells for $10k.
It communicates with a generic computer over RS-232 and RS-422 lines at a
changeable baud rate.  To send a command to the glove, the host sends a 3
byte signal, a start-command-flag, followed by two bytes which determine
the command.  In response, the glove-controller sends back a variably long
string of bytes.  One start-flag, one length byte, and a bunch of data bytes.

The exact format and list of commands is printed up in the SuperGlove user's
manual.  It's a very simple system, which lets SuperGlove work with any
machine with a serial port.

I want to make my PowerGlove work with Big VR Company's SuperGlove software.
I'd do this by making the HC11 accept the same format of commands as is
described in the SuperGlove manual (which I can borrow from a rich friend
who has actually bought a SuperGlove).

My questions:
Is a simple command format, such as this, copyright-able?
If I borrow the manual, could I use the information in it to write my
  glove box code?

I'd love to get any opinions on this.
Thanks.


-- 
Jim Speth
speth@cats.ucsc.edu