General Category > LisaList2
Sun Remarketing SCSI Card Reverse-Engineering
AlexTheCat123:
Thanks for all of the resources guys! This is a lot more information than I was expecting to get and it will be really helpful in quickly finishing up this project!
Lisa2:
--- Quote from: patrick on February 03, 2022, 03:25:47 am ---Attached is a schematic of the Sun Remarketing SCSI card.
I also have (redrawn) Eagle design files for the card. Twenty years ago I had built my own copy, with self-etched board and Quickboot-compatible EPROM. However, I never published the data because Sun Remarketing was still in business then. So it remained limited to personal use.
--- End quote ---
Note while Sun Remarking is not in business, the rights to the SUN SCSI design was sold before SUN shut down, and the current owner of this IP does not want this information to be open-source at this time. Likewise the Quickboot ROM has not been open-sourced.
patrick:
Understood. This means that this design data will continue not to be published.
For me, the DIY PCB became obsolete when I had the chance to buy an original unpopulated PCB from Sun Remarketing on ebay. And a few years later I developed my own storage solution https://john.ccac.rwth-aachen.de:8000/patrick/idefile.htm, which had the advantage that it could also be used with the "real" LisaOS. I didn't want to have a rare Lisa restored only to use it as a Macintosh.
Of course, this also means that no replica PCBs will be produced (which was the intention of the TO). Perhaps the current owner of the IP rights will decide to produce and sell a new batch of PCBs based on the existing Gerber data?
AlexTheCat123:
--- Quote ---Note while Sun Remarking is not in business, the rights to the SUN SCSI design was sold before SUN shut down, and the current owner of this IP does not want this information to be open-source at this time. Likewise the Quickboot ROM has not been open-sourced.
--- End quote ---
I was under the impression that what I'm doing (and what Patrick did 20 years ago) is okay since I'm reverse-engineering the board myself without access to the original schematics. Of course, if I got my hands on the original files and released them to everyone online, that would be really bad and a clear violation of IP rights, but based on stuff that I've read online it seems that reverse-engineering a schematic from a PCB and making a new PCB layout from it is not IP infringement as long as you're not directly copying/referencing the original design files, which I don't even have access to.
I don't want to cause any sort of conflict over this, but I've put a lot of work into this project and it would be really upsetting if I'm not allowed to share the final product with anyone.
patrick:
PCB artwork, drawings and software code is protected by copyright law. Circuits and algorithms might be patented.
So it is legal to draw a schematic from something you own and publish it, but you must not distribute the original documents without permission from the owner.. Assuming there is no patent on the circuit you could create your own pcb artwork, but you must not copy the original one.
At least in Europe patents expire after 20 years, but copyright remains until 75 years after the death of the author.
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