🚀 go-pugleaf

I posted this reply on Friday with a cross post to rec.radio.amateur.misc,
but my brain-damaged news program didn't see the original group
(sci.electronics) and didn't post it here. So I'm posting it here now.
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In article <schumach.718567325@convex.convex.com>,
  schumach@convex.com (Richard A. Schumacher) wrote:

> Presumably this was produced under license from the
> patent and copyright holder? I doubt it.

Your doubt is correct. The Smith chart program I wrote for PostScript
printers is a shameless rip-off of the 1966 version of Phillip Smith's
impedance chart, for which the Kay Electric Co. was licensed to publish.
The header clearly declares its reproduction without permission.

> Don't cheat the inventor and his heirs. Go out and
> buy a licensed copy. The patent rights and royalties 
> you protect may be your own.

Well, this IS an interesting point of view. I agree with you in principle;
there is too much thievery of intellectual property going on today. I, too,
sought to purchase and employ the "real thing", but was stopped by a
phenomenon which is fairly recent: nobody with money buys Smith Charts,
rather they buy $10K microwave modeling software packages.

Now, I had hoped to purchase some charts from Kay Electric, but I was
unable to find a listing for them in the latest Microwaves & RF Buyer's
Guide.  I also found that no one else was selling these charts, for the
reason that NO ONE IS BUYING THESE CHARTS (except perhaps students, but
they couldn't possibly represent a serious market share).

I consulted the ARRL's book service, and found them generously selling a
degenerated copy of the chart (nowhere near as useful as Kay's) for about
$1.00/sheet.

So, being the resourceful student I was (*ironic smirk*), I wrote a
PostScript program to draw the Chart for use in my classes. When I
convinced myself of its fidelity to the original, I prepended a "public
domain only" disclaimer to it and uploaded it to simtel20.wsmr.army.mil,
where is still resides in <MISC.HAMRADIO>.

I've never told anyone this because it never came up and I didn't want
to decrease the SNR on sci.electronics and rec.radio.amateur.misc.

Are Smith's heirs being cheated by my PostScript program? I doubt it.

Are they being cheated by the countless software companies in whose
software the chart (specifically the insightful bilinear transform it
represents) is an absolutely essential part? Probably.

I don't care, and won't until I hear from the Smith estate's lawyers.

Marshall Jose
josemj1@aplmail.jhuapl.edu