True and the more I reread the prior art the more convinced I was that the 584 was a lost cause. 

BUT then I read from the abstract "A high-performance microprocessor system using instruction that access operands and instructions located relative to the current instruction group rather than located relative to the current instructions, as is the convention." That is the key to the 584 being different from prior art, and that is why the meaning of instruction group was so important at the Markman.  So while much of the wording relating to how the microprocessor is set up and functions is similar/same as prior art, I did not see anything in that prior art that negated what was said in the abstract.  I'm not an EE so I could be way off base. 

Furthermore, exactly what is claimed in 29?  < a method for providing instructions and operands from said memory to said central processing unit comprising the steps of: >  What is being rejected? I assume the step by step process - the order in which it is accomplished. And if that is the case, it should be rejected and hence would not expect to see any rebuttal from our side.    Opty