Well what the Novix did was it put it under the top of the stack and then it threw away the address on top of the stack. Optionally if you were doing and incremented fetch it put in on top of the stack and incremented the address that was on the top of the stack and everybody was happy. But implementing that in silicon was a mess You have address lines going to the wrong place, the second element on the stack. You have data lines going the wrong way. You have address lines coming to the top of the stack which is equally inconvenient. You need a second cycle to fix up the stack after the operation is completed. To eliminate that it makes sense to move the address out of the way to a special place out of the way and then you clear up the stack to receive the data. Now this really wasn`t my idea. It was Russell Fish`s idea in ShBoom. I had lots of quarrels with Russell but he did have some good ideas and I appreciate them.

http://www.ultratechnology.com/cm52299.htm

In his recent testimony, Fish described the invention of the ``336 Patent, known colloquially as the ``Fish Clock,`` as follows:

Question: ... As to the Fish Clock, what you``ve called the ``Fish Clock,`` is that something that you told Mr. Higgins [patent counsel for Fish and Moore] at the time he was preparing the patent application was your sole invention and not the joint invention of yours and Mr. Moore?

Answer: ... the day before the patent filing, he [Higgins] said, ``Have you got anything else you want to put in?`` I said, ``Well, I got this idea for this clock.`` He said, ``Well, tell me about it.`` And I told him about the ring oscillator [``336 Patent]. And he said, ``Go write it up! Bring it back.``

Fish drew a diagram and prepared the descriptive text on his own machine and delivered it to Higgins the next day for immediate filing in the PTO.

A document headed, ``Computer Cowboys,`` Moore``s dba name, and appearing to Fish from its content to have been authored by Moore, contains the following statement: ``Central to the custom chip is a high-speed on-chip clock. This is a simple ring oscillator suggested by Russell Fish. It has several advantages over an external clock.`` Patriot believes that this evidence, especially when combined with other evidence in Patriot``s possession, including other statements by Moore, will prove that Fish was the sole inventor of the ``336 Patent and that Patriot, therefore, is today its sole owner.

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