A further thought about this development with Imsys: They came to us, most likely.  But it really doesn't matter.  But I strongly suspect they knew of PTSC, and may have been keeping an eye on us (possible competition).

How would they know of PTSC?  Perhaps through Sun.  Or perhaps through EarthWeb, the Sun sponsored site for "everything JAVA".

On a personal note; it sure would be something if Imsys discovered PTSC through an article published on EarthWeb on 4/9/99 titled "A JAVA Chip Available - Now!".  Again, this site is almost only about JAVA *, though mostly on the software side - not hardware (since there isn't hardly any dedicated), and is very widely viewed by the JAVA community internationally (that article was published in seven languages, and got hundreds of thousands of hits).

It seems to me that the article would almost certainly have been noted by a company like Imsys, focused on JAVA, and now with their own JAVA chip.

Of course that article was all about PTSC's PSC1000 "SHBoom", and was written (in cooperation with PTSC) by your's truly. 

I would be pleased as punch if that little effort by me actually contibuted something to PTSC's success going forward. 

It doesn't really matter though (my head is big enough already). 

This I KNOW!

SGE

* I say that EarthWeb is "almost only about JAVA" because I also got an article published about EDIG: "MP3 to SDMI - the Lowdown on Music Downloads", Sept. '99.  EDIG was never specifically mentioned in that article at the request of EDIG management - though I did "sneak in" the the need for a "micro OS" that could efficiently handle multiple CODECS, DRMs and watermarking schemes.  A second article was prepared that did specifically mention EDIG, but EDIG management asked that I withhold it from publication.  Finally, in Jan '00, EDIG gave the go-ahead.  Too late....  The responsible EarthWeb editor for the section of the site where the first article was published had changed, and refused to publish because it wasn't about JAVA.  I went over his head to no avail.....  Though EarthWeb wanted more articles from me - especially one about Genroco and it's use of the PSC1000 "SHBoom" with great success - I refused to ever write for them again.