FPGA history (was Re: VHDL PDP11)

I wrote: emu at e-bbes.com wrote: A rose by any other name would be a synonym. The term "Field Programmable Gate Array" and the abbreviation FPGA were in use at least as early as March 1, 1982 (filing date of US patent 4,461,000), referring to parts significantly less sophisticated than the Xilinx XC2064, which was the first FPGA in the modern sense of the term. Xilinx used the term "Logic Cell Array" (LCA) in its early literature primarily to distinguish its product from the less sophisticated parts that had been known as FPGAs. For example, from 1986: "Xilinx and Hamilton Avnet Present Logic Cell Array(tm): The User Programmable Gate Arrays" -- not specifically FPGA, but clearly shows that Xilinx was distinguishing LCA as a proprietary term for their version of a more general concept. At some point it must have become obvious to them that the "LCA" term was less useful in marketing than a more general term. Eric