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Growing up with the tech press in this era, “commodity RDRAM” is a funny phrase to read! As I recall, the partnership between Intel and Rambus was pilloried as
by twoodfin 2y ago
Growing up with the tech press in this era, “commodity RDRAM” is a funny phrase to read!
As I recall, the partnership between Intel and Rambus was pilloried as an attempt to re-proprieterize the PC RAM interface in a similar vein to IBM’s microchannel bus.
- deaddodo 2y ago"Commodity" meaning "something that could be bought at the store".
- rowanG077 2y agoWhy is it funny. You could just go to a computer store and buy RDRAM.
- twoodfin 2y agoIt wasn’t a commodity! It was a single-owner proprietary technology. You needed a license from Rambus to manufacture it. And at least at the time it commanded a premium price over true commodity DRAM. People on Slashdot got really worked up when Intel signed a deal with Rambus to make RDRAM the only supported technology on Intel x86—from which they relatively quickly backtracked. Anandtech (sniff) of course has great contemporary background: https://www.anandtech.com/show/545 https://www.anandtech.com/show/545