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It's been 30 years since Intel's infamous Pentium FDIV bug reared its ugly head
- rwmj 2y agoWhile this was a PR disaster for Intel, for me the Pentium FOOF bug[1] was much more consequential since it meant anyone could run a trivial command to lock up our shared Linux machines. Luckily Linux found a fix for it fairly quickly. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_F00F_bug https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_F00F_bug
- dvh 2y agoObligatory joke from the era (when pronouncing Motorola lines do long pauses between words): Motorola: what is one plus one? Pentium: three! Motorola: that is incorrect! Pentium: yeah, but it's fast!
- the_snooze 2y agoIntel's processor naming scheme: - 286 - 386 - 486 - 585
- DeathArrow 2y agoSo by now we are at 2086 or at 2586?
- xattt 2y agoDepends whether you count the post-Dothan designs as one arch or many.
- mjevans 2y agoBetter than their CPU numbering scheme... https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/cpuid https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/cpuid Family 0x5 Model 0x1 ... Family 0x5 Model 0xA We might run out of space, insert Extended Model Family 0x6 Extended Model 0x0 Model 0xA (yes for the P6) ... they proceed to increment the extended model and do random stuff to the Model for almost THREE DECADES
- oniony 2y ago>justn’t Wah
- Dachande663 2y agoToday I learn where the name Pentium actually came from (fifth in Intel's release history, pent).
- bri3k 2y agoAnd they only named it that due to the fact they could not trademark a number, like 386.
- pansa2 2y agoIt’s a shame they named their next CPU “Pentium Pro” instead of “Hexium” (or “Sexium”!)
- throw0101d 2y ago> It’s a shame they named their next CPU “Pentium Pro” instead of “Hexium” (or “Sexium”!) Penta- comes from the Greek, so hexa- would be more appropriate: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numeral_prefix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numeral_prefix The Latin is quint- and sext-. And if you have a movie trilogy, and one more move comes out, it becomes a tetralogy, and not a quadrilogy, also because of Greek etymology: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetralogy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetralogy
- DeathArrow 2y agoYes, so Pentium II, III and IV totally makes sense. :)
- FirmwareBurner 2y agoIt kinda does make sense to a degree: i386 – Intel i386/80386 (in 1985) or AMD386 / AM386 (in 1991) i486 – Intel i486/80486 (in 1989) or AMD486 / AM486 (in 1993) i586 – Intel Pentium (in 1993) or AMD-K5 (in 1996) i686 – Intel Pentium Pro & 2 (in 1995) or AMD-K6 (in 1997) i786 – Intel Pentium 4 (in 2000) or AMD-K7 (in 1999)
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- garganzol 2y agoFrom the article: "Intel believed it was justn’t a big deal". Is it a thing in English language to form "justn't" like that as a shortcut for "just not"?
- robin_reala 2y agoNo.
- frereubu 2y agoIt should be "just wasn't". Not sure how anyone could miss that, particularly given "jusn't" would be picked up by spell checkers...
- Philpax 2y agoIt can be if you want it to be! Language is mutable :sparkles:
- jibal 2y agoNo, it's an unintended transposition. They meant "it just wasn't a big deal".
- throw0101d 2y agoHave a friend who was doing is masters at the time in neural networks, and was making use of FP a lot. He was getting strange results, especially in comparing what he was getting at home on his PC and what he was getting in the school labs on SPARC. He had (a) do a lot of effort to 'prove' to Intel that his CPU was faulty, and then (b) sign an NDA to get a replacement chip. A week after he signed the agreement and sent it in they publicly announced the recall.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- sime2009 2y agoFrom https://www.sgoc.de/pentium.html https://www.sgoc.de/pentium.html Q: How many Pentium designers does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: 1.99904274017, but that's close enough for non-technical people. Q: What do you get when you cross a Pentium PC with a research grant? A: A mad scientist. Q: What's another name for the "Intel Inside" sticker they put on Pentiums? A: The warning label. Q: What do you call a series of FDIV instructions on a Pentium? A: Successive approximations. Q: Complete the following word analogy: Add is to Subtract as Multiply is to: 1) Divide 2) ROUND 3) RANDOM 4) On a Pentium, all of the above A: Number 4. Q: Why didn't Intel call the Pentium the 586? A: Because they added 486 and 100 on the first Pentium and got 585.999983605. Q: According to Intel, the Pentium conforms to the IEEE standards 754 and 854 for floating point arithmetic. If you fly in aircraft designed using a Pentium, what is the correct pronunciation of "IEEE"? A: Aaaaaaaiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeee! TOP TEN NEW INTEL SLOGANS FOR THE PENTIUM ------------------------------------------- 9.9999973251 It's a FLAW, Dammit, not a Bug 8.9999163362 It's Close Enough, We Say So 7.9999414610 Nearly 300 Correct Opcodes 6.9999831538 You Don't Need to Know What's Inside 5.9999835137 Redefining the PC -- and Mathematics As Well 4.9999999021 We Fixed It, Really 3.9998245917 Division Considered Harmful - No Life- Maintenance Devices Should Be Used With This Processor 2.9991523619 Why Do You Think They Call It *Floating* Point? 1.9999103517 We're Looking for a Few Good Flaws And the 0.9999999998th Slogan Is... The Errata Inside
- jmclnx 2y agoNow we have spectre, after 30 years Intel did not learn any lessons. More things change, the more they stay the same.