5 ms·

Ah the pentium, aka 5-ium due to the penta- prefix. It is actually a nod from 4 to 5, but Intel wanted some cool name, and they decided penta + premium would so

by stevefan1999 7mo ago

Ah the pentium, aka 5-ium due to the penta- prefix. It is actually a nod from 4 to 5, but Intel wanted some cool name, and they decided penta + premium would sound cool, hence pentium. But still, internally we call it i586, because that's the way it is. so is Pentium MMX which I reckon is called i686.

gabrielsroka 7mo ago
Trademarks > The name invoked the number five, but was completely trademarkable, unlike the number 586.
- jhbadger 7mo ago
  I remember when IBM was upset that various companies were calling their 80286 computers "<Brandname> AT" like the IBM AT ("advanced technology"). But you can't trademark a preposition!
  - kube-system 7mo ago
    It's not that simple -- you can definitely trademark a preposition. Go search USPTO, it's not hard to find some: https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/search/search-results/90234636 https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/search/search-results/90234636
- dspillett 7mo ago
  Yes, and Intel had actually lost a legal attempt to stop people using the numbers (I can't remember if this was earlier in the 486 era or if it was something they tried first with 586). But marketing was a large part of the reason that they started caring so much at that particular time. The Pentium line was the first time Intel had marketed directly to the end users¹² in part as a response to alt-486 manufacturers (AMD, Cyryx) doing the same with their products⁴ like clock-doubled units compatible with standard 486/487 targetted sockets (which were cheaper and, depending on workload, faster than the Intel upgrade options). -------- [1] this was the era that “Intel Inside (di dum di dum)” initially came from [2] that was also why the FDIV bug was such a big thing despite processor bugs³ being, within the industry, an accepted part of the complex design and manufacturing process [3] for a few earlier examples: a 486 FPU bug that resulted in what should have been errors (such as overflow) being silently ignored, another (more serious) one in trig functions that resulted in a partial recall and the rest of that line being marked down as 486SX units (with a pin removed to effectively disable the FPU), similarly an entire stepping of 386 chips ended up sold as “for 16 bit code only”, going further back into the 8-bit days some versions of the 6502 had a bug or two in handling things (jump instructions, loading via relative references) that straddled page boundaries (which were mitigated in code by being careful with code/data alignment, no recalls, just errata published)
hulitu 7mo ago
> but Intel wanted some cool name, and they decided penta + premium would sound cool, hence pentium some say that they tried to add 486 with 100 and the result had some numbers after the comma, that's why they named it pentium (yes, i know about the FDIV bug)
laurencerowe 7mo ago
i686 was the microarchitecture introduced with the Pentium Pro and then Pentium II.
- chasil 7mo ago
  If I am correct, the Pentium Pro was the first "out of order" design. It specialized in 32-bit code, and did not handle 16-bit code very well. The original Pentium I believe introduced a second pipeline that required a compiler to optimize for it to achieve maximum performance. AMD actually made successful CPUs based on Berkeley RISC, similar to SPARC (they used register windows). The AMD K5 had this RISC CPU at its core. AMD bought NexGen and improved their RISC design for the K6 then Athlon.
  - squater 7mo ago
    Small correction, Pentium Pro was the first OoO microprocessor from Intel. Others like IBM POWER1 came earlier
    - chasil 7mo ago
      Very true, Bob Colwell was hired with past experience in this, I think from "Cyndrome" (edit: Multiflow). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38459128 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38459128
    - p_l 7mo ago
      It was intel's (at least) second OoO processor, after i960 - from which it pulled important team members.
      - gpderetta 7mo ago
        Was i960 OoO?
        p_l 7mo ago
        Yes, with branch prediction and speculative execution too
zem 7mo ago
I always figured the "-ium" part was in imitation of element naming, to make it sound scientific
- rob74 7mo ago
  Por qué no los dos? If "-ium" makes nerds think of an element name, and others of a premium product, all the better. I'd bet both of these interpretations were listed in the original internal marketing presentation of the name...
stevefan1999 7mo ago
Self-correction: Pentium MMX is still i586, it is Pentium Pro that is i686, the confusion is real.

gabrielsroka 7mo ago

Trademarks > The name invoked the number five, but was completely trademarkable, unlike the number 586.

jhbadger 7mo ago
I remember when IBM was upset that various companies were calling their 80286 computers "<Brandname> AT" like the IBM AT ("advanced technology"). But you can't trademark a preposition!
- kube-system 7mo ago
  It's not that simple -- you can definitely trademark a preposition. Go search USPTO, it's not hard to find some: https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/search/search-results/90234636 https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/search/search-results/90234636
dspillett 7mo ago
Yes, and Intel had actually lost a legal attempt to stop people using the numbers (I can't remember if this was earlier in the 486 era or if it was something they tried first with 586). But marketing was a large part of the reason that they started caring so much at that particular time. The Pentium line was the first time Intel had marketed directly to the end users¹² in part as a response to alt-486 manufacturers (AMD, Cyryx) doing the same with their products⁴ like clock-doubled units compatible with standard 486/487 targetted sockets (which were cheaper and, depending on workload, faster than the Intel upgrade options). -------- [1] this was the era that “Intel Inside (di dum di dum)” initially came from [2] that was also why the FDIV bug was such a big thing despite processor bugs³ being, within the industry, an accepted part of the complex design and manufacturing process [3] for a few earlier examples: a 486 FPU bug that resulted in what should have been errors (such as overflow) being silently ignored, another (more serious) one in trig functions that resulted in a partial recall and the rest of that line being marked down as 486SX units (with a pin removed to effectively disable the FPU), similarly an entire stepping of 386 chips ended up sold as “for 16 bit code only”, going further back into the 8-bit days some versions of the 6502 had a bug or two in handling things (jump instructions, loading via relative references) that straddled page boundaries (which were mitigated in code by being careful with code/data alignment, no recalls, just errata published)

hulitu 7mo ago

> but Intel wanted some cool name, and they decided penta + premium would sound cool, hence pentium some say that they tried to add 486 with 100 and the result had some numbers after the comma, that's why they named it pentium (yes, i know about the FDIV bug)

laurencerowe 7mo ago

i686 was the microarchitecture introduced with the Pentium Pro and then Pentium II.

chasil 7mo ago
If I am correct, the Pentium Pro was the first "out of order" design. It specialized in 32-bit code, and did not handle 16-bit code very well. The original Pentium I believe introduced a second pipeline that required a compiler to optimize for it to achieve maximum performance. AMD actually made successful CPUs based on Berkeley RISC, similar to SPARC (they used register windows). The AMD K5 had this RISC CPU at its core. AMD bought NexGen and improved their RISC design for the K6 then Athlon.
- squater 7mo ago
  Small correction, Pentium Pro was the first OoO microprocessor from Intel. Others like IBM POWER1 came earlier
  - chasil 7mo ago
    Very true, Bob Colwell was hired with past experience in this, I think from "Cyndrome" (edit: Multiflow). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38459128 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38459128
  - p_l 7mo ago
    It was intel's (at least) second OoO processor, after i960 - from which it pulled important team members.
    - gpderetta 7mo ago
      Was i960 OoO?
      - p_l 7mo ago
        Yes, with branch prediction and speculative execution too

zem 7mo ago

I always figured the "-ium" part was in imitation of element naming, to make it sound scientific

rob74 7mo ago
Por qué no los dos? If "-ium" makes nerds think of an element name, and others of a premium product, all the better. I'd bet both of these interpretations were listed in the original internal marketing presentation of the name...

stevefan1999 7mo ago

Self-correction: Pentium MMX is still i586, it is Pentium Pro that is i686, the confusion is real.