*** The President of Intel responds...
Jay Rothman
Subject: My Perspective on Pentium - AGS
Date: 27 Nov 1994 19:31:21 GMT
Organization: Netcom
Lines: 102
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <3bamq9$a...@ixnews1.ix.netcom.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: ix-pa3-16.ix.netcom.com
Andy Grove has asked me to post the following for him. Since it is the
weekend and we are out of the office, I am posting from my home system.
Richard Wirt
Director SW Technology
Intel Corp
This is Andy Grove, president of Intel. I'd like to comment a bit on
the conversations that have been taking place here.
First of all, I am truly sorry for the anxiety created among you by
our floating point issue. I read thru some of the postings and it's
clear that many of you have done a lot of work around it and
that some of you are very angry at us.
Let me give you my perspective on what has happened here.
The Pentium processor was introduced into the market in May of '93
after the most extensive testing program we at Intel have ever
embarked on. Because this chip is three times as complex as the 486,
and because it includes a number of improved floating point
algorithms, we geared up to do an array of tests, validation, and
verification that far exceeded anything we had ever done. So did many
of our OEM customers. We held the introduction of the chip several
months in order to give them more time to check out the chip and their
systems. We worked extensively with many software companies to this
end as well.
We were very pleased with the result. We ramped the processor faster
than any other in our history and encountered no significant problems
in the user community. Not that the chip was perfect; no chip ever
is. From time to time, we gathered up what problems we found and put
into production a new "stepping" -- a new set of masks that
incorporated whatever we corrected. Stepping N was better than
stepping N minus 1, which was better than stepping N minus 2. After
almost 25 years in the microprocessor business, I have come to the the
conclusion that no microprocessor is ever perfect; they just come
closer to perfection with each stepping. In the life of a typical
microprocessor, we go thru half a dozen or more such steppings.
Then, in the summer of '94, in the process of further testing (which
continued thru all this time and continues today), we came upon the
floating point error. We were puzzled as to why neither we nor anyone
else had encountered this earlier. We started a separate project,
including mathematicians and scientists who work for us in areas other
than the Pentium processor group to examine the nature of the problem
and its impact.
This group concluded after months of work that (1) an error is only
likely to occur at a frequency of the order of once in nine billion
random floating point divides, and that (2) this many divides in all
the programs they evaluated (which included many scientific
programs) would require elapsed times of use that would be longer than
the mean time to failure of the physical computer subsystems. In
other words, the error rate a user might see due to the floating point
problem would be swamped by other known computer failure mechanisms.
This explained why nobody -- not us, not our OEM customers, not the
software vendors we worked with and not the many individual users --
had run into it.
As some of you may recall, we had encountered thornier problems with
early versions of the 386 and 486, so we breathed a sigh of relief
that with the Pentium processor we had found what turned out to be a
problem of far lesser magnitude. We then incorporated the fix into
the next stepping of both the 60 and 66 and the 75/90/100 MHz Pentium
processor along with whatever else we were correcting in that next
stepping.
Then, last month Professor Nicely posted his observations about this
problem and the hubbub started. Interestingly, I understand from
press reports that Prof. Nicely was attempting to show that
Pentium-based computers can do the jobs of big time supercomputers in
numbers analyses. Many of you who posted comments are evidently also
involved in pretty heavy duty mathematical work.
That gets us to the present time and what we do about all this.
We would like to find all users of the Pentium processor who are
engaged in work involving heavy duty scientific/floating point
calculations and resolve their problem in the most appropriate fashion
including, if necessary, by replacing their chips with new ones. We
don't know how to set precise rules on this so we decided to do it
thru individual discussions between each of you and a technically
trained Intel person. We set up 800# lines for that purpose. It is
going to take us time to work thru the calls we are getting, but we
will work thru them. I would like to ask for your patience here.
Meanwhile, please don't be concerned that the passing of time will
deprive you of the opportunity to get your problem resolved -- we
will stand behind these chips for the life of your computer.
Sorry to be so long-winded -- and again please accept my apologies
for the situation. We appreciate your interest in the Pentium
processor, and we remain dedicated to bringing it as close to
perfection as possible.
I will monitor your communications in the future -- forgive me if I
can't answer each of you individually.
Andy Grove
Venkatesh Thirumalai
First of all to be CREDIBLE, please repost this from a machine in
the Intel domain.
If the problem is fixed as claimed by you (Intel) , release
the codes on the cpus, after which the buggy Pentiums are no longer
being produced. In all of that long winded post, Mr. Grove , could have
included some substance. HOPING you guys would post that important
information, here as well.
If Intel is going to decide on a case by case basis, is that not
going to lead to subjective judgements, (usually decided by you guys, in
YOUR FAVOR) to save $$. Do you think this is ethical and FAIR.??
Venkat
(Ph # 614.592.5357)
(Fax # 614.592.6299)
In article <3baumb$1...@carbon.cudenver.edu>,
The Misfit
: Newsgroups: comp.sys.intel
: Subject: My Perspective on Pentium - AGS
: Date: 27 Nov 1994 19:31:21 GMT
: Organization: Netcom
: Lines: 102
: Distribution: world
: Message-ID: <3bamq9$a...@ixnews1.ix.netcom.com>
: NNTP-Posting-Host: ix-pa3-16.ix.netcom.com
: As some of you may recall, we had encountered thornier problems with
: early versions of the 386 and 486, so we breathed a sigh of relief
: that with the Pentium processor we had found what turned out to be a
: problem of far lesser magnitude. We then incorporated the fix into
: the next stepping of both the 60 and 66 and the 75/90/100 MHz Pentium
: processor along with whatever else we were correcting in that next
: stepping.
Out of curiosity, Wasn't there a problem with the first batch of 486 chips?
Like it would freeze on a divide by 0? - Does anyone know if intel replaced
those? Or did they have a technician interview them to make sure they were
bad programmers.. :)
Also, from all the threads ive been reading, isnt it possible to get invalid
data up to 4 places?
--
Jay Rothman
*** rw...@ix.netcom.com ***
As soon as I saw it I re-posted it to a number of other newsgroups
that I thought would be interested. In my haste, I accidentally posted it to
this original newsgroup also. Sorry about the duplication. I have a P90
on order from Gateway and have no idea whether I will end up with the "0"
model or the "256" model, or who will take responsibility for it.
Jay
Benjamin Gene Cheung
: Richard Wirt
: Director SW Technology
: Intel Corp
For those of you who don't know. I like to point out that
Mr. Richard Wirt is the Director of Software Technology at Intel Architecture
Laboratories. He is also an intel fellow.
Ben
--
Benjamin Gene Cheung
Computer Engineer
Georgia Institute of Technology
Internet: gt0...@prism.gatech.edu
Hussam Eassa
: Please note that the original post was on this newsgroup and came from
: *** rw...@ix.netcom.com ***
: Jay
Really, Jay. I no more believe that this came from the president of Intel
than I would believe that Bill Clinton would post to alt.politics.xxx.
No offense, you either made it up or are so naive that I could sell you
ocean-front property in Arizona.
BTW, "through" is not spelled "thru" as was done repeatedly in the
alleged message from the Intel president. This does not lend credibility
to this fabrication.
Carl Oppedahl
>: Andy Grove has asked me to post the following for him. Since it is the
>: weekend and we are out of the office, I am posting from my home system.
>: Richard Wirt
>: Director SW Technology
>: Intel Corp
> For those of you who don't know. I like to point out that
>Mr. Richard Wirt is the Director of Software Technology at Intel Architecture
>Laboratories. He is also an intel fellow.
Yes, that is very interesting. If the "Andy Grove" posting is really from Mr.
Wirt, and if Mr. Wirt is really such a bigwig at Intel, then why did he post
from netcom.com instead of from intel.com? This bit about "it is the weekend"
seems a bit lame to me.
Carl Oppedahl
Oppedahl & Larson, patent law firm
oppe...@patents.com
watch this space for a web server with frequently asked patent questions and answers
DARREN LEYDEN
somehow I don't think that this actually came from the head of intel.
but if it did then this is a first.
Darren
Venkatesh Thirumalai (ven...@bobcat.ent.ohiou.edu) wrote:
: First of all to be CREDIBLE, please repost this from a machine in
: the Intel domain.
: >
: >
willie* chang
the responsibility and resign...
:)
willie*
Alex Chun
ilk), doesn't it?
--
Alex Chun It's just a jump to the left!
ac...@sas.upenn.edu And then a step to the r-i-i-i-ght...
David Steadson
>
>Jay Rothman (jrot...@carbon.cudenver.edu) wrote:
**stuff deleted
>Really, Jay. I no more believe that this came from the president of Intel
>than I would believe that Bill Clinton would post to alt.politics.xxx.
>
>No offense, you either made it up or are so naive that I could sell you
>ocean-front property in Arizona.
>BTW, "through" is not spelled "thru" as was done repeatedly in the
>alleged message from the Intel president. This does not lend credibility
>to this fabrication.
>
>Sam
>ea...@earth.execpc.com
I received some private email from rw...@ix.netcom.com in response to some comments about the
pentium bug that I posted a few days ago. I have no reason to believe that it was not authentically from
Richard Wirt, and I see no reason to believe the note from Andy Grove reposted here is not authentic
either. It seems absolutely consistent with the intel policy elsewhere, so why bother with a fraudalent
post? Secondly, all media reports on the topic have indicated the Internet as the source of most
discussion and anger on this issue, so it would seem the natural place for Mr Groves to try to alleviate
some of the problem. Take some credit people - the big guys *do* take note of what we say here,
mind you, that doesn't mean that they *listen* ... <sigh> ...
David
Luc Bauwens
Ever heard of *crossposting* for gods sake? This is spamming :-). Do you really
have to inflict that thing to us ten times?
Luc
___
Friends don't let friends buy buggy Pentiums
Kenneth T. Cornelius
: Newsgroups: comp.sys.intel
: Subject: My Perspective on Pentium - AGS
: Date: 27 Nov 1994 19:31:21 GMT
: Organization: Netcom
: Lines: 102
: Distribution: world
: Message-ID: <3bamq9$a...@ixnews1.ix.netcom.com>
: NNTP-Posting-Host: ix-pa3-16.ix.netcom.com
: Andy Grove has asked me to post the following for him. Since it is the
: weekend and we are out of the office, I am posting from my home system.
: Richard Wirt
: Director SW Technology
: Intel Corp
Dear Richard/Andy,
Yes, Pentium is one hell of a chip, but you miss the point. I bought my
P90, complete with bug, October 28. I didn't know it had a bug; you had
known for a long time and kept it secret. Now, I probably would have
bought the thing anyway, but it's my prerogative to make my own
decisions. You took that away from me, and if the story hadn't got out
of your hands, you'd still be doing it to others.
--
Kenneth T. Cornelius
ken...@clark.net
Yaron . Fraiman
why once the "flaw" was detected intel kept selling these "flawed"
processors to innocent customers who now have to be humiliated when
asking for what they paid for?
thank you
yfra...@lonestar.jpl.utsa.edu
Jack Sarfatti
that have the bug as well as those new ones coming out that do not. They
should offer some kind of rebate on the buggy ones or provide a software
fix if that is possible?
Tom Barrett
>weekend and we are out of the office, I am posting from my home system.
I'm really confused why this message came through netcom via
a Denver edu account.
>...
>
>We would like to find all users of the Pentium processor who are
>engaged in work involving heavy duty scientific/floating point
>calculations and resolve their problem in the most appropriate fashion
>including, if necessary, by replacing their chips with new ones.
>...
Please give us the assurance that this is not an limited-time offer.
Some of us might not need a replacement now, but we want assurances
(in writing) that intel will stand by this offer for the next few
years.
Tom
--
** Tom Barrett ** tom.b...@virginia.edu
url: http://csis.ee.virginia.edu/~tdb8q/ [updated 27 Aug 94]
Timothy C. May
Speaking about the message allegedly from Andy Grove, Alex Chun
(ac...@mail1.sas.upenn.edu) wrote:
: Regarding authenticity of posts: kind of makes the case for PGP (and its
: ilk), doesn't it?
Eventually, yes. But until such things get _much_ more widespread, not
too likely. (As an aside, even if we had a signed message, having Andy
Grove's public key on a keyserver would be necessary...and it's still
pretty easy for lots of "Andrew S. Grove" names to be placed on the
keyservers. I find PGP mostly useful for people I know directly.)
Speaking of Grove, the message had the ring of authenticity. That's
the way Grove speaks and writes (I worked for him from 1974 to 1986).
Personally, I think Intel is being hurt badly by this whole thing. The
arguments about 1-2 years of past calculations being cast in
doubt--perhaps forcing authors to redo calculations, or withdraw their
conclusions--are the most compelling to me. (And ironically, the who
excitement about whether Intel should replace them for free, or for a
small handling charge, or not at all, seems minor compared to the
issue of all of those scientific and business calculations which may
be wrong, or which may open the door for lawsuits.)
I don't have access to what Intel has access to, of course, so my
tentative conclusion that Intel should bite the bullet (recall,
replace, etc.) may not be accurate. My gut feel is that further delays
will hurt them PR-wise and will end up costing them in $$...the
chorus of demands is rising and spreading, showing no signs of fading.
As a shareholder (though a Mac user, for other reasons), I'm worried.
--Tim May
--
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tc...@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
Cypherpunks list: majo...@toad.com with body message of only:
subscribe cypherpunks. FAQ available at ftp.netcom.com in pub/tcmay
Kevin Talbot
I don't think they have serial numbers, probably only "date codes" (year
and week).
And the "new" ones won't be bug free either. They never will be. They
just won't have the FDIV bug for the previously identified situations.
--
Kevin Talbot | "I am not a role model. I am not paid to be a
kev...@halcyon.com | role model. I am paid to wreak havoc on the
Compuserve ID: 75706,316 | basketball court." -- NBA star Charles Barkley
Kevin Talbot
>In article <3baumb$1...@carbon.cudenver.edu>,
>Jay Rothman <jrot...@carbon.cudenver.edu> wrote:
>>Andy Grove has asked me to post the following for him. Since it is the
>>weekend and we are out of the office, I am posting from my home system.
>I'm really confused why this message came through netcom via
>a Denver edu account.
Here's the header of the message *I* read on this newsgroup. Looks like it
came from Intel to me!
==============================================================
Path:news.halcyon.com!nwnexus!scipio.cyberstore.ca!math.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!uunet!psinntp!inews.intel.com!usenet
From: Andy Grove <Andy_...@intel.com> Newsgroups: comp.sys.intel
Subject: My Perspective on the Pentium Processor - ASG Date: 27 Nov 1994
23:39:43 GMT Organization: Intel Lines: 98 Message-ID:
<3bb5bv$q...@inewssc.intel.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: stree2.sc.intel.com
================================================
>>...
>>
>>We would like to find all users of the Pentium processor who are
>>engaged in work involving heavy duty scientific/floating point
>>calculations and resolve their problem in the most appropriate fashion
>>including, if necessary, by replacing their chips with new ones.
>>...
>Please give us the assurance that this is not an limited-time offer.
>Some of us might not need a replacement now, but we want assurances
>(in writing) that intel will stand by this offer for the next few
>years.
>Tom
>--
>** Tom Barrett ** tom.b...@virginia.edu
>url: http://csis.ee.virginia.edu/~tdb8q/ [updated 27 Aug 94]
Ok, if you had read what this man posted, you would have noticed the
following:
>
> We would like to find all users of the Pentium processor who are
> engaged in work involving heavy duty scientific/floating point
> calculations and resolve their problem in the most appropriate fashion
> including, if necessary, by replacing their chips with new ones. We
> don't know how to set precise rules on this so we decided to do it
> thru individual discussions between each of you and a technically
> trained Intel person. We set up 800# lines for that purpose. It is
> going to take us time to work thru the calls we are getting, but we
> will work thru them. I would like to ask for your patience here.
>
> Meanwhile, please don't be concerned that the passing of time will
> deprive you of the opportunity to get your problem resolved -- we
> will stand behind these chips for the life of your computer.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Sound like a pretty solid warranty to me!
Gerry Macdonald
JR> Newsgroups: comp.sys.intel
JR> Subject: My Perspective on Pentium - AGS
JR> Date: 27 Nov 1994 19:31:21 GMT
JR> Organization: Netcom
JR> Lines: 102
JR> Distribution: world
JR> Message-ID: <3bamq9$a...@ixnews1.ix.netcom.com>
JR> NNTP-Posting-Host: ix-pa3-16.ix.netcom.com
JR>
JR> Andy Grove has asked me to post the following for him. Since it is the
JR> weekend and we are out of the office, I am posting from my home system.
JR>
JR> Richard Wirt
JR> Director SW Technology
JR> Intel Corp
JR>
JR>
JR> This is Andy Grove, president of Intel. I'd like to comment a bit on
JR> the conversations that have been taking place here.
JR>
JR> First of all, I am truly sorry for the anxiety created among you by
JR> our floating point issue. I read thru some of the postings and it's
JR> clear that many of you have done a lot of work around it and
JR> that some of you are very angry at us.
Andy, its not an "issue" its a defect.
JR> Let me give you my perspective on what has happened here.
JR>
JR> The Pentium processor was introduced into the market in May of '93
JR> after the most extensive testing program we at Intel have ever
JR> embarked on. Because this chip is three times as complex as the 486,
JR> and because it includes a number of improved floating point
JR> algorithms, we geared up to do an array of tests, validation, and
JR> verification that far exceeded anything we had ever done. So did many
JR> of our OEM customers. We held the introduction of the chip several
JR> months in order to give them more time to check out the chip and their
JR> systems. We worked extensively with many software companies to this
JR> end as well.
JR>
JR> Then, in the summer of '94, in the process of further testing (which
JR> continued thru all this time and continues today), we came upon the
JR> floating point error. We were puzzled as to why neither we nor anyone
JR> else had encountered this earlier. We started a separate project,
JR> including mathematicians and scientists who work for us in areas other
JR> than the Pentium processor group to examine the nature of the problem
JR> and its impact.
If the FDIV bug is so obscure, and hard to find, I would like an explanation
of the fact that the Pentium, fails a basic diagnostic test MCPDIAG.EXE,
which I believe is an Intel program and is listed on the Intel board.
Any six year old could have run the test and told you you had a defective
processor.
JR> This explained why nobody -- not us, not our OEM customers, not the
JR> software vendors we worked with and not the many individual users --
JR> had run into it.
JR>
JR> As some of you may recall, we had encountered thornier problems with
JR> early versions of the 386 and 486, so we breathed a sigh of relief
JR> that with the Pentium processor we had found what turned out to be a
JR> problem of far lesser magnitude. We then incorporated the fix into
JR> the next stepping of both the 60 and 66 and the 75/90/100 MHz Pentium
JR> processor along with whatever else we were correcting in that next
JR> stepping.
I believe in those cases, you replaced the chips.
JR> That gets us to the present time and what we do about all this.
JR>
JR> We would like to find all users of the Pentium processor who are
JR> engaged in work involving heavy duty scientific/floating point
JR> calculations and resolve their problem in the most appropriate fashion
JR> including, if necessary, by replacing their chips with new ones. We
JR> don't know how to set precise rules on this so we decided to do it
JR> thru individual discussions between each of you and a technically
JR> trained Intel person. We set up 800# lines for that purpose. It is
JR> going to take us time to work thru the calls we are getting, but we
JR> will work thru them. I would like to ask for your patience here.
A most interesting concept in law. We have a defective product, We
admit we have a defective product, however to control the damage and
costs we are only going to look after customers we deem to "worthy".
By way of analogy, if GM has a vehicle recall, the response to the
little old grandmother who only uses the defective product to drive
to church.
Well you use the vehicle so little, you have very little chance of
encountering the problem and anyway your kinda old.
The only determination of whether a customer is worthy is whether
he made the decision to part with a considerable sum of money to
buy your defective product, period.
---
* NFX v1.3 [000] Graphic Offline Mail Reader.
Larry Mull
Intel domain would've seemed logical rather than Netcom or wherever it
came from.
--
LarryM |-)
--
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Launchpad is an experimental internet BBS. The views of its users do not
necessarily represent those of UNC-Chapel Hill, OIT, or the SysOps.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
pran...@abo.fi
> Like it would freeze on a divide by 0? - Does anyone know if intel replaced
> those? Or did they have a technician interview them to make sure they were
> bad programmers.. :)
>>>>
division by zero problems first with our IBM 486 dx2 valuepoints and then with the
IBM Pentium replacement for those machines. And guess what, ..with continuing
division by zero problems. They (IBM support) had a hard time believing our reports on
stalled apps in division by zero instances and apps suddenly swapping incomprehensible numbers at our faces.
Khoa N Nguyen
Venkatesh Thirumalai <ven...@bobcat.ent.ohiou.edu> wrote:
>
> First of all to be CREDIBLE, please repost this from a machine in
>the Intel domain.
>
It seems that it _IS_ the legit message from Intel's president Any Grove.
You can also see it from WWW:
Gregory L. Priem
Eassa) wrote:
> Really, Jay. I no more believe that this came from the president of Intel
> than I would believe that Bill Clinton would post to alt.politics.xxx.
actually, it was from andy grove. the same memo was sent out at intel today.
--
gregory l. priem kb0erz
lab...@rt66.com gpr...@rr5.intel.com
Nernst
>>posting from an Intel domain would've seemed logical rather
>>than Netcom or wherever it came from.
And also according to Intel/Germany it is legit. The fact that
this was posted from an .edu domain just makes the whole issue
(no pun intended :) seem more funny to me.
I could spend my whole day shaking head about this bug. You got
to feel a little sorry for all the people at intel, whe spend
their time doing damage control, dont´t you think so?
____
Email for nernst...@mail.zd.ziff.com prefered.
____
--
---
-x- The opinions stated above only reflect my -x-
-x- individual opinion. They are in no way official -x-
-x- statements by Ziff-Davis or PC Professionell. -x-
Dr John Stockton
> I received some private email from rw...@ix.netcom.com in response to some
>comments about the
>pentium bug that I posted a few days ago. I have no reason to believe that it
>was not authentically from
>Richard Wirt, and I see no reason to believe the note from Andy Grove reposted
>here is not authentic
>either.
> ...
The allegedly dubious document has appeared in a location readily accessible
from http://www.intel.com ...... Makes it plausible...
--
John Stockton : J...@newton.npl.co.uk from off-site, or as header address.
National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, Middlesex, TW11 0LW, UK
Direct Phone +44 181-943 6087, Nearby Fax +44 181-943 7138
Marc A. Murison
>Really, Jay. I no more believe that this came from the president of Intel
>than I would believe that Bill Clinton would post to alt.politics.xxx.
Well, the same text is located at
http://www.intel.com/about-intel/press/andy-msg.html
which *does* lend it some credibility.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| Marc A. Murison | Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory |
| mur...@cfa.harvard.edu | 60 Garden Street, MS 63 |
| (617) 495-7079 | Cambridge, MA 02138 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Dan Pop
>Andy Grove has asked me to post the following for him. Since it is the
>weekend and we are out of the office, I am posting from my home system.
>
>Richard Wirt
>Director SW Technology
>Intel Corp
>
>
>This is Andy Grove, president of Intel. I'd like to comment a bit on
>the conversations that have been taking place here.
>
<snip>
>Then, in the summer of '94, in the process of further testing (which
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>continued thru all this time and continues today), we came upon the
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>floating point error. We were puzzled as to why neither we nor anyone
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>else had encountered this earlier. We started a separate project,
>including mathematicians and scientists who work for us in areas other
>than the Pentium processor group to examine the nature of the problem
>and its impact.
>
And now a quote from professor Nicely's seminal article:
: I encountered erroneous results which were related to this bug as long
: ago as June, 1994, but it was not until 19 October 1994 that I felt I had
: eliminated all other likely sources of error (software logic, compiler,
: chipset, etc.). I contacted Intel Tech Support regarding this bug on
: Monday 24 October (call reference number 51270). The contact person later
: reported that the bug was observed on a 66-MHz system at Intel, but had no
: further information or explanation, other than the fact that no such bug
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
: had been previously reported or observed.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
It is obvious that someone from Intel LIES. There is only one question:
IS ANDY GROVE LYING OR IS INTEL TECH SUPPORT LYING?
Inquiring minds want to know :-)
Dan
--
Dan Pop | The only reason God was able to make the
CERN, CN Division | world in 7 days was he didn't have to remain
Email: dan...@cernapo.cern.ch | compatible with the previous version.
Mail: CERN - PPE, Bat. 31 R-004, CH-1211 Geneve 23, Switzerland
Anton Rang
>Well, the same text is located at
> http://www.intel.com/about-intel/press/andy-msg.html
>which *does* lend it some credibility.
Also check out
http://www.intel.com/product/pentium/fpushort.html
which has Intel's official description of the problem, its cause,
their analysis of its frequency, and what they recommend users do.
--
Anton Rang (ra...@winternet.com)
Marco van den Boogaard
>td...@csissun12.ee.Virginia.EDU (Tom Barrett) writes:
>================================================
I think Tom means (and if he does, I agree) that he wants an assurance that has been printed by
intel itself, since you can't claim anything when you only wave with some newsnet article (even
when, like in this case, it _looks_ real. There's nowhere proof that a. Intel wrote this, b. Intel
will keep it's promise. I believe you get _no_ rights whatsoever by a newsnet article. And that is
what everybody would want.
>--
>Kevin Talbot | "I am not a role model. I am not paid to be a
>kev...@halcyon.com | role model. I am paid to wreak havoc on the
>Compuserve ID: 75706,316 | basketball court." -- NBA star Charles Barkley
--
|\/| Marco van den Boogaard | It's nice to be
_| _| marc...@sci.kun.nl | slightly crazy
|/|), University of Nijmegen | (== weird)
|) |
using tin
Subject: Andy Grove - A Reply
JR> First of all, I am truly sorry for the anxiety created among you by
JR> our floating point issue. I read thru some of the postings and it's
JR> clear that many of you have done a lot of work around it and
JR> that some of you are very angry at us.
go>Andy, its not an "issue" its a defect.
I don't know. But from EETime, the Intel marketing guy stat _twice_
that FDIV _isn't_ a bug or an ISSUE.
If it is not a bug or issue or defect, what the heck is it?
David
---
ş DeLuxeı 1.21 #6922 ş
Chris Cain
are actualy affected by this bug. More than 99% of pentiums that
have allready shipped do not have this problem.
It just seems bad here because due to a 1 in 10^9 co-incidence
almost every all the buggy pentiums went to readers of comp.sys.intel
Chris Cain
\
Andres Perez
: It just seems bad here because due to a 1 in 10^9 co-incidence
: almost every all the buggy pentiums went to readers of comp.sys.intel
: Chris Cain
: \
yeah right!!!
--
Andres Perez
ape...@csugrad.cs.vt.edu
willie* chang
It's a p5 virus! :)
> David
> ---
> ş DeLuxeı 1.21 #6922 ş
willie*
Jerry Leslie
: It's only a very small percentage of the current pentiums that
: have allready shipped do not have this problem.
: It just seems bad here because due to a 1 in 10^9 co-incidence
: almost every all the buggy pentiums went to readers of comp.sys.intel
: Chris Cain
No, Chris !!!! You're being confused by the Intel statements.
All Pentium chips sold to date have the problem. Just down-load
P87TEST.ZIP from math.ucdavis.edu , in the /pub/fdiv directory.
Put it on a diskette, and head out to any computer store and tell the
salesman you're in the market for a Pentium, but want to run P87TEST
before making a decision.
--Jerry,
Gerald (Jerry) R. Leslie
Staff Engineer
Dynamic Matrix Control Corporation (my opinions are my own)
P.O. Box 721648 9896 Bissonnet
Houston, Texas 77272 Houston, Texas, 77036
713/272-5065 713/272-5200 (fax)
gle...@isvsrv.enet.dec.com
jle...@dmccorp.com
Matt Harvey
>the Intel domain.
This is just a copy of a statement from Andy Grove. Check it out on:
----
/\/\athieux
Do right. Fear not.
Matt Harvey
You can tell if yours if buggy. Go into an application that uses floating point math
and try to do the following: 4195835*256-(4195835*256/3145727)*3145727
A high school math student or a $2 credit card calculator could tell you this is 0,
but the faulty Pentiums will tell you it is 65536.
Marco van den Boogaard
>Chris Cain (ch...@aladdin.co.uk) wrote:
>: It's only a very small percentage of the current pentiums that
>: are actualy affected by this bug. More than 99% of pentiums that
>: have allready shipped do not have this problem.
>: It just seems bad here because due to a 1 in 10^9 co-incidence
>: almost every all the buggy pentiums went to readers of comp.sys.intel
>: Chris Cain
>No, Chris !!!! You're being confused by the Intel statements.
Take it easy, I believe he was only mimicking Intel as some sort of joke
>All Pentium chips sold to date have the problem. Just down-load
>P87TEST.ZIP from math.ucdavis.edu , in the /pub/fdiv directory.
>Put it on a diskette, and head out to any computer store and tell the
>salesman you're in the market for a Pentium, but want to run P87TEST
>before making a decision.
Don't bother, it will fail the test anyway
>--Jerry,
> Gerald (Jerry) R. Leslie
> Staff Engineer
> Dynamic Matrix Control Corporation (my opinions are my own)
> P.O. Box 721648 9896 Bissonnet
> Houston, Texas 77272 Houston, Texas, 77036
> 713/272-5065 713/272-5200 (fax)
> gle...@isvsrv.enet.dec.com
> jle...@dmccorp.com
Jerry Leslie
: In <3brlcl$d...@uuneo.neosoft.com> jle...@dmccorp.com (Jerry Leslie) writes:
[ snip ]
: >No, Chris !!!! You're being confused by the Intel statements.
: Take it easy, I believe he was only mimicking Intel as some sort of joke
: >All Pentium chips sold to date have the problem. Just down-load
: >P87TEST.ZIP from math.ucdavis.edu , in the /pub/fdiv directory.
: --
: |\/| Marco van den Boogaard | It's nice to be
: _| _| marc...@sci.kun.nl | slightly crazy
: |/|), University of Nijmegen | (== weird)
: |) |
That Leslie guy's mind was dense that day, after glaring at too many FDIV :-)
articles and email. :-)
--Jerry,
Gerald (Jerry) R. Leslie
Staff Engineer
Dynamic Matrix Control Corporation (my opinions are my own)
P.O. Box 721648 9896 Bissonnet
Houston, Texas 77272 Houston, Texas, 77036
713/272-5065 713/272-5200 (fax)
gle...@isvsrv.enet.dec.com
jle...@dmccorp.com
P.S.: When will Microsoft have FDIV_bug-compatible operating systems and
compilers ready ? Will they cost more than the current versions ;-)
Gerry Graesser
suposedly after they fixed the bug. So you can add
my name to the "1 in 10^9 co-incidence" list.
Gerry Graesser
---------------------------------------------------
Marco van den Boogaard (marc...@sci.kun.nl) wrote: