

Original Pentium FDIV flaw e-mail [1994] - jonah
http://www.trnicely.net/pentbug/bugmail1.html

======
eitally
I vividly remember this. I grew up in Lynchburg and one of my best friends'
fathers was a professor at Lynchburg College. At the time this happened I was
in my senior year of high school and completely immersed in the school's new
computer lab (Wordperfect 5, Mosaic, Matlab, Pascal -- woohoo!). I went to
hear Dr Nicely speak about the flaw and thought it was super-cool that this
was happening in my [really boring] hometown -- thanks for dredging up
history. :)

------
Unosolo
Intel's CEO, Andy Grove later wrote in his book "Only the Paranoid Can
Survive" that the crisis had marked Intel's transition from being run-of-the-
mill B2B operation to major B2C brand.

Before the crisis Intel viewed itself as just yet another supplier of
microchips to powerful OEM's, a pure business to business operation that had
computer manufacturers as their customers. They genuinely believed that it's
up to end-product manufactures to handle user's compaints and then settle any
issues with Intel account managers in the privacy of company meeting rooms.

What Intel didn't realise is that their prior advertising campaign that was
hammering "Intel Inside" into consumers' minds and re-enforcing the belief
that a PC powered by Intel microprocessor is superior to any other PC was
incredibly successful. Intel became a consumer brand, but the company didn't
have the structure, nor the mindset to serve the end-consumers directly!

When the denial was over and it became apparent what the actual problem is -
not the microprocessor flaw, but the company's perception of itself - Intel
moved with energy, quickly and decisively: hired hundreds extra staff, changed
reporting lines, created an entirely new end-consumer servicing structure -
all within weeks.

I thoroughly recommend reading Andy Grove's book for the Intel's side of the
story.

<http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/bios/grove/paranoid.htm>
[http://www.amazon.com/Only-Paranoid-Survive-Andrew-
Grove/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Only-Paranoid-Survive-Andrew-
Grove/dp/0385482582)

------
jfb
I remember this mostly because my boss at the time referred to Pentiums in the
plural as "Pentia". "Pentia". Let that one sink in. He also was a chain smoker
who would carry his ashtray and smokes _into the machine room_ and then wonder
why the big Power Challenge had mysterious SCSI bus problems. Good times.

~~~
barrkel
I'm not really picking up why it's so reprehensible for someone to jokingly
pluralize Pentiums as Pentia. Can you explain?

~~~
jfb
It wasn't a joke.

~~~
larelli
And it wasn't incorrect either. -um is the ending for neutrums (actually
neutra) and -a is the plural thereof.

~~~
jfb
True, except in that Pentium is an _English_ neologism, and thus is pluralized
like an English noun. Don't get me started on the plurals of octopus or virus,
please.

------
mahmud
Here is the timeline:

<http://www.emery.com/1e/pentium.htm>

USENET grew one pant-size that autumn.

~~~
onan_barbarian
Did it ever, and this parody stuck in my mind:

Open the pod bay door, please, Hal... Hal, do you read me?

    
    
        Affirmative, Dave. I read you.
    

Then open the pod bay doors, HAL.

    
    
        I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that. I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me.
    

Where the hell did you get that idea, HAL?

    
    
        Although you took very thorough precautions to make sure I couldn't hear you, Dave. I could read your e-mail. I know you consider me unreliable because I use a Pentium. I'm willing to kill you, Dave, just like I killed the other 3.792 crew members.
    

(etc.)

------
wglb
What sticks in my mind the most about this was the estimates on the part of PC
manufacturers, of the estimates of the probability of a spreadsheet user, for
example, running across this bug. Thinking through the problem carefully,
there was no way to calculate such a probability.

------
jleader
I was oddly tickled to see that acavax.lynchburg.edu is now serving http, with
an index page whose last modified date is not quite 10 years ago.

------
patrickg
It was one of the best things that happened to Intel. After some reluctance,
they proved as a company users can trust in, as they allowed to return their
CPUs in exchange for a non-broken one. This trust into Intel was worth much,
much more then the cost of the refund policy.

~~~
wtallis
It took Intel weeks to realize that they had a genuine PR disaster on their
hands, and if it had taken them much longer to agree to replace any defective
processor, the Pentium brand would have been ruined. They learned their lesson
and wholeheartedly did everything they could to smooth things over, but only
after a month and a half of making things much worse. By the time Intel
started dealing with the situation intelligently, they were facing several
lawsuits and even the mainstream media was making jokes at the expense of
their flagship product.

