It seems that the current version of chips from Intel is making errors worse than the first PENTIUM chip which caused a panic in investors a little over 2 years ago...

PALO ALTO, Calif. (Reuter) - Intel Corp. said Friday its Pentium Pro and brand new Pentium II chips have a flaw that can cause personal computers to miscalculate in some circumstances.

From CNN article :

found at http://cnnfn.com/digitaljam/wires/9705/09/intel_wg/

"Basically, it's a design defect that may cause the product to deviate from published specifications," Intel spokesman Tom Waldrop said.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel has been investigating the flaw since it was uncovered just days before Intel launched the Pentium II, its biggest new product in years.

A design defect that may cause the product to deviate from published specifications...

That's a nice way of saying our chip doesn't work...

Also from CNN's article:

The newly detected flaw occurs when some programs try to convert so-called floating point numbers, or decimal numbers, into integers. In some cases, the chip makes rounding errors, and it does not raise a warning flag that it made the error.

Waldrop said Intel would not judge how serious the flaw was, leaving that to computer makers and software developers. But Intel will help developers rewrite programs to detect when the error can crop up and to compensate for it

Waldrop said, Intel would not judge how serious the flaw was, leaving that to computer makers and software developers.

Hey Waldrop, I'm a software developer and I would like to know that the CPU in my computer can at least do simple math correctly...

I guess since I'm not designing software to send astronauts to MARS and back, it doesn't matter if my machine can't do simple integer calculations...

I guess it goes to show that as advanced as man thinks his technology is getting.... It's still only on the drawing board...

J. P. Essene

Editor

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