🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <42347@cup.portal.com> mmm@cup.portal.com (Mark Robert Thorson) writes:

   umh@vax5.cit.cornell.edu (Maynard Handley) says:

>>Much as we all hate intel processors, it's always interesting to see what
>>new perversions they come up with. Does anyone know what will make the 586

Is this guy psychic or what???

>A novel method has been developed for reducing the cost of floating-point
>performance to the end user.  Each 586 has 100 bytes of EPROM for
>storing passwords unique to each chip.  When a user decides to upgrade
>to hardware floating point, he simply calls Intel and buys the password
>for enabling the on-chip FPU.  Each password is good for 10 gigaflops,
>i.e. you get 10,000,000,000 floating point operations.  (An 8-bit
>password is sufficient, because three consecutive failed password attempts
>permanently disables the FPU).  When you buy your 100th password, the FPU
>becomes permanently enabled.  This benefits the consumer because it allows
>him to buy exactly what he needs, rather than overspending on unused performance.
>It also cuts out the middleman, allowing the end-user to reap the cost savings
>of dealing directly with Intel.

It's a darn good thing the military doesn't use Intel stuff for their
digital flight control or weapons control systems. Can you imagine a
pilot cranking through a 9G turn when a message appears on the screen
saying "Please call Intel for your new FPU password".

Or how about an Intel processor running a respirator? Imagine the
anesthesiologist giving a patient a nudge, "Got a quarter, I have to
phone Intel for some more FLOPS".

Surely this isn't deja vu from April Fool's day?

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