🚀 go-pugleaf

mmm@cup.portal.com (Mark Robert Thorson) writes:
>    [...]
>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
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

A chip with THIS feature would make a very nice target for malicious
virus code....   :-)

... not to mention the excitement it would lend to life-critical
applications. Just imagine the entire [insert your favorite airline]
fleet crashing simultaneously because they forgot to pay for the
next 10 GFs!


                                 -Mike Mars


PS sigh, and its not even the 1st of April...