🚀 go-pugleaf

>In article <JSP.90Oct25155458@glia.u.washington.edu> jsp@glia.u.washington.edu
>(Jeff Prothero) writes:
>>I'm upset.  Twice in six months I've spent a week or so tracking down
>>a bug, only to find that it's in my '386 instead of in my code.
>>That's not why I'm upset -- I know this is the computer industry,
>>where defective merchandise doesn't entitle you to a repair, a
>>replacement, or even an apology :-).  I'm upset because (after a month
>>or so of playing ring-around-the-rosie, accumulating manuals I don't
>>need) I'm told that Intel considers known bugs in their chips to be
>>proprietary and confidential information.  

>This policy strikes me as reprehensible and downright stupid.  >>
>
>No argument there; I'm a big believer in making bug lists public (even
>though companies I work for may not necessarily agree...). Moto does;
>I have bug lists for each rev of the 88100/88200 chips. Getting them
>was not hard; I called up Moto and they faxed them to me.

Intel and Motorola BOTH treat bug lists as confidential.  As a customer, you
should be able to get bug lists from either, though you may have to sign an
NDA.  I would ALWAYS insist on getting bug lists from a vendor if I was 
starting a design with their chip, and I'd ask every month or two for the 
updated version.

I have waged a long and unsuccessful campaign to get these companies and
others to provide their bug lists to Microprocessor Report.  Motorola has been
just as unwilling to cooperate as Intel.  The semiconductor companies are
afraid that their competitors will use their bug lists against them, and
they argue that any legitimate chip user can get the bug list by asking.
As the first article in this thread makes clear, many users end up writing
software without access to the bug list.

My position: bug lists should be public information.

Microprocessor Report has published bug lists in the past, and if people will
send them to me, I'll continue to publish them (for chips of general interest).

Michael Slater, Editor and Publisher, Microprocessor Report
mslater@cup.portal.com    707/823-4004    fax: 707/823-0504
874 Gravenstein Hwy. So., Suite 14, Sebastopol, CA 95472