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John Carlsen πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡ΈπŸ‡³πŸ‡±πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί

@kenshirriff

I was buying computers for the video game developer I worked at. One department used 3D Studio, and we saw the effects of the Pentium defect clearly on the screen.

At first Intel downplayed the problem, saying nobody would be affected. Then they said they'd replace CPUs only for affected customers. Ultimately, everyone could get a replacement.

Fortunately, we were in Austin and I had been buying from Dell, which dispatched someone to our session office to replace our Pentiums.

Years later, I had interviewed a job candidate who had been at Intel when the problem occurred. He described that someone simply made a mistake, but the person assigned to check their work neglected to do the job, and the manager above neglected to make sure it was done. Apparently the person who made the honest mistake was spared, but the checker and a line of managers to nearly the top were all fired for dereliction of duty.

4 comments
Dr. Juande Santander-Vela

@johnlogic @kenshirriff that was surprisingly just for a big corporation, if true!

John Carlsen πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡ΈπŸ‡³πŸ‡±πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί

@juandesant @kenshirriff

Yes; I was impressed with this interviewee's story alleging that Intel had had an internal lightning strike.

Ken Shirriff

@johnlogic I've talked with a few people who worked on the Pentium and I don't think anyone got fired over it. In "The Pentium Chronicles", the error is blamed on a flawed formal proof that misled the testers into thinking a change was safe.

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