Some more
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Microprocessor Watch Issue #0401, April 1, 2002
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Editor: Kevin Krewell, mailto:kkrewell@mdr.cahners.com
Contributors: Ace's, Anand, Paul DeMone, Mike MaGee,
Dean Kent, Tom Pabst, Chris Tom
In This Issue:
*** AMD, Intel in Hyper Competition
*** Intel Finds iApx432 Group Still Alive
*** Zilog offers 64-bit extensions to Z-80
*** Motorola Drops PowerPC, Acquires Tranmeta
*** VIA named number one x86 CPU supplier in Myanmar
*** Key Rumor Site Goes Down; Analysts, Reporters Left
Speechless
*** Origin of April Fools Day Uncovered
Of Interest:
*** Embedded Processor Forum 2002
*** AMD, Intel in Hyper-Competition
By Ive Ban Rong
AMD continued to engaged in a bitter marketing
buzzword battle over the use of the prefix "Hyper-."
While Intel fired the first shot with Hyper-pipelining
for the Pentium 4. AMD quickly responded by changing
the name of the Lightning Data Transport (LDT) channel
to HyperTransport. Intel, in an attempt to remain the
master of marketing buzzwords, shot back with
HyperThreading. AMD faces a number of options
including: changing its model numbering system to
"hyper-numbers," renaming the ClawHammer processor the
Hyper-Hammer processor, or adding a new buzzword to
its x86-64 extensions such as "Hyper-Addressing."
*** Intel Finds iApx432 Group Still Alive
By Les Dan Tru
After they had been given up for dead almost 15 years
ago, the group that worked on the ill-fated Intel 432
was found cryogenically frozen in an Intel warehouse.
Apparently they were frozen when the project was
cancelled, in hopes that someday the world would be
ready for this highly advanced technology. The team
was found accidentally when engineers looking for
cooling apparatus for Itanium stumbled on the
cryogenic chambers. An Intel spokesman was quoted as
saying, "our advanced .01234-micron process technology
has finally caught up with the original 432 design."
adding "It turned out that the Moore's law automatic
defrost timer, controlling the chambers, was set to
expire on April 1st, 2002 anyway."
The engineers are being quarantined for now while
officials decide how to explain RISC, EPIC, and Hyper
to them. It's expected they will feel right at home on
the Itanium III project.
*** Zilog offers 64-bit extensions to Z-80
By Kno Hwaih
While other vendors have introduced new 32-bit and 64-
bit instruction sets, Zilog announced that its
solution protects customer's investment in 8-bit code.
Zilog announced operating system support from CP/M-64
and ConcurrentDOS-64 with the GEM-64 GUI.
*** Motorola Drops PowerPC, Acquires Tranmeta
By Phat Chance
Saying "if you can't beat them, join them," Motorola
announced the acquisition of Transmeta and began the
conversion of all its PowerPC designs to the x86 ISA.
A Motorola executive was quoted as saying "We were
already slower than most x86 processors and had lower
power. The Transmeta purchase now lets us use all that
software that runs on the x86 ISA and we can finally
compete head-to-head with Intel." One unnamed Motorola
marketing manager added "We were also tired of Apple
dictating our product launch schedules, now we get to
suck up to Microsoft instead."
*** VIA named number one x86 CPU supplier in Myanmar
By Chip Shott
The C3 processor continues to make inroads in the
worlds poorest
countries and was recently named the most popular x86
processor in Myanmar, where the BBC recently reported that the GNP
was less than $100 per capita in 2001.
*** Key Rumor Site Goes Down; Analysts, Reporters Left
Speechless
By Grunby
A stunned silenced descended over the PC analyst
community as their main source of mis-information The
Morning Star-Register was evicted from their web site.
The Star Register, whose motto "Biting our foot in our
mouth" had long-since become the de-facto source of
all rumors and gossip droving the fear and loathing on
the campaign trail of all things PC. Their keen
observations on punters, boffins, wonkers, and various
mammals were the stories of legends. In fact, they
claimed the discovered of rare beast that was part ape
and part giant lizard. One analyst who begged to be
quoted said that without the Star Register, he had to
resort to creating his own rumors. "I'm normally too
lazy and unimaginative to actually make up stuff, much
less call people up to check stories" said the shaken
analyst.
Microprocessor Report readers can't access this story
anywhere.
*** The origin of April Fools Day
In sixteenth-century France, the start of the new year was
observed on April first. It was celebrated in much the same
way as it is today with parties and dancing into the late
hours of the night. Then in 1562, Pope Gregory introduced a
new calendar for the Christian world, and the new year fell
on January first. There were some people, however, who
hadn't heard or didn't believe the change in the date, so
they continued to celebrate New Year's Day on April first.
Others played tricks on them and called them "April fools."
They sent them on a "fool's errand" or tried to make them
believe that something false was true. In France today,
April first is called "Poisson d'Avril." French children
fool their friends by taping a paper fish to their friends'
backs. When the "young fool" discovers this trick, the
prankster yells "Poisson d'Avril!" (April Fish!)
Today Americans play small tricks on friends and strangers
alike on the first of April. One common trick on April
Fool's Day, or All Fool's Day, is pointing down to a
friend's shoe and saying, "Your shoelace is untied."
Teachers in the nineteenth century used to say to pupils,
"Look! A flock of geese!" and point up. School children
might tell a classmate that school has been canceled.
Whatever the trick, if the innocent victim falls for the
joke the prankster yells, "April Fool! "
The "fools' errands" we play on people are practical jokes.
Putting salt in the sugar bowl for the next person is not a
nice trick to play on a stranger. College students set
their clocks an hour behind, so their roommates show up to
the wrong class - or not at all. Some practical jokes are
kept up the whole day before the victim realizes what day
it is. Most April Fool jokes are in good fun and not meant
to harm anyone. The most clever April Fool joke is the one
where everyone laughs, especially the person upon whom the
joke is played.
"The first of April is the day we remember what we are the
other 364 days of the year. " - American humorist Mark
Twain
From the web site of the Embassy of the United States of
America,Stockholm, Sweden.
Of Interest:
*** About the April Fools Microprocessor Watch
April Fools Microprocessor Watch is a free weekly
newsletter dedicated to silliness in microprocessors and
system architecture for PCs, workstations, and servers.
Microprocessor Watch is published once a year by Cahners
MicroDesign
Resources, publishers of Microprocessor Report and Embedded
Processor Watch, and organizers of Microprocessor Forum and
Embedded Processor Forum. Visit us at
mdronline.com.
Microprocessor Report, our subscription newsletter,
provides much more detailed and serious articles on the subjects covered
in Microprocessor Watch. (For example, a new microprocessor
will typically be made fun of in a few paragraphs in
Microprocessor Watch but in a four-to-six page real article
in Microprocessor Report.) For subscription information,
see mdronline.com.
If you are interested in embedded processors, subscribe to
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