By Omid Rahmat
It teased us, and it seduced us, but Intel doesn't go all the way until it is really ready. We're going to have to wait until the spring to get intimate with the Intel740, and the anticipation is driving us stir crazy.
It was the first week of August. A really, really slow news week for us. At SIGGRAPH, however, we had a brief moment of exhilaration. It was our exclusive first sighting of what we thought would be called the i740, the Intel graphics architecture, and a possible watershed in the PC graphics business. Something we hadn't seen happen for over a decade.
The demonstration was not spectacular. We did feel, though, like a part of the vision of Intel's graphics future fell into our laps that day, and it sat there comfortably, almost soothingly. Yet, Intel's modesty, and the thought of its elephantine business stomping through the graphics world made us think that the company might just lumber instead of storm its way through the graphics industry.
It was such a tease, and although we were slightly aroused, we still had control. We still thought that the i740, as we called it in those days, was going to face nimbler, speedier and more agile competition from the real graphics chip vendors. The guys who we like to think of as being down and dirty.
Then at COMDEX Intel ushered us into a private booth. Whereas before they teased, this time they seduced. This was no longer the young, little i740, but an almost fully matured Intel740. We were as enthusiastic as a Vegas showgirl at a sequin convention. We just can't tell you why. Don't beg. Just watch the skies. Something wonderful is going to happen. The graphics industry is about to be injected with some Bunny Fever. You can forget your morose, self-absorbed modern ballads, and turn the dial up on the disco beat of the Intel boom box. That is if you still have a dial and you're gauche enough to pack a boom box.
Nevertheless, the Intel740 is going to rock our world, or groove us on down, or give us the beat, or some such idiom. The Intel740 is cool, baby. We just can't tell you why. It's better than we expected. We just can't tell you why until our embargo is removed next year. So, if we tell you that we really like it, even though we thought we wouldn't like that much about it, it doesn't matter right now, because we're not really telling you anything, and we never had this conversation.
Then again, perhaps we can tell you that we like what we saw even though you don't know what we saw, and by the time we can tell you what it was that we saw, it probably won't be what you will see. Heavens to Betsy, can you feel our constipated enthusiasm swell?
We can tell you that Brian Ekiss and Jay Sturges, who presented the thing that we can't talk about, are a delightful pair who make us feel good about the graphics business again. They're enthusiastic, like some of the old chip guys used to be before IPO fever set in and everyone was out to make a name for themselves as quickly as they could. Who'd have thought that the Intel elephant would bring a tear to our eye?
Would we have said that Intel was a force to be reckoned with in the graphics industry a few months ago? Certainly, but we thought them lacking the will. Would we have expected them to be where they are today? No, we wouldn't, and for that we must apologize. Wish we could tell you why, but we're playing by Intel's rules, and that's going to be the way for all of us. But, that isn't a bad thing. Nope, it isn't a bad thing at all.
After all, Intel is a pretty good chip maker, and we are talking about graphics chips here.
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