TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Re: The Pentium 90 Chip From:Steve Fouts <sfouts -at- ELLISON -dot- SC -dot- TI -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 1 Dec 1994 11:07:19 CST
|} I'll be graduating in May with BS in Communication/Technical. The job
|} prospect isn't that great in this area of Florida, so I may find myself
|} contracting. I want to be able to offer potential employers the layout
|} and design and multimedia development in addition to writing.
|}
|} I placed an order with Gateway for a Pentium 90 system with many
|} goodies (16 meg RAM, 17" screen, PCI bus, high end VRam video card,
|} 4X spin CD Rom). I ordered the Pentium even though there has been
|} much adverse publicity because a very knowledable friend of mine said
|} that the main problem Intel has is with the lower Pentiums, and there
|} haven't been problems with the 90s.
The problem, as I understand it, is that the FDIV (Floating-Point Division)
algorithm is flawed. Understand that any digital processor does mathematics
in binary, then relies on a highly complex algorithm to convert the
floating-point binary number to a floating-point decimal number. It is
impossible to completely verify the accuracy of all of these calculations,
(there are in excess of 10**18 possible separate calculations)
and it is probable that EVERY algorithm ever invented for this purpose
is flawed to a greater or lesser extent.
Unless your work depends on A) EXTREMELY precise calculations or B)
Huge numbers of cascading floating-point ops you would probably never
know that there was a problem. If you don't rely on A or B, and it
doesn't appear that you do, then enjoy your new machine.
_______________ _____
/ ___ __/__\ \ / / _\ Steve Fouts
/___ \| | ___\ | / __\ sfouts -at- ellison -dot- sc -dot- ti -dot- com
/ / \ | \ / \
/_______/__|_______\_/________\ "She understood, as he did, that all writing
was infernally boring and futile, but that it had to be done out of respect
for tradition" --Stanislaw Lem
