21st century chip firms seek your vote

ROLL UP, come on, come on in. Come and have your vote in the election.

Election?

Yeah, election. For the chip presidency, sir. All that prestige, all that power coursing through your AND gates. You gotta have a vote, sir. It's your right.

Who's up for office?

It's a two-man race. On the left we have your underdog, your AMD. Your one-fab wonder. And on your right the mighty Intel, king of all it surveys.

How do I vote?

You check the chips and make your selection. Of course, then you'll want to take your choice of technology home with you sir, so there will be a small charge for to pay for the manufacturing costs of the processor and a few incidentals.

Incidentals?

R&D, company jets, security, defence, profit - all normal stuff. Got to keep the cycle running, sir.

Not sure I want to vote…

Ah, its the law, sir. Moore's Law. It states that everyone will always have to buy new processors. Enshrined in law by President Lucy Clintonslovinski, of the Clinton Love-Child Foundation Party, just before the Bushinistas got back in under President Desiree
So, you have to vote for your chip, sir. You know we'll plug the winner into the central Hummer and it'll be in charge for four years. All those big decisions, we'll leave them to the chip. You know, war, peace, World Citizen of the Week.

Ah. So what's the difference between the chips?

One's got more bits, the other's got more bobs. They should both play Half-Life 24 - Freeman On Planet Babe pretty well though, sir. It's more of a lifestyle, ideology sort of choice, sir.

Ideology?

Why yeah. You're not just choosing a chip, you're voting for a whole different way of life. AMD is the underdog, and the underdog can have the force of the people with it. They could rattle Intel's perch. So Intel presents itself as mean, but fair. This is business son, and you gotta compete. And Intel says it just wants to sell more chips. That's why it came out with the Pentium12 Extremely Contrived Edition, sir. You know Intel sir, they're whiter-than-white, just a bunch of techies on top of the hill.

Techies?

Yes, sir. They don't make money for the hell of it, sir. They're just techies - interested in technology for its own sake. So, with Intel you're buying into the techie dream of a chip-filled world where humans can give up thinking.

Thinking?

Yeah, chips for everything, sir. Your own little bubble. Communicators, sensors for this, probes for that. Weather control, Adaptive Ambiant Interfaces, watching the streaming video of your life being downloaded from your hard disk, sir. Normal stuff.

And AMD?

Same thing sir, just usually a bit cheaper... µ