Re-Pentium, you Intel sinners

I'd suggest that they use this rare opportunity play off the duplication and put new life in their naming scheme by calling it the "Repentium."

Seriously, it's getting ridiculous. Come up with a new name already.

Nick Matteo

Opteron memory optimism
"ECC, Registered DRAM was required for the FX platform and, since no other (major) platform on the earth requires it, nobody bothers making it (and apparently AMD didn't bother telling Biostar. Surely it wouldn't have been hard?"

This seems like great news for end users. Just look at all the people (inluding myself) which are struggling with memory issues, especially in the intel 865.

CPU vendors requiring ECC memory will mean much lower prices on motherboards and memory that supports this, and even better performing ECC memory.

I think this is the coolest news I've seen from AMD in a long time. And the moment, I'm not even considering AMD for corporate use. Normal desktop boards from Intel is equally difficult to deal with lately due to all the memory problems.

The possibility of low cost product with ECC support from AMD most certainly make it very appealing for low cost server products.

Terje

HP jet ownership totally justified
I flew on one or two of the hp jets, about 20 years ago, and I can attest to a few reasons that justify large corporations owning or leasing jets...

When you land, you land not at the commercial aviation terminal, with its lines, gate delays, security lines, etc. [not that those existed in '83, but there were lines at the ticket counters...], but at the general aviation hangars.

You get off the plane and someone from hp has brought your rental car to the gate and you put your luggage in the car [or they do], and after they explain how to get off the airfield and onto the interstate, you're on your way.

When you leave, it's the opposite. luggage into the plane, get on, leave. someone else gets rid of the rental car, and it takes a few seconds to check your name off the passenger list after you show your ID.

Commercial aviation can't come near this, and i wouldn't wish any executive for any large company the extra delays and discomfort of flying commercial aircraft!

It's just really lousy timing for hp, since so many thousands of hp employees have been "Carly'd", as i call it, in the past years, and now everyone's going to b***h about them paying scarce loot for airplanes. they'll have to bite that bullet on their own. I can't, won't help them with it.

I worked for them for just about 24 years, and for the most part, my ideas were not accepted. not because they were not good ideas, but because someone "higher up the food chain" thought their ideas were better. from my direct managers all the way up to Carly. So I know of what I speak.

I don't know, however, of any company that ever downsized itself to success. We always talked about hp being a future HBR case study, and not a positive one. If CF succeeds, it should deserve a case study in HBR, but that's not where my money is.

Cheers
Name, email supplied

On Compaq laptops, MS updates and the like
I bought a nice Compaq laptop late last year but hardly used it. (a Compaq something, Athlon 1800+, 15", 30 gig HD, etc. -- not particularly fancy or anything).

I used it when power was out during a recent hurricane visit here (Alexandria, VA, USA) when my power was out for two days.

Last night I decided that I better take the laptop to windowsupdate.com and see what it needed. On the first pass it needed 43 Mb of updates, but the very first patch was different and had to be installed alone. The first patch was a 2 Meg download that proceeded to download 30 more megs of stuff!

So that was from about 9:30 to midnight on my dial-up. Then I went back to windowsupdate and it said I needed to download 38 more megs of stuff. I decided not to do that right away.

I read about how before someone finished downloading their updates, a worm infected their system. At about 4.3 mins per meg, it will take me at minimum nearly three hours to download my updates. This is probably enough time for the latest bug to byte.

Anyhow, I just wanted to share that.

BTW, could not get the inquirer.net site for a few hours last night, I hope SCO has not instituted a DDOS attack against you guys.

Gabe Sorzano

[No, it was a router problem, Ed.]

On Intel, on prices, on capitalism
Same old same old from Intel, but what's the point of "Aren't capitalism and fair market practices a boon for the free world?"

While the petty tantrums Intel throws are certainly underhanded and anti-competitive, I don't see how you can go from Intel applying pressure to some small manufacturer to pull a product from a trade show booth to an (implied) indictment on the capitalist system.

I know that writing in support of capitalism might mark me as a "fascist," but you would think that The Inq of all places would understand how capitalism and free markets have benefited consumers. (Let's put aside the techno-utopia that was the USSR's state-run utopia and focus on the West.)

A quick example: You have a story on your front page giving the price of the new P4EE at a price of $600. I remember a few years ago before AMD was able to compete with Intel, I also remember that I would have laughed in your face if you had told me that Intel was going to release it's top-end CPU for only $600.

Everywhere you look in the PC world where there's competition, you see prices falling.

If we weren't in a capitalist system, what incentive would companies have to speed product cycles? We'd still be running win95 kernel machines on PII-300s. Sure capitalism can be a cut-throat game. But it's dangerous for companies that can't compete, not the consumer.

Name supplied

AMD gets lucky in Bharatavarsh
Dear Mike,

I am Harshal, from Mumbai, India. It's been very long since I mailed you (that time I had a problem, this time Intel may have a problem). But I read the news in Local News Paper (www.timesofindia.com) about AMD getting really Lucky in India at its 64 launch on Friday, as as many as three System Integrators have chosen to make system using Athlon 64.

The only missing element as of now is a suitable Windows version. But anyways users in India can have much better chioce with Athlon 64 from well known system integrators.

The names of these SIs are as follows: 1, HCL Infosystems 2, Wipro and, 3, Zenith

Now we don't have to wait for local dealers to start selling Athlon 64 at Sky-High rates and worry about the memory and coolers. I am a very delighted AMD Fan.

Harshal

And it's a hard drive, that's gonna fail
I have had two hard drives in less than a year from Dell. The second one is better than the first total malfunction. However, the second one has many faults. A Dell product.

I have been told that Dell is the best. I wonder what is the worst.

The author of your title letter went through hell. The letter was like reading a script of my experiences with Dell. First, I was told there was no problem. Just me. After a couple of months of my persistence, they finally ran a deep diagnostic search and discovered they the original hard drive was defective. Dell's acknowledgement of the fault in the original hard drive took approx. thirty hours or more of my time. Dell could not have made too much money with this transaction. If it took more than thirty hours of my time, it also took hours of Dell's time. The original hard drive was replaced with a rebuilt hard drive. God knows, that is why I paid them $2,500.00. Just what I needed, a second faulty hard drive. What more could I ask for!

I think this all amounts to attrition. However, in spite of my frustration and exhaustion, I will confront Dell and Lexmark again. I offered to give each of them their undamaged product in return for a total refund of my money. They declined. I have no doubt that I am about to engage in a multi hour, month and year confrontation with Dell ,and Lexmark. (again) The PC and Lexmark printer seem to have formed an exclusive communication between themselves. I cannot even override the systems. So, I am already confronting Dell and Lexmark again. I will get my money's worth one way or the other. Dell is my first, familiar adversary.

It is humorous in a way. I blame them. And, them blame me and each other. All the while, I paid good money. What I have is a faulty system and frustration. There would be no blame if they provided value. A quality product would be good.

I have gone through the same things that the writer has gone through with Dell. I will go after Dell and Lexmark until I receive a excellent product, or until I put them out of business. I don't care which comes first. Out of business would be my preference.

I know this letter was not documented. I accidentally found you on the web. If you need documentation, I can certainly put it together.

Thanks,

Sharon Conn

PS. I am back again.

When I discovered your site, I read the letter in short hand.

I have just read Letterman, August 2003 in detail. It is interesting that at least two individuals essentially the same time frame when going through the same hell with Dell.

Unfortunately, I am about to go through the same gd hell again. I am not a business and cannot write these things off. I am a person who dumped money into Dell's pocket. I am determined to get quality performance from the product. The quality may never happen. But, I will pursue the problem of quality products with Dell until hell freezes over, or however long it takes.

If consumers have a thing with Dell, and you have emails of significance regarding Dell products and service, why not send them to Michael Dell. Let him know that you are upfront and that there is a problem with his corporation. Let him know that there are angry Dell customers out here and his corporation will not stand alone. Obviously, it will not stand without consumers.

It was a real pleasure to discover your site.

On stackable CPU modules
Mike,

This stack able module idea had me pretty bamboozled, but I 'think' I may have figured out what Intel is up to with it.

Everybody and their brother is convinced that Intel has x86-64 waiting in the wings despite the fact (to the best of my knowledge) that Intel has made no official statement they will offer it.

My thinking is, that although Intel could well implement the pure AMD64 64-bit (long) mode 'somewhat' easily, it's the Athlon 64's ability to operate across the different modes that Intel would have a real problem with. I've felt this all along.

'Assuming' the above, I suspect that this stackable module is essentially an AMD64 'adapter' to their own x86-64 instruction set. I can see how this would be easier to implement than changing their Tejas core. Sorta like Microsoft's WOW for 32-bit programs running on Windows AMD64, only done in hardware.

It would also leave the door open to get Microsoft to support their own standard.

Btw: When I say easier, I don't mean easy.

Name supplied

AMD has hit two walls -- die size and clocking. They may be unable to fix either until H2 2004 (with 90nm). Meanwhile, Intel may have hit a wall for clocking, but can still increase L2 and L3 cache sizes between now and H2 2004. Where does that leave AMD? Well, they need IBM's SOI technology and they also need to develop 90nm with IBM as soon as possible.

Take care

Name supplied