...Below is a free excerpt of "Nt1110 Unit 5 Analysis 1" from Anti Essays, your source for free research papers, essays, and term paper examples. NT1110 Unit 5 Analysis 1: Pentium Flaw The Pentium flaw began to be noticed on a public level in 1994. This was a huge flaw considering that the Pentium processor was used in 80% of the personal computers worldwide. The microprocessor is the heart of the computer and controls all of the operations and calculations that take place. “Flaws are not uncommon in complicated integrated circuits and most of them go unnoticed by the user” (Fleddermann, 2004). However, the Pentium flaw was very different. It caused incorrect answers when preforming double-precision arithmetic and was easily detected by the users. The first time that it was noticed, was by a university researcher. He noticed that the results of some of his calculations were incorrect. They began to do test on whether or not the microprocessor was flawed. “Using spreadsheet software, the user was able to take the number 4,195,835, multiply it by 3,145,727, and then divide that result by 3,145,727. As we all know from elementary math, when a number is multiplied and then divided by the same number, the result should be the original number. In this example, the result should be 4,195,835. However with the flaw, the result of the calculation was 4,195,579” (Crothers, 1994). Intel originally denied that there was even a flaw. Only after it become clear to the public that there...
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...Ariel Torrente NT1110 Unit 5 Analysis Pentium Flaw Ariel Torrente NT1110 Unit 5 Analysis 7/27/2013 Pentium Flaw The Pentium flaw also nicknamed the Pentium FDIV bug, was an identified error in the Intel P5 Pentium floating unit. The presence of the bug can be checked manually by performing the following application that uses native floating numbers, including Windows Calculator or Microsoft Excel in Windows 95/98 (Pentium FDIV bug). The Pentium flaw was discovered byProfessor Thomas R.Nicely at Lynchburg Collwge,Virginia USA (Emery, Vince). Dr.Thomas R Nicely is a mathematic professor, noticed a small difference in two sets of numbers, he always double-checks his work by computing everything twice, two different ways (Emery, Vince). Dr.Nicely spent months successively eliminating possible causes such as PCI bus errors and compiler artifacts (Emery, Vince). Intel wanted to keep to keep the Pentium flaw a secret, after Intel testers discovered a division error in the Pentium chip (Emery, Vince). Intel managers decided that the error wouldn’t affect many people, therefore no one outside of the company was not informed (Emery, Vince). The pandemonium over Intel’s Pentium chip cost the company millions of dollars and could have been prevented and became an uproar on the internet (Emery, Vince). This was Intel’s first mistake and the company was given a reputation that made Intel not a trustworthy company and not disclosing that information made them seem to be hiding a...
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...In June, 1994 the media came out with a story that one of Intel’s Pentium microprocessors had a floating point unit flaw (FPU). This flaw had to do with a math calculation that gave out wrong number after you put in an equation. The story about this flaw came to light after Professor by the name of Thomas Nicely, who was a mathematics professor at Lynchburg collage. Nicely was trying to compute the sum of a reciprocal of a large group of prime numbers on his Pentium based computer. When he checked the results they were different by a large amount from the theoretical values. By running the same test program on a different computer with a 486CPU, he came up with the right numbers this lead him to be able to track down the error to the Pentium itself. After finding the problem Nicely send out an email to Intel describing the problem that he had come across in his test. The email stated that there was a flaw in the Pentium floating point unit (FPU). With no response back from Intel Nicely posted a general notice on the internet asking people to confirm his findings. When the media got wind of this story Nicely did some magazine and T.V interviews about what his test resolute showed him. The flaw in the Pentium flaw was not an isolated incident the flaw was quickly verified by other people around the world in the scientific community, which became referred to as the Pentium FDIV bug. When the story first broke Intel’s initial response was to deny that there was a kind of a problem...
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...Tiffany M Shamlee Unit 5 Analysis 1 NT1110 Pentium Flaw The Pentium flaw was discovered where the division result returned by the Pentium microprocessor was off by about sixty-one parts per million. When Intel discovered the flaw, their solution was to keep the information within the company. They did not want to disclose any of the information to the public, because of the negative publicity it would bring to the company. The flaw did not affect all microprocessors, only a very small number of customers. I feel that Intel should have openly acknowledged the problem despite the small number of customers affected. Intel determined if customers were affected by the flaw when they called in to report a problem. They did this by inputting a certain code into their system. Once they identified the problem, Intel would then implement a solution. However, if feel if Intel had openly accepted and informed the clients about the issue, it would have most likely saved them money. Their reputation between the company and their existing clients would have also been protected. Intel’s decision and way of handling the flaw caused a lot of their customers to be very unhappy. If this type of flaw was to be found in a new CPU today, the company would surely fail. With a problem in the floating-point math subsection with an error of approximately sixty-one parts per million, this would cause too many problems for the clients today. Especially considering that Intel declined...
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...Mr. Valeras-NT1110 Friday, April 18, 2014 Unit 5 Analysis 1: Pentium Flaw Pentium purpose and functions was that it was a microprocessor in the CPU and the chip included a floating point unit FPU also known as a math coprocessor. Unlike the old Intel CPUs that did arithmetic using integers, this was a program that used floating point number. The Pentium chips have the instructions built into the chip which was in the FPUs. It made the Pentium must faster for intense numerical calculations. It’s was more complex and was more expensive than the others. Only to discover a problem with Pentium was that it was incorrectly dividing certain floating point numbers. Fall of 1994, Intel Pentium had a major flaw in there system and was discovered by a professor at Lynchburg College. Thomas Nicely, a math professor discovered a flaw on Intel’s Pentium when he was computing the sum of a reciprocal of a large collection of prime numbers. He checked his computations and discovered his results differ from his theoretical values. He then got correct answers when he ran the same program on a computer with a 486 CPU. There is when he realized an error in the Pentium. Thomas did not receive any responds from Intel only after he posted a general notice on the Internet asking for others to confirm his findings. That’s when Magazine and CNN interviewed him. Intel publicly announced and I Quote ‘’an error is only to likely occur about once in nine billion random floating point divides”, and...
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...Marcos Corpas 1/18/2016 NT1110 Unit 5 Analysis 1: Pentium Flaw The Pentium processor flaw was a flaw in the floating-point math subsection of the Pentium microprocessor. When certain conditions were met low order bits of the result of floating-point division operations would be incorrect, an error that can quickly compound in floating-point operations to much larger errors in subsequent calculations. Intel corrected the problem in a future revision, but they refused to disclose it. The mathematics professor at Lynchburg College who discovered the flaw was Dr. Thomas Nicely. Dr. Nicely then had an inquiry with Intel and upon not receiving any response from them he posted about the flaw on October 30th 1994 online. Word quickly spread of the flaw and Intel responded by saying that the bug was minor and “not even an erratum”. Since the bug was easy to replicate by the average user, Intel's response about the bug was not accepted by many computer users. When New York Times Journalist John Markoff ran a piece that spotlighted the error, Intel in response to the media coverage changed its position on the matter and offered to replace every faulty chip. Intel put in place a large end-user support organization. This resulted in a five hundred million dollar charge against Intel's 1994 revenue. Interestingly enough, the attention paid to the Intel Pentium Processor Flaw made Intel go from a seemingly unknown computer supplier to a regular household name. The incident is considered by...
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