Path: utzoo!attcan!ncrcan!scocan!seanf
From: seanf@sco.COM (Sean Fagan)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: 386 chip "hangs" when in protected mode and 387 in place SC
Message-ID: <1990Aug16.035025.7938@sco.COM>
Date: 16 Aug 90 07:50:25 GMT
References: <504@lafayet.UUCP> <32775@cup.portal.com> <1990Aug14.155339@gauss.llnl.gov>
Reply-To: seanf@sco.COM (Sean Fagan)
Distribution: na
Organization: The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
Lines: 25

In article <1990Aug14.155339@gauss.llnl.gov> casey@gauss.llnl.gov (Casey Leedom) writes:
>  Why should anyone pay to get a replacement for a defective chip?  The
>buggy chips don't operate as advertised.  If Intel refuses to replace the
>them free of charge, it strikes me that they're liable to get sued on grounds
>of fraud ...  At the very least they'll generate some very bad customer
>feelings.

What makes you think Intel cares about what the individual users think?
(No, I don't know that they do or do not care.  Actually, they probably do,
at least a little bit.  But replacing all of the chips would have meant a
*lot* of money...)

Intel did not advertise the non-double-sigma chip as capable of running in
32-bit mode.  It was sold, supposedly, to get people used to the '386 in
general (design machines around it, etc.).

And Intel *did* replace a fair number of the chips, I believe.  But not all
of them.  (Unfortunately, I forget what the exact conditions were, but they
did seem at least moderately reasonable.)

-- 
Sean Eric Fagan  | "let's face it, finding yourself dead is one 
seanf@sco.COM    |   of life's more difficult moments."
uunet!sco!seanf  |   -- Mark Leeper, reviewing _Ghost_
(408) 458-1422   | Any opinions expressed are my own, not my employers'.