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From: rogerhef@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Roger Heflin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: 486SX - Intel now telling lies
Message-ID: <1991May31.034938.21083@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu>
Date: 31 May 91 03:49:38 GMT
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In <1991May30.164751.16585@thyme.jpl.nasa.gov> kaleb@thyme.jpl.nasa.gov (Kaleb Keithley) writes:

>Well, Intel certainly isn't advertising that this is what they're doing!
>If anything, they're doing just the opposite.  Obviously it doesn't make
>sense to disable a perfectly good FPU.  Does disabling a bad FPU make
>sense either?

>Whether the FPU is good or not, Intel is saying that the chip can be made,
>and sold at a profit for $250.  It costs *them* the same to produce, per unit,
>whether the FPU passes QC or not.  Up to now, buyers of full-up i486s have 
>been carrying the cost of the failed units in the price of the good units.  
>Is Intel going to reduce the price of good units now that bad units can 
>be unloaded in the bargain basement?  Are they going to give me a refund 
>on the i486 I already bought?  Of course they're not, on both counts.

>As for blanket statements like "...some people have no use for one..."  
>This is patently false.  Fifteen years ago, people said the same thing 
>about a personal/home/desktop computer!  Ten years ago, they said it about 
>hard disk drives and GUIs.  (Keep in mind that we're talking micro-processors
>here, not mini or main frame computers.) Five years ago they said it about...  
>Well, I think you get the point.

>From a purely economic standpoint, everyone should have a FPU, but everyone 
>won't *until* the marginal utility of having one is greater than the cost of 
>aquiring one.  Said another way, they won't get one until it starts costing
>them money by not having it.  If FPUs were $5, there'd be no reason not to 
>have one; even to do word processing.  Don't think that GUI, WYSIWYG, or
>even conventional word processors can't or won't benefit from a FPU.  

>The above are my opinions alone, and do not reflect those of my employer.

The CPU costs them almost nothing to manufacture.  There are trying to 
rucpu massive design costs, think about how much work was required to 
design such a chip  20-100 engineers for 1-2 man-years each.  Several millions
of dollars.  They are like all business their objective is price it as high
as possible and recup their design costs as fast as possible.   THey can't say
The chip cost me $20 to make, and the design cost 100million, so I will sell
it for $40.  Assuming this they would have to sell 5million parts to recup
their design costs.  The production costs are a trivial part of the cost. 
The design it were the real expense it, and that is what the price is based on,
they can disalbe the bad FPU and sell them at any price, but they prefer to
put the price as high as possible to recup the design costs as fast as 
possible, since they can never know when their chip will become obselete.
Selling the bad FPU's makes them recup their design costs faster and that
is their goal.


D
D
set the price as high as possible to minimize there time to recupe their costs
--
Rogerhef@Matt.ksu.ksu.edu                        Roger Heflin
                                                 EECE Grad Student
                                                 (913) 532-5600