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Comment by kens | Hacker News Reader

Author here for your obscure Pentium questions...

I laughed at the bit where the gallery picked the wrong side of the rug to display, but this got me thinking -- presumably all the die photos we see are from the etched side of the wafer, what does it look like on the other side? Is it just all flat?

The other side is plain gray silicon; I've looked at the back side of dies by mistake many times. (Intel is starting to do power through the back side, which would make the back more interesting.)

Note that it's entirely transparent to some wavelengths of light, which is why a lot of die shots are taken from the backside, as it allows doing them non-destructively. You just cannot use visible light.

Unfortunately it's not that easy. I was working with John McMaster to get backside die shots of the 386 using infrared but it didn't work out.

"Such hearts, such brains, would be unable to comprehend that one's attachment to a masterpiece may be utterly overwhelming, especially when it is the underside of the weave that entrances the beholder and only begetter, whose own past intercoils there with the fate of the innocent author." --- Nabokov, "Pale Fire"

Just moved back to ABQ from Shiprock last month, after 8 years. Not every day you see Shiprock featured in an HN post!

Not every day I see a place on the Colorado Plateau in an HN post! I live in the SF Bay Area but am from Flagstaff!

As a hobby hand-spinner and occasional weaver who’s been in IT my entire working life, and interested in learning more about what my home country has done to the nations that were already there, this article is excellent in all regards.

Not a pentium question, but..

> Due to the end of the Cold War, Hughes acquired General Dynamics' missile business in 1991 before being acquired by General Motors in 1985 and sold to Raytheon in 1997.

I'm guessing that's supposed to be 91 -> 95 -> 97?

Trying to sort out aerospace companies is always a mess. I got the dates mostly right but reversed the timeline. GM acquired Hughes Aircraft in 1985, forming the Hughes Electronics unit which consisted of Hughes Aircraft and Delco Electronics. Hughes Aircraft acquired General Dynamics' missile business in 1992 to form the Hughes Missile System Company. In 1994, Hughes Electronics combined three operations into the Hughes Aerospace and Electronics Company (still a unit of GM). In 1997, Raytheon acquired the military business of Hughes Electronics Corporation from General Motors for $9.5 billion. At least I think that's what happened :-)

Excellent article. I know Shiprock but I didn’t know it’s history with manufacturing processors. Thank you for writing it.

I get the feeling Intel needed to "bribe" the Navajo by ordering this work. Why did they need to do that? Was it part of an agreement with tribe leadership?

I think it's more likely that someone at Intel thought, "You know what would be cool? A rug that looked like the Pentium die." Note that unlike Fairchild, Intel's plant is not on Navajo land so there are no tribal agreements.

It's actually quite common for large companies to commission artworks inspired by their products; American companies frequently reach out to tribal artists for the uniqueness of their artistic style. Your comment is pretty depressing -- despite the clear mastery demonstrated in this art, you're insinuating a nefarious plot involving a long-scapegoated population.

That was a very interesting and well researched article. Thank you.

I had a dual Pentium II board (made by Tyan, with an Adaptec Raid Option slot) but I don't recall ever seeing a dual P54C board. Did a mainstream motherboard maker ever release one, to your knowledge?

there was tyan, supermicro, and MSI? at least

i thin my board with the dual pentium 60mhz chips was msi.

Pentium 60MHz was P5 though, not P54C ... if I'm not mistaken. IIRC the slowest P54C was the 75MHz one as they all had 1.5x multiplier or greater? Again, I wouldn't rule out my memory being wrong.

That sounds correct to me. Also, the P5 was a 5V design! Intel went to 3.3V soon after the very first Pentium CPUs.

You can find multiple of them here, with pictures too: https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/?page=1&itemsPerPage=24...

Well done.

Thanks! Curiously, the article doesn't show up on HN. Maybe my domain got banned or something?

I just saw it on the frontpage and very much enjoyed it.

Check if you accidentally clicked "hide"... (hidden posts in your profile)

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