PC Week to publish independent testing results of Intel Pentium processor flaws.MEDFORD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 16, 1994--PC Week, the leading IS newsweekly news·week·ly n. pl. news·week·lies A weekly newsmagazine or newspaper that reports current events. and PC Magazine, the largest computer publication (both published by Ziff-Davis Publishing Co.), today announced they will publish independent testing results of Intel's (NASDAQ NASDAQ in full National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations U.S. market for over-the-counter securities. Established in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), NASDAQ is an automated quotation system that reports on :INTC INTC Intel (NASDAQ symbol) INTC Intercept INTC Interrupt Controller ) Pentium processor. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. technical tests conducted by testing laboratories at both magazines, the ramifications ramifications npl → Auswirkungen pl of the errors found in Intel's Pentium processor are more significant than Intel has claimed; while the severity of the damage caused by the errors is less significant than IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange :IBM) has reported. The Findings The tests conducted by both magazines concluded that errors can occur on the order of every two months to ten years when floating-point divide (FDIV FDIV Floating Point Division FDIV Floating Point Divide FDIV Fractional Divide ) is invoked. "At PC Week's Lab, we tested the Pentium chip on a wide range of architectures using many different operating systems Operating systems can be categorized by technology, ownership, licensing, working state, usage, and by many other characteristics. In practice, many of these groupings may overlap. found that claims made by both Intel and IBM did not accurately portray real usage behavior," said Peter Coffee, advanced technologies analyst for PC Week. Intel claims that an error will occur only every 27,000 years while IBM claims that the typical spreadsheet user could incur an error every 24 days. Such errors are far below the level of accuracy assumed in most business decision making and will rarely appear, even in dollars-and-cents calculations working with large sums in the millions or billions. However, the degree of risk is dependent on how much a user makes calculations that require floating point division. "As a result of a flaw in the Pentium chip, engineers and scientists will probably find the level of possible errors unacceptable, as will most people using a spreadsheet for complex financial calculations," said Peter Coffee. "Most good financial software products will not use the floating point function, and calculations won't be affected, but users are going to have to talk to their software providers to know them for sure," he added. "These test results indicate that there is real reason for business users to consider carefully their Pentium application use," said Dan Farber, editor-in-chief of PC Week. "If they are not doing work that will be affected by the error, then they will never experience it and can save themselves a lot of expense and trouble. If they are in a 'high risk' group, they need to take Intel up on its offer to replace the chip." "This problem leaves the industry with no winners and too many losers," said Michael Miller Michael or Mike Miller may refer to:
PC Week Labs and PC Magazine Labs are Ziff-Davis publications and part of a worldwide lab group of nine Ziff Davis Ziff Davis Inc. (ZD) is an American magazine publisher and Internet Information company. It was founded in 1927 in Chicago by William B. Ziff, Sr. and Bernard G. Davis. Throughout most of its history, it was a publisher of hobbyist magazines, often ones devoted to expensive, Labs. A white paper detailing PC Week's findings, testing procedures, executable and source code and a Q&A produced by PC Magazine, PC Magazine UK and PC Week on the Pentium chip is now available on ZiffNet in the PC Week Forum (GO PCWEEK), Library 2, Labs/Netweek or via the Internet at PC Week's World Wide Web site at http://www.ziff.com/-pcweek. Hard copies will be made available to interested parties through inquiry by dialing Cathy Cantwell at 617/393-3753. PC Magazine is the largest computer publication with a circulation of more than one million. Headquartered in Medford, Mass., PC WEEK is the leading IS newsweekly and is published by Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. PC WEEK reaches a controlled subscriber base that includes more than 260,000 qualified buyers. PC WEEK is the computer industry's leading publisher of demographic editions, with a system of newspapers that extends the coverage of PC WEEK to meet the specific information needs of targeted subscriber groups. PC WEEK's system of newspapers includes PC WEEK/Inside, edited for qualified computer industry professionals engaged in marketing and manufacturing; PC WEEK Netweek, edited for volume buyers of networking product; as well as the UNIX UNIX Operating system for digital computers, developed by Ken Thompson of Bell Laboratories in 1969. It was initially designed for a single user (the name was a pun on the earlier operating system Multics). , Reseller and Application Development demographic advertising sections. CONTACT: FitzGerald Communications
Jennifer Costello, 617/494-9500
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PC Week
Cathy Cantwell, 617/393-3753
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