[geeks] Interesting ATI/AMD news

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

On Sat, 29 Jul 2006, Phil Brutsche wrote:

>> a green one with a VIA chip (667 mHz (really 666, but due to the
>> religeous nature of the owner, rounded up)
>
> I don't think the religious nature of VIA's owner was a factor, I
> think most people would have a problem with buying a machine that says
> "666" on it - recall that Intel made a P3 @ 667 MHz but the multiplier
> and bus speed came out to be ~666 MHz ;)

Motorola did the same thing with the PowerPC G4 of that speed.  It might
have a whole lot less to do with religion and public politics and a
whole lot more with 666.66666666666... rounding up to 667.  Intel does
the same thing with the 1.67GHz Core Duo for the same reason, and the G4
in my laptop is marked as a 1.67GHz part[0], too.

I'm pretty sure the original PCI bus clock was 33.3333333...MHz, too,
but I don't know why people didn't round up the clock-doubled parts of
the day to "67MHz".

In all actuality, though, it was probably a series of interference
bursts from BPL causing that bit to flip in all the master electronic
copies of the marketing documentation (ie: Google's fault).


[0] Uninteresting side note: I've owned both a 667MHz PowerBook G4 and a
     1.67GHz PowerBook G4, so those silly fundies have oversold me 11MHz
     over the years.  Does that mean I get to withdraw from the
     collection plate the next time I attend church, rather than donate?
-- 
Jonathan Patschke    )   "A man who never dreams goes slowly mad."
Elgin, TX           (      --Thomas Dolby, "Valley of the Mind's Eye"