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Filling in Web forms (like the one used to submit this tip) can be a bit of a gamble - you put in your pearls of wisdom, perhaps only to lose them all if the Web page flakes out or the browser crashes. Instead of losing all your text, "save" it by pressing Command-A to select all and then Command-C to copy the selected text to the clipboard. Do this periodically as you type and before you click Submit, and you may "save" yourself from a lot of frustration. It takes just a second to do, and the first time you need to rely on it to paste back in lost text, you'll feel smart.


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Published in TidBITS 255.
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05 Dec 1994 | Print Printer-Friendly Version of This Article

Pentium Bugs, Part II

by Geoff Duncan Send Email to Author

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Pentium Bugs, Part II -- Following up on the Pentium division bug reported in TidBITS-253, Intel has confirmed that the math error can occur in single, double, and extended precision divides and potentially impact the precision of results from the 4th to the 19th significant digit. Intel maintains that the bug will not affect most Pentium users, and that, statistically, the bug is not likely to occur in hundreds (or even thousands) of years of normal use. However, engineers, scientists, researchers, and other power users remain concerned about the bug, and reports have circulated in the mainstream media. Intel pledges to work with users of applications involving intensive floating point calculations and, if necessary, replace their chips. In the meantime, intensive discussion of the bug continues to take place in the newsgroup <comp.sys.intel> and a FAQ is available (in DOS ASCII format) at:

ftp://www.isi.edu/pub/carlton/pentium/FAQ

On a related note, a new bug has surfaced in write-back and write-through caches of the 100 MHz version of Intel's Pentium chip (P100). The bug prevents multithreading from functioning at all on operating systems capable of supporting it (Windows NT, OS/2, and Unix, among others). Although it's possible to disable those caches, this results in a 30 percent performance reduction. The bug does not occur on lower-clock speed versions of the Pentium. Intel claims it has fixed the problem and is shipping correct versions of the P100. [GD]

Intel Technical support -- 800/628-8686 (US)
916/365-3551 (International) -- 44 (0) 793 696776 (Europe)
Information from:
InfoWorld -- 28-Nov-94, Vol. 16, #48

 

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