Rebirth of the Tech Madman

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The richest man is really busy on official business. He has just explained some secret things to the confidant of Tripp Hawkins, and Intel CEO Andy Grove found it as if he was "smelling" .

Tang Huan couldn't help being happy looking at the other party's fiery look. Gein roughly guessed why the Silicon Valley celebrity CEO came, and from this he thought of the "wintel" alliance that controlled the personal computer architecture in the original time and space. In terms of products, the "version 3.0" satire was arranged by the outside world. , That is, each generation of products has to go through a "trilogy" of repairs before they can be considered perfect.

Take the Microsoft that provides the operating system, the most representative example is windows_xp-the first version is not flattering; the service_pack_1 version is better; the service_pack_2 version has almost changed into a brand new operating system and is popular Even the next generation of windows_xp, windows_vista, ended dismal.

Intel, which provides CPUs, is not much better. Almost every new generation of new products has unsatisfactory features-since the original intel_80286 generation of processors, after entering the "protected mode" from the "real mode", it almost " The “soft” switch does not come back. In the recent Pentium generation, floating-point division error bugs occurred. It is estimated that only the philosopher software, which had to deal with the low-level details in order to develop the operating system, knows how much it is. Cheating.

In the second half of this year, Intel officially released a new generation of microprocessors-pentium_pro.

At the beginning, Tang Huan criticized it for not supporting the current flagship product, Pentium, the mmx instruction set specially designed for multimedia applications.

Now it seems that the problem is more than that.

Sure enough, Andy Grove quickly turned to the topic: "The laboratory of the Zheru R&D Center gave us feedback that the performance of pentium_pro was significantly reduced when processing 16-bit old programs. Phenomenon-I don't know if Philosophy Software can make up for it at the operating system level?"

The inertia of the computer application field in terms of compatibility is so strong. Although the personal computer industry led by Tang Huan has entered the 32-bit era, it has been about ten years, but there are still a lot of 16-bit software in operation, which is not a simple mobilization. "Upgrade now", people are willing to pay extra to upgrade all the products that are already working well.

This phenomenon is particularly prominent in the corporate market-compared to individual users who like to try early adopters, they even format the hard disk at both ends to reinstall all the software. Enterprises value stability-if the system runs well. , Don’t mess around with owed money, so as not to waste money and miss work and time.

Therefore, Intel had to pay attention to its own CPU, which was suddenly exposed to the problem of poor support for 16-bit programs. After all, once it was spread, it would damage the reputation that is not easy to establish-the last time the Pentium floating point division error was caused. The cost of product recalls of up to hundreds of millions of dollars is really painful.

Tang Huan raised his brows and said, "Why don't you go directly to Brad Svolberg, CEO of Philosophy Software, to communicate this specific issue?"

Andy Grove showed embarrassment on his face, "I found it. He said that this is an obvious product defect. Zheru Software is not worth wasting resources for a transitional cpu that does not support the mmx instruction set."

Tang Huan joked: "He is urging Intel to launch a new product that integrates a great deal as soon as possible."

Andy Grove smiled bitterly: "The product cycle does not mean that it can be crossed-Intel needs to adjust the time."

Brad Svolberg is a "princely official" and he is very busy. How could he be called casually for this little matter.

Tang Huan thought for a while, and felt that in some cases, he only listened to Andy Grove's words, but he didn't quite understand it.

Alas, this Intel’s largest individual shareholder is really not easy—Tang Huan, who made a secret complaint, picked up the phone and called Charles Simeone from the Zheru Group.

After the two Hungarian fellows got together, it was straightforward to talk.

"I think there is nothing wrong with the decision of Zheru Software." Charles Simeone said directly: "The poor support of pentium_pro for 16-bit applications is a product defect. Even though Zheru Software is struggling to find a remedy at the operating system level. The actual effect of the plan is not easy to evaluate. In particular, in two years, Intel will definitely avoid such mistakes in a new generation of products. The biggest significance of Zheru Software’s busyness is to provide cover for Intel."

Speaking of this, Charles Simeone relentlessly pointed to the core of the problem and said: "Andy, Intel's product route this time is incomprehensible. Why did it suddenly break the road?"

"You have to know that for a long time, Intel microprocessors have been the most difficult for users to give up, is the compatibility of new generation products with previous generation products."

"Perhaps, Intel’s intention is to allow pentium_pro to enter the enterprise market, but users, in accordance with the inertia of thinking that they have cultivated, first respond to pentium_pro as the next-generation successor to pentium. In this case, problems arise. That is, although pentium_pro has a p6 kernel that is more advanced than pentium's p5 kernel, it does not support the mmx instruction set-even our professional and technical personnel are puzzled. How will ordinary users react?"

Andy Grove weakly argued: "Pentium_pro is a newly designed cpu, which is completely different from the pentium architecture. The research and development of the two are not on the same route; as for the mmx function, it is based on the pentium. The addition of the new stepping kernel has increasingly formed a situation that is separated from each other-and after considering the development progress, reliability, cost and other factors, pentium_pro does not include the mmx instruction set. Anyway, pentium_pro is oriented towards The enterprise market is not sensitive to multimedia performance."

"You have made a strategic mistake-multimedia functions will only become standard, not dispensable with market differences! Take the spreadsheet software cgrid as an example, it can use mmx for floating-point operations Enhancement to improve execution efficiency." Charles Simeone judged in a positive tone: "I believe that no matter how hard Intel promotes, pentium_pro will soon be regarded by the public as a product with reduced functions. This is not a simple performance. Improvements can make up for it-of course, there is no need to waste precious time for a transitional product that is doomed to commercial failure!"

Andy Grove retorted unconvincingly: "But you overlooked that the performance of pentium_pro in integer arithmetic even exceeds some risc microprocessors. It also supports multi-processor architecture, at least in the field of workstations. It can even be used as a processor for supercomputers—California Institute of Technology is conducting research in this area."

Seeing that the argument between the two became more and more intense, Tang Huan interrupted, "Charles, what is the result of the performance test of pentium_pro in the laboratory?"

"The data is still pretty good." Charles Simeone replied in a slow tone: "Compared with pentium, when executing 32-bit programs, the performance of pentium_pro has increased by 25% to 35%."

Andy Grove took the words triumphantly: "This is in line with our data-while the p6 core performs so well, the energy consumption is also significantly reduced."

"But..." Charles Simeone continued: "When 16-bit programs are executed, the performance of pentium_pro is increased by only 5%; in addition, pentium_pro is 10% slower than pentium when writing to the video memory. As a result, when running the game, there will be frame skipping phenomenon-and other shortcomings, making pentium_pro unable to match its high purchase unit price of nearly 300 US dollars per thousand."

"In addition, the pentium_pro's floating-point unit has a small bug when converting floating-point numbers to integers-fortunately, this effect can indeed be regarded as minor."

Tang Huan pondered: "In this way, pentium_pro and consumer-grade personal computers are destined to miss; they can only be used in the corporate market."

"I have to say that Intel has spent much time in the process of cisc against risc." Charles Simeone exclaimed: "Pentium_pro has added three instructions that can convert the x86 family microprocessor cisc format into a 118-bit fixed length. Risc-style micro-operation decoder-one of the decoders can convert complex cisc instructions into 4 risc-style micro-operations; the other two decoders can respectively convert a relatively simple cisc instruction Into a risc-style micro-operation, forming an efficient '4+1+1' 3-way decoding pattern."

"Pentium_pro's instruction pipeline, from the 5th stage of the pentium, was suddenly increased to the 14th stage-this may cause the instruction queue to perform poorly when executing 16-bit programs."

"In the package of the processor, the pentium_pro integrates a secondary buffer that runs at the same frequency as the processor. As far as the current level of technology is concerned, the manufacturing difficulty is not small-the high price of the pentium_pro must be closely related to this."

As soon as Charles Simeone mentioned that the pentium_pro integrates a full-speed secondary buffer, Tang Huan remembered-but it was not, originally time and space in the Pentium 2 era, one of Intel’s main motivations for launching Celeron was for low-cost processing. Those Pentium 2 that failed the second-level buffer chip test.

Seeing Tang Huan’s gaze turned to him, Andy Grove shrugged, the key points were poured out by Charles Simeone in one breath. He was almost out of breath, so he could only bite the bullet and said: "New products When it was first launched, it required a process of adjustment and optimization. Pentium_pro will soon get better-now, it is the software that provides buffering at the operating system level."

Tang Huan nodded slightly, and he had roughly sorted out the clues in it.

Because the current Fangyuan personal computer is not completely controlled by Intel's x86 family of microprocessors on the CPU, when pentium_pro performs poorly, these executives under Tang Huan have the confidence to beat each other.

However, regardless of interest, Intel's position is still extremely important, and it cannot be dealt with too hard.

Tang Huan thought for a while, and then said: "Since pentium_pro is more suitable for running enterprise programs, try to optimize it in this area. Charles, you will be responsible for the coordination."

Then, Tang Huan solemnly said to Andy Grove: "This is just a stopgap measure. I suggest that Intel should gather all the advantages of pentium_pro and pentium as soon as possible and launch ~www.wuxiaspot.com~ pentium_pro is too persistent."

Andy Grove and Charles Simeone nodded together-things got to the top of the boss's desk, and the best result was that each stepped back and compromised.

...

After the meeting, Tang Huan began to prepare to attend the Comdex Las Vegas Autumn Fair.

As the most important stop of comdex's annual events, this year's comdex Las Vegas autumn exhibition was postponed mainly because its schedule was too full and some were too busy. From the beginning of the year to now, It has been around the world almost once-the United States, Canada, Brazil, Europe, the University of Australia, Onebook, India... and it will even land in China soon.

In Tang Huan's view, comdex is the most glorious stage before it reaches its peak and declines.

Competition in the field of international conventions and exhibitions is also very fierce, and many have official backgrounds. For example, cebit in Germany is like this. The fact that it has a fixed and spacious exhibition hall alone is incomparable to comdex driven by pure commercial power. .

Fortunately, Softbank bought comdex earlier, but it can be worth the fare-now it is time to squeeze the remaining value!

As always, industry forums attended by many well-known figures in the industry are more eye-catching than technology and product displays. Coupled with the rapid development of the Internet this year, the atmosphere can only be described as boiling.

For example, Robert Metcalfe, who invented the Ethernet, predicted pessimistically: "According to the current crazy expansion trend, the Internet will collapse next year."

Having said that, he pointed to the speech manuscript and emphasized his tone: "If the prediction is wrong, then I will eat this manuscript in order to take back what I have said."