[SIGCIS-Members] Is it a myth that David Letterman had a Top Ten List about the Pentium bug?

Thu Aug 13 23:58:51 PDT 2020

Hi Ellen,

Perhaps ask CBS archives for the footage? I’ve had some luck getting NBC archives to pull some pretty obscure archival footage and furnish copies for manageable educational rates (i.e. reduced corporate rates, which is nonetheless substantially more than many other archives, like a few hundred bucks). I think Letterman was at CBS by then, and they might well do the same. 

I have it in my mind that maybe Letterman had his own production company? If so, they might have the footage instead or as well?

Best, b

-- 

Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan

Senior Lecturer in the History and Theory of Digital Media

Chair of the UG Assessment Board, Digital Culture

www.bernardg.com

Department of Digital Humanities

King's College London 

The Strand Building

Room S3.08

WC2R 2LS

Office: +44 (0)20 7848 4750

From: Members <members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org> on behalf of Brian Berg <brianberg at gmail.com>
Date: Friday, 14 August 2020 at 03:33
To: SIGCIS Listserver <members at sigcis.org>
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Is it a myth that David Letterman had a Top Ten List about the Pentium bug?

I recall hearing that David Letterman broadcast myself, and there was a lot of buzz about it afterward as well.  I double-checked with Dave Patterson:

From: David PATTERSON <pattrsn at cs.berkeley.edu>
Date: Thu, Aug 13, 2020 at 5:41 PM
Subject: Re: Pentium Bug Really in a Letterman Top 10 List?
To: Brian Berg <brianberg at gmail.com>

Yes. I heard it myself.

Dave

On Thu, Aug 13, 2020 at 3:25 PM Brian Berg <brianberg at gmail.com> wrote:

Dave,

Your 1999 edition of Computer organization and design: the hardware/software interface states on p. 306: "The Pentium floating-point divide bug even made the 'Top 10 List" of the David Letterman Late Show on television."

This does not seem to be included at

 https://www.oocities.org/jaylipp/Letterman/topten99.html 

Was this an accurate statement?

Thanks, Brian Berg

On Wed, Aug 12, 2020 at 10:06 AM Ellen Spertus <spertus at mills.edu> wrote:

According to the popular computer architecture textbook Computer Organization and Design by Turing Award winners John Hennessy and David Patterson:

The Pentium floating-point divide bug even made the "Top 10 List" of the David Letterman Late Show on television.

I have been unable to verify this. The bug was reported in October 1994 and remained in the news until early 1995. I could find nothing relevant in the Top Ten List Archive for late 1994 or early 1995. In early January, there was the Top Ten Signs You Bought a Bad Computer, but it has no mention of Intel or math.

I did find a Master's thesis that cites Jarrett in saying that "David Letterman included a  Pentium™ joke in his nightly monologue":

Jarrett, Jim. "A Postmortem on the Pentium Processor Crisis." Unpublished manuscript prepared for lnteleads, 1994. 

I cannot find this document, however, and Jim Jarrett passed away in 2012.

There is a satirical Top Ten list:

9.9999973251 - Your old PC is too accurate.
8.9999163362 - Provides really good alibi when the IRS calls.
7.9999414610 - Attracted by Intel's new You don't need to know what's inside ad campaign.
6.9999831538 - It redefines computing -- and mathematics!
5.9999835137 - You've always wondered what it would be like to be a plaintiff.
4.9999999021 - Current paperweight not big enough.
3.9998245917 - Takes concept of floating point to a whole new level.
2.9991523619 - You always round off to the nearest hundred anyway.
1.9999103517 - Got a great deal from Jet Propulsion Laboratory!

And the number one reason to buy a Pentium:
0.9999999998 - It'll probably work!

The same page includes this joke:

"You know what goes great with those defective Pentium chips?
Defective Pentium salsa!" (David Letterman) 

I conclude that David Letterman joked about the Pentium in a monologue (although I have only circumstantial evidence) not in a Top Ten List.

This is my first foray into computing history. Please let me know if you have additional information, if my reasoning is unsound, or if I should do anything besides notifying the authors and publisher. (I'm acquainted with David Patterson but would not cold email John Hennessy.)

Ellen Spertus

Professor of Computer Science

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