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

[Win Treese]

Hi, Ellen.

I had a vague idea of Pentium top ten lists from back when it happened, but not from Letterman. You may have seen this: the web page https://www.netjeff.com/humor/item.cgi?file=PentiumJokes has a couple of lists, ,which are excerpted below for general amusement. It was certainly common at the time for people to make up their own Top Ten lists.

Best,

Win

TOP TEN NEW INTEL SLOGANS FOR THE PENTIUM --------------------------------------------------------------------------

  9.9999973251   It's a FLAW, Dammit, not a Bug
  8.9999163362   It's Close Enough, We Say So
  7.9999414610   Nearly 300 Correct Opcodes
  6.9999831538   You Don't Need to Know What's Inside
  5.9999835137   Redefining the PC -- and Mathematics As Well
  4.9999999021   We Fixed It, Really
  3.9998245917   Division Considered Harmful
  2.9991523619   Why Do You Think They Call It *Floating* Point?
  1.9999103517   We're Looking for a Few Good Flaws
  0.9999999998   The Errata Inside


THE TOP TEN REASONS TO BUY A PENTIUM MACHINE
============================================
 
10. YOUR CURRENT COMPUTER IS TOO ACCURATE
9.  YOU WANT TO GET INTO THE GUINNESS BOOK AS "OWNER OF MOST
    EXPENSIVE PAPERWEIGHT"
8.  MATH ERRORS ADD ZEST TO LIFE
7.  YOU NEED AN ALIBI FOR THE I.R.S.
6.  YOU WANT TO SEE WHAT ALL THE FUSS IS ABOUT
5.  YOU'VE ALWAYS WONDERED WHAT IT WOULD BE LIKE TO BE A
    PLAINTIFF
4.  THE "INTEL INSIDE" LOGO MATCHES YOUR DECOR PERFECTLY
3.  YOU NO LONGER HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT CPU OVERHEATING
2.  YOU GOT A GREAT DEAL FROM JPL
1.  IT'LL PROBABLY WORK

> On Aug 15, 2020, at 6:42 PM, Ellen Spertus <spertus at mills.edu> wrote:
> 
> Thank you, Paul!  
> 
> As nice of a story as it would have been to have floating point
> humour in the late night show cannon,  it seems that this one
> isn't true.
> 
> Per my original email, there was a 1996 thesis referencing a 1994 internal Intel document that Letterman did make a joke during his monologue, which may have been:
> 
> You know what goes great with those defective Pentium chips?
> Defective Pentium salsa!
> 
> Do any of you know someone with enough clout at Intel to find out what their archivists say?
> 
> This may be an instance of the Mandela Effect.
> 
> Here's another story involving floating point: I used to spend time at the University of Washington CSE Department and Microsoft. To drive from one to the other, you would drive over the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge. I always referred to it as the "floating point" bridge, and nobody ever raised an eyebrow. I see a nonironic reference to the Evergreen Floating Point Bridge in a Los Angeles Times article about a traffic accident.
> 
> Ellen
> _______________________________________________
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