Re: 57##SS1 option 42 Journal caching -- MIDRANGE-L

Along similar lines, a few years back AMD was making their Athlon
processors. This is a little before the multi-core craze. For marketing
purposes they needed Athlon XP 1700s up through 2800s and 2900s. The 1700
(1.7GHz) sold for about $51 on the street; the 2600 (2.6GHz) for around $150
or so IIRC.

Normally, with CPU production they try to make the fastest CPU speeds. If a
chip fails QC at that speed, they test it at the next lower speed. Repeat
until the chip runs stable. In short, a chip that fails at 2.8GHz may be
perfectly happy all day long at 2.2GHz.

Their production yields were so good that they took to stamping CPUs that
passed QC at high speeds as low-speed CPUs just to satisfy market demands.
Of course, word of this leaked out so lots of people like me bought the XP
1700 and promptly "overclocked" it to the speed at which it originally
passed QC. You could read the speed based on how AMD coded the chip
models. In my case I got 2600 speed for a 1700 price and the CPU was rock
stable even running distributed computing which pegs the CPU at 100% all the
time.

(I have yet to activate my Dish HD DVR's USB port as well; while rated for
55 hours of HD programming, the reality is closer to 3-4 times that so
there's been no need. And I'll take a moment to plug Discovery Channel's
Life series that starts tomorrow; it's the follow-on series from the folks
who made Planet Earth.)

On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 7:56 AM, DrFranken <midrange@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

First, IBM is not the only company to do this by a long shot. My father
worked on systems starting in the 1960s and this was very common. He
would go out to a customer to 'Upgrade' their 5GB disk unit to a 10GB
unit. How? Snip a wire. A friend worked on plug compatible mainframes
with four processing speeds (Magnuson I think?) They were all the same
with jumpers to set the speed. When you reported problems the hex codes
indicated where the jumpers were and if not where they belonged, you got
nuttin for support. On occasion Dad would 'soup up' an 029 keypunch for
someone who could out-type the stock machine. The change? Swap two
gears. Unofficial and unsupported but it often worked. When it didn't
the gears went back to 'stock' configuration.

As to 'setting the jumpers to get done faster' this is not the only
reason. Turns out that everything run at 'full blast' is more likely to
fail (note the 401 problem in this thread.) Good CEs woud 'turn em up'
to see if they ran clean. If they ran clean at higher speeds they were
almost certain to run clean at the lower speeds.

Even today my DIsh Network DVR has a USB port on it that I'm not allowed
to use until I pay a fee. Nothing changes, just a key. And I'm OK with
that because if I choose to use it there is no un-install/re-install. No
waiting. No shipping charges. No visit from the DishDude. Just pay the
money and in minutes it's good to go. I fail to see the downside.

Second: Anyone who has worked in manufacturing realizes that building 20
different models of the same darn thing instead of building them the
same with 'jumpers' (or keys, or licenses or ....) will cost
significantly more money. Thus EVERYONE pays more including the guy who
somehow feels 'ripped off' because his machine 'has interactive in it
but I'm told I don't get to use it!' And don't toss the automobile
analogy at me because their volumes are so much higher that the
economics are different.

Third: At the risk of skating just a tad to close to politics there are
millions of folks who think that lots of things should be free. They
would still be wrong.

- Larry

On 3/18/2010 11:32 AM, Dennis Lovelady wrote:

...<snip> I have coworkers who believe that it should just be part
of the OS and you shouldn't have to pay extra for it.
<snip> IBM has been in that game for a very long time. When I first got

started in

this bidness, IBM had a machine (401 Tab machine I think) that had a

jumper

which limited the speed of its processes. There were actually two

models,

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