Urban Legends by Thomas J. Craughwell

Author:Thomas J. Craughwell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Running Press
Published: 2005-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

Intel’s Revenge

One evening at a bar, two engineers from Intel were bitching about their favorite villain, Bill Gates, president of Microsoft.

“You guys are so predictable,” the bartender said as he bought them a round. “Every night, it’s the same song and dance about how awful Bill Gates is. But I got news for you boys, a hundred years from now, Bill Gates is going to be a corporate hero, like Carnegie and Rockefeller. Those guys were SOBs, too, but nobody remembers that now. Why don’t you two techno-wizards figure out some way to express your feelings for Bill Gates that will last through the ages.”

The two engineers looked at each, and they knew the bartender was right. They should be able to create some artifact that would be preserved in museums, something that would tell future generations that Bill Gates had not been everybody’s hero.

The next day, they got their chance. Their boss assigned them to create a new version of the Pentium microprocessor.

For the next few months, the two engineers were positively giddy around the office. They came to work early and left late. They worked weekends. They were unfailingly cheerful, and the prototype of the new microprocessor they were designing was excellent. All the executives were pleased.

The day PCs with the new Pentium chip went on the market, the two engineers had cases of champagne brought in and threw the wildest office party in the history of Intel.

Months passed and the two engineers were still a happy couple of guys. Then one day, a rumor began to spread through the computer industry that there was a secret message engraved on the new Pentium chip.

Executives at Intel tried to ignore the rumor, but the furor in the industry and the press, coupled with the unusual behavior of the two engineers responsible for the redesign of the chip, made them suspicious. At a special closed session of the company’s executive board, the members voted unanimously to select Pentium chips at random and have them analyzed.

A few days later the executive board met again in a closed session.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the CEO said, “as you know analysts in our lab selected a random sampling of one dozen of the new Pentium chips. Examination of the chips under a powerful electron microscope detected the same message engraved on each chip. Here is what they found.”

The executives turned toward the large monitor mounted on the board room wall. The CEO struck RETURN on the keyboard in front of him and there appeared a magnified image of the latest Pentium chip.

“BILL SUX” was engraved on it.

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