In a Mike Thompson cartoon, Santa Claus is flabbergasted to find Mother Teresa's name on the Naughty side of his list. While the infamous flaw in first generation Pentium chips has added more confusion to an already chaotic industry, most of us can still laugh about it. From alt.pentium.jokes to David Letterman, it seems that everyone has been having fun at Intel's expense. They can figure their taxes, play Doom , publish magazines, or design furniture just fine using the chip. For them, the intel inside sticker is not a warning label.
Manufacturers normally refine their designs during the production run of a chip.
Intel considered this flaw a routine bug to be fixed in the next scheduled change. It was surprised by the anger this approach elicited in the user community. Despite Intel's offer to replace defective chips, some people may have legitimate complaints against Intel, and will seek compensation in court. Resources that could be used to design better chips or improve quality control will be used to hire lawyers and pay judgments for real or imagined harm. It demonstrated how quickly and effectively the Internet can be used to inform an on-line group and mobilize it for coercive action.