486 computers and Unix

[James Van Artsdalen]

In <712 at nox.se>, peter at nox.se (Peter Levin) wrote:

> I know that when buying an Intel 486 computer you were at least one
> month ago obliged to sign a paper stating that you were aware of that
> the 486 processor was not working properly with Unix under alla
> circumstances.

Nonsense on their part.  Sounds like they've been thinking with their
lawyers instead of their brains again.

bigtex has been running a C step 486 for a couple of months, no
problems.  raid.dell.com ran a B step 486 for about 6 months until it
was replaced with a new machine.  I never encountered any CPU problems
with either.

> It sounds like Intel got a bug in the processor.  I also suppose this
> has been passed on to the computer manufacturers.

I have not seen a 486 C step errata sheet, but I assume there are
bugs.  After all, the 386 is several years old, much simpler than a
486, and still has bugs.

> To state that the machine might not run properly could possibly harm
> sales.  Can it be that the vendors just don't give infomation about
> the problem, because it could hurt sales?

If the 486 were incapable of running unix, I think it would be a
little hard to keep it a secret, especially after delivering the
machine to Customers.  Customers tend to complain loud and long about
any problem, real or imagined, and I don't see Customers as likely to
be willing to conspire with Vendors to keep it all a big secret.

In addition, there are vendors like Dell that have 30 day return
policies and one year warranties.  If we sent it out and it didn't
work, everyone would just send it back for a refund, at a great loss
to us.  It would never make economic sense to have this happen.
-- 
James R. Van Artsdalen          james at bigtex.cactus.org   "Live Free or Die"
Dell Computer Co    9505 Arboretum Blvd Austin TX 78759         512-338-8789