Apple loses 14,000 G5 processors

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
This story is BS, FYI (-alcimedes)



I found this rather amusing, though it's probably because I don't have a G5 ordered.



Recently posted at CNET (Here ):



"Those eagerly awaiting the arrival of Apple's newly unveiled and highly touted Power Mac G5 suffered another delay this weekend as reports of a setback at IBM's multibillion-dollar Fishkill chip plant forced the Cupertino, California based company to deliver bad news yet again.



Customers received an email informing them that a ?high volume? of orders and a priority on school shipments would mean a delay of up to two weeks.





More informative and more revealing, however, are copies submitted today to News.com of a report issued by IBM regarding a major setback in chip production at their Fishkill plant. In what those not associated with IBM or Apple might call a comedy of errors (IBM called it ?a series of unfortunate and unforeseeable incidents?), almost 14,000 of the high end 2 Ghz G5 chips were manufactured with an incorrect configuration of the 130 nm transistors that the chip relies on to basically function.



The ?comedy? is not the waste of some 14,000 expensive and highly coveted chips. Rather, it is the progression of events which led to it.



1. On August 18th, IBM employee and Fishkill plant operator Marshall Herrick found out that he was due to be laid off on August 22nd, through means which have not been determined (he would not reveal them, according to the included transcript of his account).



2. Two days later (Wednesday, August 20th), Herrick planted a code in the Fishkill systemwide boot parameters which would, the following week, cause a five minute shutdown of the plant for a cleaning cycle every hour until the code was isolated and removed.



3. The next day, Herrick had second thoughts. He removed his troublesome code and resolved himself to being fired (here the firsthand account from Mr. Herrick ends).



4. Unfortunately, Herrick was a bit too thorough. Apparently, in removing his additional code from the boot parameters, he also deleted a key startup sequence that would enable a robot to access a guideline for the chip.



5. The robot defaulted to its preprogrammed guidelines, which are incompatible with the G5 architecture, and the error was not caught until the chips were later tested and found to be, in batch after batch, useless.





Needless to say, there is much about this series of incidents that is bad news for quite a few people. But in the News.com press room, and probably in computer lore, it will for some time be regarded as the worst disgruntled technological mix-up in recent history. "

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 19
    msanttimsantti Posts: 1,377member
    What gets posted on the internet is incredible.



  • Reply 2 of 19
    All I can say about C|Net is that it is owned by one of the biggest c*ck scukers of Bill Gates, that is Paul Allen. Paul Allen's website C|Net has always been pro Micro$hit. Screw C|Net.
  • Reply 3 of 19
    Link will not load for me. No evidence of this story at Cnet mainpage. Is this story real?
  • Reply 4 of 19
    Ditto here, the link is useless and I didn't find any reference on the news.com pages...Nor on any other techsite.



    Looks like a classic case of FUD, to me



    Next !
  • Reply 5 of 19
    Still works for me, maybe it's cached and they pulled it?



    Dunno.
  • Reply 6 of 19
    cakecake Posts: 1,010member
    I see the article fine.



    It's exactly the text quoted above, nothing more.

    With this byline:

    Quote:

    By Matt Hines

    Staff Writer, CNET News.com

    September 1, 2003, 6:40 PM PT



  • Reply 7 of 19
    Page loads for me now, too, but strangley none of its links work, including all of the C/net subdomain navigation links.



    The URL looks very strange:



    http://[email protected]/2...tml?tag=fd_top



    Is this whole thing being spoofed?



    EDIT: Text links at the top of the page load, but none of the navigational UI tabs for "Frontpage", "Enterprise", etc., nor any of the news links on the right.
  • Reply 8 of 19
    Err, I stand corrected, the link loads fine now...



    Good thing they test these procs before putting them in those cases or what?



    All that perfectly good silicon wasted...

    ( I heard Cher is buying the 14.000 G5 to have them processed for her new (fill out bodypart )



    (Edit: more fuel to the fire maybe? The link on the author's name says 'feedback to "will MS tweak IE?"'

    Could the site be hacked? )
  • Reply 9 of 19
    cakecake Posts: 1,010member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Ensign Pulver

    Is this whole thing being spoofed?



    That url explains it.

    Nice attempt.
  • Reply 10 of 19
    fotnsfotns Posts: 301member
    The IP 208.191.58.123 resolves to adsl-208-191-58-123.dsl.fyvlar.swbell.net.
  • Reply 11 of 19
    Well, all links work now. Guess it's real. :/



    Bet Steve was pissed.
  • Reply 12 of 19
    fake
  • Reply 13 of 19
    andersanders Posts: 6,523member
    Pssst. Hey. I have a prototype G6 here under my desk. Anyone wants to buy it?
  • Reply 14 of 19
    Was emailed to me, I believed it.
  • Reply 15 of 19
    Macrumors has picked up the story as a fake.



    "Fake CNet Article

    Tuesday September 02, 2003 01:15 AM

    Someone posted a fake CNet article regarding Apple losing 14,000 processors.



    Domain: temslim.com (Miller, Martin)

    IP: 208.191.58.123

    url: adsl-208-191-58-123.dsl.fyvlar.swbell.net"
  • Reply 16 of 19
    andersanders Posts: 6,523member
    Internet 101, lesson 3:



    URLs that contains @ link to what is behind the @ using what is in front for autoritation or nothing at all.



    [email protected] will link to ihateapple.com



    [email protected] will link to a porn site and use greasypig as a log-on
  • Reply 17 of 19
    Well, I'm stupid.



    Wonder where it originated, I'll call my friend in the morning. Might've been him, that's just his sense of humor...
  • Reply 18 of 19
    qaziiqazii Posts: 305member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Malokata

    Well, I'm stupid.



    Wonder where it originated, I'll call my friend in the morning. Might've been him, that's just his sense of humor...




    Is his IP/ISP the same as the one MacRumors found?
  • Reply 19 of 19
    Here is another clue that the article is fake.



    Notice the favicon on the linked article. News.com's favicon is a white C inside a red circle.



    On the spoofed page, the favicon is a crudely reduced picture of the CNET logo.



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