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Latin Sounds Cooler (10/26/99)
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Great artists steal, and so do computer makers. The whole high-tech industry is basically one huge copy-fest, when you get right down to it. Sure, Microsoft stole the whole GUI/folders/trash can thing from Apple, but you can't say you haven't noticed Windowsisms in the more recent versions of the Mac OS. We're talking about stuff like the little arrows in alias icons, contextual menus, and built-in support for desktop pictures. None of it is ground-breaking or anything, but it just illustrates the point: in high-tech, stealing is what makes the world go 'round. Well, that and innovation-- or else there'd be nothing to steal in the first place. (It just seems a bit unfair that Apple does most of the innovating and the rest of the industry does most of the stealing.)
It's because of all this rampant thievery that we're unsure who first developed the innovation of calling bugs in processors "errata." The first time we heard the term used that way was when Motorola mentioned that existing G4 processors can't be cranked up to 500 MHz or higher because of "errata" in the design that would introduce memory corruption at such high clock speeds. (That's one of the reasons for Apple's recent "speed dump.") But now, faithful viewer Jerry O'Neil points out an article in The Register which details "errata" (not bugs!) in Intel's latest 733 MHz "Coppermine" Pentium III chips. Apparently the German magazine c't has found that "the SPEC suite test computed false results about every 20th run." Whenever there are problems with Intel processors, they're listed as "errata," except for that grand doozy Pentium division bug which was referred to by company execs as a "flaw."
So we're wondering whether Motorola stole the "errata" thing from Intel, or if Intel got it from Motorola. Or maybe both companies took the practice from a third chip manufacturer. Regardless, we like "errata;" it's a nicer-sounding euphemism than the one commonly used for software bugs, which is "issue." There's nothing like a few Latin words to class up the joint. And hey, if your hardware's not going to work right, you might as well be able to complain about it in a classy way, right?
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SceneLink (1871)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 10/26/99 episode: October 26, 1999: Apple's mostly back on its feet-- and now Pixar's bouncing back, too; is it the Magical Force of Steve at work? Meanwhile, Apple's PR agency is seeking a "conservative businessman" type to show off his iBook in the pages of Business Week magazine, and Motorola isn't the only chipmaker with "errata" in its processors...
Other scenes from that episode: 1869: Joy Story 2 (10/26/99) There's no question that Steve Jobs has worked some real magic with Apple. Only about two years ago the company's stock price was in the gutter (assuming you can find twelve dollars in the gutter), Apple's idea of a home computer was the (shudder) Performa series, and following the loss of a billion dollars in a year, many people thought the term "beleaguered" was a compliment... 1870: Think Corporate? (10/26/99) Nobody's going to argue with us if we say the iBook looks "different." But we know there are a few naysayers who might take issue with us saying the iBook looks "cool." And if we were to call the iBook's design "manly," fights would start breaking out, and if we were to go completely over the line and call the iBook's distinctive look "professional," well, all hell would break loose...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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