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A comment on Pentium FDIV bug reverse-engineered which costed Intel $475M. Parent comment

Re:Pentium FDIV bug reverse-engineered which costed Intel $475M by Dalewyn on Friday December 13, 2024 @09:25PM (#42414147)
Amusing joke, but it actually is effectively called the 586 because the internal name is P5 and Penta from which Pentium is derived is 5.[1]

Incidentally, Pentium M to Intel Core through 16th gen Lunarrow Lake all identify as P6 ("Family 6") for 686 because they are all based off of the Pentium 3.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_(original)

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Re:Pentium FDIV bug reverse-engineered which costed Intel $475M by xattt on Friday December 13, 2024 @11:03PM (#42414582)
You’re missing the fact that Intel wanted to differentiate itself from the growing IA-32 clone chips from AMD and Cyrix. 586 couldn’t be trademarked, but Pentium could.
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Re:Pentium FDIV bug reverse-engineered which costed Intel $475M by nayuki on Friday December 13, 2024 @11:01PM (#42414579)
Also, as per the page:

> Intel used the Pentium name instead of 586, because in 1991, it had lost a trademark dispute over the "386" trademark, when a judge ruled that the number was generic.

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Re:Pentium FDIV bug reverse-engineered which costed Intel $475M by zusammen on Saturday December 14, 2024 @05:41AM (#42416142)
The main reason is that it’s impossible to trademark a model number.

Also, Weird Al would not have been able to make a song, “It’s All About the 586es.” It just doesn’t scan.

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