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Why did Intel choose Pentium over 586? Did they think it was more catchy? And why did they stick with Pentium afterwards? Were they too afraid to use "Sextium"?

Pent = 5. 586. Hence, pentium.


Besides, it's a very original name. And I think they stuck with it cause sextium just sounds....bleh.

Because the couldnt trade mark a number aka 486.

So they went for a word (which ment a number! ).

Also the "Pentium" name has brand recognition, which is a very very important Marketing thing.

Its why "Windows" has had the word "Windows" in the title for the past +5 releases.

If someone changes their brand name for no real reason its a sign that name has a crappy reputation or a bad reputation.

ie:

• Gator -> what ever the fuck they call themselves now.
• Infogrames -> Atari
• Netscape -> Mozilla -> Firebird

Atari still acts like fucking Infogrames. You know I still haven't even installed Temple of Elemental Evil yet because I'm waiting for the fucking patch? The game is superb, but I refuse to play a buggy product.

Interesting postscript to the Pentium naming scheme. When Intel picked up the Pentium trademark, they decided from then on to use names of landmarks and rivers for the names of their CPU cores (Deshutes, Northwood, Montecito, etc.) because no one owned the rights to the names so they couldn't get sued.

Vympel wrote:Atari still acts like fucking Infogrames. You know I still haven't even installed Temple of Elemental Evil yet because I'm waiting for the fucking patch? The game is superb, but I refuse to play a buggy product.

The thing is, most companies that do that are trying to dodge a bad reputation, but they keep acting the same thus the reputation keeps on sticking.

Yes, Atari sucks.


The Kernel, just like Microsoft has been using codenames basedon various restaurants. Except I excpect Microsoft has been smart enought to get them to agree with them to it in someway.

lukexcom wrote:Why did Intel choose Pentium over 586? Did they think it was more catchy? And why did they stick with Pentium afterwards? Were they too afraid to use "Sextium"?

Because to an Intel, 486+100= 585.9989740324

The Kernel wrote:Interesting postscript to the Pentium naming scheme. When Intel picked up the Pentium trademark, they decided from then on to use names of landmarks and rivers for the names of their CPU cores (Deshutes, Northwood, Montecito, etc.) because no one owned the rights to the names so they couldn't get sued.

For some time AMD used the names of Allied WW2 fightercraft as codenames for their cores, but then they dropped that practice after their Dresden fab opened.

Hethrir wrote:

lukexcom wrote:Why did Intel choose Pentium over 586? Did they think it was more catchy? And why did they stick with Pentium afterwards? Were they too afraid to use "Sextium"?

Because to an Intel, 486+100= 585.9989740324

Lol!!

Ah, the good 'ol days when Intel recalled their Pentiums because of a math error in them...