Why are engineering sample CPUs illegal to sell?

[Commander Kinsey]

Why are engineering sample CPUs illegal to sell?

[Paul]

"Can I get engineering sample processors from Intel?

Due to the pre-production nature of the engineering sample processors, they are generally only loaned to OEMs, ODMs, and ISVs for pre-production test and evaluation work under specific contractual terms and conditions to assure the protection of assets and confidential information.

Engineering sample processors are not made available to the general public by Intel."

In effect, you're in possession of stolen goods.

The whole idea is, no matter what happens, those goods are not to be circulating in the hands of the public. You could give them back to the local rep, and he could have them shredded. (Some factories shred their e-waste to prevent recovery by waste removal people.)

Those samples could have defects, maybe they don't have a 100,000 hour operating life (early mortality). They might not even compute properly at full speed. Like an ES 3GHz processor, there might be an errata sheet in the box, stating you're supposed to run them at 2GHz.

Intel could also mark them with sufficient information, to trace them back to who received them. To determine who is leaking them and violating a contract term.

With other manufacturers, those parts are the equivalent of the "qual barrel". And the stuff in the qual barrel, is definitely not production quality.

Not allowing them to be sold, is to protect *you* from receiving inferior goods.

Paul

[rbowman]

When the ZX80 came out it was available as an unassembled kit for $99. I don't remember the exact problem but I had to tweak it ti get it to run.

Osborne came out with a 100 column conversion for the Osborne 1. CMOS was a new technology and while it normally saved power, dissipation increased with frequency. The circuit would work until the chip got hot. I replace it with the equivalent LS part and all was good.

Back in those days I could see the components without a microscope so component level troubleshooting was feasible.

[Harry Bloomfield Esq]

The BBC computer had a similar problem - the early versions had to have an heatsink on a certain chip to keep it cool, I half remember. I also had a timing issue with an S100 computer I built and partially designed. I finally spotted the issue, when I could afford to buy a 'scope, but by then it was too late - my homebuilt was due for replacement with something better.

I think now that designer have simply become more skilled and obviously the range of components have improved massively.

[charles]

I had one of the very early ones and don't remember any such problem.

[Andrew]

They were supplied initially with a non-switching P/S that ran rather hot, but a better switch-mode power supply (astec?) was supplied free-of-charge a few months later.

[Theo]

It was the video ULA that required a heatsink. The original Ferranti part required a heatsink. They later switched to a different supplier (VLSI Technology - VTI) which didn't need heatsinking. Apparently the first version had a bug that meant it wouldn't work at the operating temperature and hence it had to have extra cooling:

Theo

[Harry Bloomfield Esq]

It happens that Andrew formulated :

Thanks..

[Harry Bloomfield Esq]

Theo formulated the question :

Yes, that was it..