Developers Come To The Rescue

In a crisis, it's nice to know you have friends. Software developers and PC makers have been flooding Pentium users with myriad solutions to the floating-point error over the past several weeks. The fixes range from Hewlett-Packard Co.'s offer to replace the entire chip to Lotus Development Corp.'s advisory to execute a simple command in its 1-2-3 spreadsheet.

Compaq Computer Corp. says it's about to release a software fix via online services that disables the floating-point unit of the Pentium processor. Since it dramatically slows the performance of the chip, this solution primarily provides peace of mind to users who don't often rely on complex calculations.

Intel also is working on a solution for the flawed chips already in use. A team of experts is creating a workaround that should be available to software developers within a few weeks. MathWorks of Natick, Mass., one of the companies assisting Intel with its solution, is providing its own fix for the 150,000 users of its MatLab visualization software.

Piece Of The Action
Some lesser-known software developers are also capitalizing on the situation. Communica Inc. in Bourne, Mass., has developed a patch that traps the specific floating-point calls that can lead to the error and performs the operations in software.

Clearly, to users still concerned by the Pentium flaw, help abounds. Intel CEO Andy Grove says, "This episode, in a perverse and painful fashion, brought a lot of industry players together. I have gotten more unsolicited calls from vendors offering assistance and data than ever before."

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