Pentium turns 14 today

Author: Wil Harris
Published: 22nd March 2007
Comments (26) Stumble
An old-school Intel logo to go with the retro nostalgia.

An old-school Intel logo to go with the retro nostalgia.

On March 22 1993, Intel shipped the very first Pentium processor, the 60MHz model imaginitively dubbed the 'P60'.

14 years later, the Pentium brand may be dead, but it lives on in our hearts. Right?

Pentium was the successor to the 486 processor. Intel had originally wanted to call the chip the 586, but couldn't get a trademark on the number. Rather than let AMD use the 586 name too, the company decided to switch to a word. Pentium is obviously based on the Greek pent, which is the word for five (hence pentathalon, pentagram etc).

The brand went through a number of iterations - Pentium II, III and IV, amazingly - before being killed off in favour of the Core brand that came into play in January 2006, after years of mediocre Pentium IV performance.

Many of this writer's best PC experiences took place on a Pentium. My first ever PC was a Pentium 90, with a hefty 8MB of RAM - I was then significantly cheesed off when my best mate bought a P100 with 16MB of RAM a month later. My first 3D card, a 4MB Canopus 3Dfx first gen card, was installed in my trusty P200, which I had upgraded to; but I, like many other enthusiasts, defected to AMD Athlons when it came to hitting the 1GHz+ mark. bit-tech created an awesome case mod for the launch of the Pentium 4 3GHz.

So Happy Birthday to Pentium. Your 14 year life is almost at an end, although you may live on in under-funded libraries around the world for many years yet. Come eat some birthday cake over in the forums, and reminisce about the heady days of Pentium past.
Quote DougEdey 22nd March 2007, 13:44
My first Pentium was a P75, the Turbo was the best thing invented in the world eva

I remember pressing it and seeing the numbers on the front of the PC go from 75 to 100
Quote atanum141 22nd March 2007, 13:46
I remember when i ordered my new £1700 Gateway2000 PC!
17inch screen was unheard of in homes at the time, as was the 166MMX! also the 32mb of ram helped. the 2.5Gig HDD was spacious and the ATi Rage Gfx with 2mb ram was very powerfull...Ohh don't forget the 54x CD-ROM!

I remember that the CPU was passively cooled and the motherboard was quite baron compared to modern PC's. I remember adding a VooDoo2 card to the setup and my eyes lit up, and getting a 4X CD-RW was marvelous.

Ahhh good times.
Quote Krikkit 22nd March 2007, 13:47
Happy Birthday Pentium! What awesome times we've had together. :)
Quote kenco_uk 22nd March 2007, 13:49
Crikey, I remember my first PC, an AMD K6/2-400. What a brute. Many headaches.

Then I upgraded to a P3-450 which was so amazing, it blew the wallpaper off. It was stable as a horses home and the best thing was it ran at 558Mhz.

Then I went for a P3-700, seeing a lot of them running at 1GHz or over. Sadly, mine could only muster 819Mhz iirc, so I though buggrit and got a P3-933 and ran it just over the 1Ghz mark. Aah, them were the days.

T'ra Pentium and thanks for all the chips.
Quote quack 22nd March 2007, 13:51
That's Pentium 4 not IV.
Quote ElThomsono 22nd March 2007, 13:56
A Pentium II was the first PC I ever got to call my own, and clocking it from 200 to 350 seemed like theft it was so fast. Slot 1 ***.
Quote riggs 22nd March 2007, 13:58
HB Pentium!

Our household never had Intel CPU's when I was a kid - my dad was always 'against' the bigger companies, choosing to support the the underdogs instead, even if the tech wasn't as good. He went for an AMD K5 rather than a Pentium (and numerous Cyrix CPU's before that)...

OT, what ever happened to Cyrix?
Quote Nature 22nd March 2007, 14:13
God bless the pentiumlll and this computer upon which it runs. With out it, I'd not be able to type hatred at all you nerds here @ bit-tech.
-Love Nature
Quote Mankz. 22nd March 2007, 14:28
My parents first ever PC was a very early pentium...

Anyway, do you think we could ever see a Pentium 5?
Quote Lazarus Dark 22nd March 2007, 15:10
I still think it was a bad idea to drop the pentium name. Ask anyone on the street if they want a 3.6 Ghz pentium 4 or a 2.66 Ghz Core 2 Duo. "Well, duh, I want a Pentium 4. What the heck is a Core-too-too?" The pentium had so much brand recognition. I think if Intel had come out with commercials for the 'Brand New Pentium 5!!!' there would have been a stampede to get one. But only computer enthusiasts yet understand what a C2D is and sales this past year were uninspiring despite the huge leap forward the core architecture brought.

And now they are going to call the bargain bin procs pentium's, correct? Sad. What a sudden and unkind death.
Quote BioSniper 22nd March 2007, 15:31
My first PC was a P200 MMX, 32MB of ram, a 4MB S3 Virge, 3.2GB HDD and a 33.6kbps modem, purchased back in I think 1997. How everyone envied me back then, even more so when I later upgraded it to a 16MB Voodoo Banshee. Ahh the good old days.
The scary thing being, that the very same PC was passed onto several other family members and friends who just wanted to use MS word and it only blew up last year, the PSU went pop.
Quote Dr. Strangelove 22nd March 2007, 16:04
Think my first pentium was actually a pentium overdrive ~80MHz. I just remember putting it in my machine and feeling ripped off, as there was no performance gain what so ever (probably upgraded from a 486 66MHz).

Anyway the best ever rig I have had was a good old Dual PIII 933MHz beast. That thing still played along when everyone else went into the multiple GHz. Alas I had to "retire" that machine when I moved in with my girlfriend.

Happy birthday Pentium, RIP
Quote bluep3ace 22nd March 2007, 16:52
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DUDE!!!
:D
Quote Darkedge 22nd March 2007, 17:10
only ever had a Pentium 166MMX and a Pentium II 300.. never liked intel, and only returned to them with my new 6300 core 2 duo.

Not the first pc's I had I have to admit - that was a 4.66 mhz 8086, then a 386SX33, DX4 100 then the 166 and 300, then to AMD for a k6-2 450, 1ghz Athlon, 2.4 ghz Athlon, FX53 and now the core 2 duo.

It's been a while using the old '86 architecture :)
Quote pendragon 22nd March 2007, 17:32
ahh Pentium.. I remember my first Pentium 133mhz machine.. those were the days ..Happy Birthday!
Quote {SmileyMan} 22nd March 2007, 17:59
Never owned a Pentium Always been a AMD fan till the core (Got a CoreDuo Lappy)

But first computer was a 8088 running at 4.77mhz with 640k of RAM

What a machine :P
Quote Miser 22nd March 2007, 18:04
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lazarus Dark
And now they are going to call the bargain bin procs pentium's, correct? Sad. What a sudden and unkind death.
Not really, the bargain bins will still be Celerons: Single-core, Core architecture, and 512k L2. They will come in at a price of $40, $50, and $60. They will be based on the partially defective (I believe) Pentium E series CPUs: Dual-core, Core architecture, 1mb L2 cache. I think that the Pentium E series will be a great seller. Imagin the boost most OEM consumers will see when their virus-scanner works in the background while they surf the web. The majority of people out there don't need any great power per core, as long as they get the snappiness while they have a couple of piddly things open. And the Celerons will be great in libraries, schools, businesses, and low end OEM pcs.

As for my first Pentium PC, it was a P100 with 32mb RAM, 1mb integrated Cirrus Logic graphics, and a 1,282mb Seagate HDD. My mom had a 386, but that was before my time. Anyway, I upgraded the CPU to a Pentium MMX OverDrive 180 (3x multiplier, meant for a 60mhz bus; I put it in a 66mhz bus, so I have an overclocked OverDrive! ), upgraded the RAM to 128mb of 60ns FPM, upgraded the integrated graphics to 2mb with two SOJ ram chips, and changed the hard drive to a 512mb compact flash drive. I have a raid card, and am currently modding the case to house everything as a fileserver.
Quote moshpit 22nd March 2007, 20:28
I'm sad to see the Pentium name go for a completely different reason then most of you. The Pentium name has provided me with YEARS of fun poking holes in Intel strategies. Now that they've retaken the crown with a new name, and earned top honors with C2D, I can't pick on Intel anymore fairly. Everything after the original Pentium series, wasn't even properly named. Pentium Pro and Pentium II Should have been called Sextium had Intel stuck to the original naming scheme they made with Pentium (of course they wern't thinking that far ahead when they came up with that name I bet) and should have called Pentium III to Sextium III since Pentium II could have been Sextium II, that would have been so much "sexier" ;)

Pentium 4 should have been called Seventium (okay, that was a joke, hehehe).
Quote rowin4kicks 22nd March 2007, 21:09
still got a pentium 1 75hz in one of my laptops! lol it rocks out windows 95 everynow and again!
Quote Tile 22nd March 2007, 21:42
I still have my first processor, a Pentium 1 at 90 mhz. The pc is not functional because of the dead psu.
Quote DXR_13KE 22nd March 2007, 23:59
God damn it.... the fond memories of my P166 with 16Mb ram, S3 virge and a 3Gb HD.

then a P4@ 1.5GHz with 512Mb ram and a Gforce MX200, and then the upgrade to a 3.2GHz with 1Gb ram and a Gf FX5700......... and the next machine will be a CD2 with a direct X10 capable graphics card.......

die in peace my friend.
Quote Brooxy 23rd March 2007, 00:13
I've had a Pentium 90 with 16mb RAM, then got hold of a Pentium 166mmx and a mobo, with extra ram, so ended up with a P166, 64Mb RAM, and a 6gb HDD...

Back in the day there...still got a PII rig running beautifully tho :)
Quote Gravemind123 23rd March 2007, 02:41
I have a Pentium MMX that I keep forgetting to de-pin and turn into a sweet keychain.
Quote Fod 24th March 2007, 10:24
huh, yknow, i have never owned a pentium branded chip? i went from a 386 to a 486 to an athlon 750, and now an athlon64 in my desktop and a core duo in my laptop.

random.
Quote RTT 24th March 2007, 10:55
My Intel Pentium Overdrive 83 MHz was awesome. It had a fan on the top!
Quote Grinch123456 24th March 2007, 14:14
I went Cyrix, sorry Intel.

EDIT: Until it couldn't run anything anymore. Then it was AMD up until now.
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