Bugtraq mailing list archives
Re: Intel Pentium Bug
From: rkuhljr () PUERIDOMUS BR (Rubens Kuhl Jr.)
Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 03:34:01 -0200
A possible architeture is a shadow RAM mechanism, in which microcode is stored in ROM and shadowed during power-up to a static RAM area in the chip. This could make Pentium upgradable by the host OS every time it boots up, and it would come at no cost if this was introduced to speed-up execution. (RAM and ROM above refers to electronic blocks at the processor core, not to their chip-size counterparts) Just to mention, Digital Alpha processors has some of the instruction range microcode-loadable, and this is used to taylor the instructions to the operating system it's running: VMS, Unix or NT. Rubens Kuhl Jr. rkuhljr () pueridomus br -----Original Message----- From: Aleph One [SMTP:aleph1 () DFW NET] Sent: Saturday, November 08, 1997 2:07 AM To: BUGTRAQ () NETSPACE ORG Subject: Re: Intel Pentium Bug > 2- New microcode will not be permanent, otherwise, if you, by mistake, > put garbage in your CPU, you'll not have to throw the CPU in the trash. Good point. But do they have enough memory to store the original copy of the microcode and the update? Unlikely, that memory is highly expensive. As other have pointed out you may need to use a device to reprogram the chip (makes sense). This would allow intel and OEMs to fix the parts on their inventory and to trade parts for customers concerned. Of curse with a problem of this magnitude _EVERYONE_ that runs a multiuser system will want to upgrade. Thats a lot of people. And a software fix would make it easy to distribute. There must be some quite some activity tonight at Intel.
Current thread:
- Re: Intel Pentium Bug Daniele Orlandi (Nov 07)
- Re: Intel Pentium Bug Aleph One (Nov 07)
- Re: Intel Pentium Bug Ian McWilliam (Nov 08)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: Intel Pentium Bug John Pettitt (Nov 07)
- Sidenote of Pentium Bugs Dave (Nov 07)
- Security bug in iCat Suite version 3.0 Mikael Johansson (Nov 08)
- Re: Intel Pentium Bug JoelKatz (Nov 07)
- Re: Intel Pentium Bug Joe Ilacqua (Nov 07)
- Re: Intel Pentium Bug Rubens Kuhl Jr. (Nov 07)
- Re: Intel Pentium Bug Ralf Baechle (Nov 10)
- Re: Intel Pentium Bug Barry Irwin (Nov 08)
- Re: Intel Pentium Bug Bjorn Wesen (Nov 08)
- Re: Intel Pentium Bug Peter Bierman (Nov 08)
- Re: Intel Pentium Bug Aleph One (Nov 08)
- Microsoft Office security bug Aleph One (Nov 07)
- Re: Microsoft Office security bug Inigo Gonzalez (Nov 11)
- What were the opcodes to hang a Pentium again? (fwd) Darren Reed (Nov 11)
- Re: Microsoft Office security bug Aleph One (Nov 11)
- Vunerability in Lizards game SUID (Nov 11)
- Microsoft Office security bug Aleph One (Nov 07)
- Re: Intel Pentium Bug Aleph One (Nov 07)