Bugtraq mailing list archives
Sidenote of Pentium Bugs
From: dgriffi () ULTRIX6 CS CSUBAK EDU (Dave)
Date: Fri, 7 Nov 1997 22:47:57 -0800
On Fri, 7 Nov 1997, John Pettitt wrote:
Interesting indeed, trashing the microcode would be somewhat lame, adding a "give kernel mode now" instruction - that would be art :-) side note: I'm told one of the early micros (6800????) had a "stop and catch fire" instruction. An invalid opcode that locked the cpu with all the internal bus drivers on causing the chip to burn itself out!
I'm sure the Intel People would understand the problems that would happen if people discovered that microcode could be rewritten under "ordinary" conditions. You're probably thinking of a joke instruction called "Halt And Catch Fire" which started sometime in the 60s or 70s. A not-too-reliable source which I don't remeber says that one computer actually DID halt and catch fire when someone executed HACF. The Commodore 1542 disk drive could be burned out by having its 6502 processor execute some bad instructions. It wasn't the processor's fault, but the implementation in the rest of the drive. I think it was called the "Singing Disk Drive". It has been a long time since I played with Commodore stuff, so I apologize for any likely inaccuracies. -- David Griffith dgriffi () ultrix6 cs csubak edu
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)
(Thread continues...)
- Re: Intel Pentium Bug Aleph One (Nov 07)