Business
Intel to play PII chips in arcade games
Next time you put a coin in the arcade slot, you could be putting another penny in the overflowing Intel coffers.
The chip behemoth has formalised a hardware specification based on its imminent Pentium II processor for coin-operated video games, and expects its newest baby to be installed in such systems by the end of 1997. Arcade systems will run 512Kb cache Pentium II chips on Windows 95 and, next year, Windows NT. Intel claims that its chips will take arcade action to a new level, possibly by including Internet access and multi-player capabilities.
Intel demonstrated X86 architecture flight simulation, baseball and car racing games at a recent conference for game developers. The firm will lure developers by pitching the ease of porting X86 arcade games to orthodox PC environments.