Rupert Goodwins' Diary

Monday 28/1/2002

Normally, the business of writing about new processor chips is a worthy, technical and rather dull business: the days when ten architectures battled it out in thirty gloriously incompatible personal computers have long gone. But Intel, bless it, is doing its best to ease the problem of UK-based technohacks by nicknaming the next version of the Itanium "Prescott".

This is an apposite name: like the deputy prime minister, the Itanium family has been notable by its complete absence from the real world. Reputedly a hard hitter, the architecture only really flies when it speaks its own language, one that nobody else quite understands: any attempt to speak the language of its forefathers slows things down for all concerned. Prone to overheating and greedy for power, the silicon Prescott may have a high profile on paper yet you won't find many people who really believe it's the future.

And will it ever be seen on a bus?