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Today, we've decided to revisit some of the worst CPUs ever built. To make it on to this list, a CPU needed to be fundamentally broken, as opposed to simply being poorly positioned or slower than expected. The annals of history are already stuffed with mediocre products that didn't quite meet expectations but weren't truly bad.
Note: Plenty of people will bring up the Pentium FDIV bug here, but the reason we didn't include it is simple: Despite being an enormous marketing failure for Intel and a huge expense, the actual bug was tiny. It impacted no one who wasn't already doing scientific computing and the scale and scope of the problem in technical terms was never estimated to be much of anything. The incident is recalled today more for the disastrous way Intel handled it than for any overarching problem in the Pentium micro-architecture.
We also include a few dishonourable mentions. These chips may not be the worst of the worst, but they ran into serious problems or failed to address key market segments. With that, here's our list of the worst CPUs ever made.
- Intel Itanium
- Intel Pentium 4 (Prescott)
- AMD Bulldozer
- Cyrix 6×86
- Cyrix MediaGX
- Texas Instruments TMS9900
Which CPUs make up your list of Worst CPUs Ever Made?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Dr Spin on Thursday April 23 2020, @06:21PM
I can't remember the manufacturer, but it was an early 8-bit MCU. I was using the NS COP400, which was new at the time, (about 1979) but other people in the lab had to use this device.
Horror features included:
Executing the code with the memory addresses in Grey-code order to avoid ripple carry. (try debugging that - assembly only in those days).
Output ports had separate addresses for pull-ups and pull downs. Turning both on at the same time was the ever popular "chip destruct" feature.
The same op-code did different things on different memory pages.
Most programmers had nervous breakdowns after a few months exposure to this device.
The National Semis COP400 (4-bit) was a popular device at the time, and superior in every possible way.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!