Intel on sale for $20

Bit by bits

By Ashlee Vance in Austin • Get more from this author

Posted in Bootnotes, 13th March 2007 19:20 GMT

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Fanboys everywhere can now buy Intel by the bit.

Ex-Dell staffer and Austin resident David Weaver has started selling small containers full of the debris left over from the so-called "Intel Shell" – a never completed Intel facility destroyed last month. So, for the low-low price of $20, you can own Intel's ashes.

For the uninitiated, Intel fired up construction on a new 10-story chip design facility back in the boom days. But, when the bubble popped, Intel killed the $124m project, leaving Austin with just the building's skeleton and a painful reminder of a collapsed technology economy.

In the 2004, the government bought the site and has taken its sweet time developing a new courthouse on the property.

The Intel Shell was finally destroyed last month. So, Weaver drove by and picked up about 25 pounds of the old building. He has since been beating the debris with a hammer and sticking it in jars.

You can read more about the effort here. ®

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