Intel fashion machines now unlikely before Yule

Bright and shiny PCs in interesting shapes and intended to use Coppermine Socket 370 processors may not now be in the shops by Christmas. That will be a further blow to Intel, which has spent much of this year promoting the designs, which use highly unusual form factors, not suited to Slot 1 cartridges. Some of the designs were intended to make use of the flip chip S370 design, which has been delayed for up to five weeks, because of problems with the fan mechanism, as reported here yesterday. Although Celeron processors now come in the Socket 370 form factor, they do not use the faster Coppermine design that Intel hopes will be the AMD Athlon killer. At the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in February, senior VP Pat Gelsinger introduced the designs, intended to compete against the Macintosh iMac, to a fashion fanfare where bunny people strutted their stuff. And again, at the last IDF in September, CEO Craig Barrett rolled out a whole new set of form factors, while some vendors, including NEC and Toshiba, even showed prototype machines. In February, senior VP Paul Otellini and other executives told The Register that he hoped designs would be in the shops by this Christmas. That now looks increasingly unlikely. Meanwhile, Intel tells us that the OR840 motherboard, which supports Rambus memory and Coppermine processors, will ship next week. However, as CuMine chips are somewhat constrained in supply, it could be quite some time before we see machines up and running. ®