This just hasn't been Intel's year. First, there was the Pentium fioating-point fiasco. Now, a German programmer has posted information on the Net revealing a number of the superchip's secret functions. These confidential features, while not necessary for most applications, are helpful for programmers who want to achieve maximum performance. And since the original posting, more people on comp.sys.intel have uncovered undocumented Pentium tricks.
According to Michael Slater of the Microprocessor Report, these features were kept secret by Intel so other companies wouldn't be able to build clones of the processor. But now that they're leaking out, Intel is releasing some of the information. It's yet another case of the Internet breaking through censorship. See for further details.
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