Just a short post as once again, we find people using the word ‘Zombie’ to describe something they disapprove of being unusually resilient or durable:

Is it Halloween already? Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) is bringing a discontinued chipset back from the grave, zombie-style.

Citing “specific requests from computer makers” after “extensive discussions” on the topic, the chip giant has agreed to ship out support chips for the recently launched and even more recently recalled chipsets for its Sandy Bridge processor series. Not willy-nilly, of course — the buggy chips will only be shipped to system builders who promise to use ‘em only in configurations not affected by the bug. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait a couple of weeks for a corrected version to start shipping.

Basically, Intel made some chips with an SATA controller that has flaws that only creep up when using older, slower ports and not the newest ones. So while the chipsets are still defective, they can be safely used if you only use them to control a couple of newer SATA drives, and Intel is willing to sell them on that basis, provided you promise not to use them in a way that would activate the defect (and get them more bad press).

This doesn’t have any ‘Zombie’ angle to it at all; it’s just a minor technical recall being hashed out between a chip supplier and its clients. The chips were never alive, and didn’t come back from the dead; they were put on a shelf and then taken off the shelf again. Big whoop.

Well, unless you have an Anti-Zombie axe to grind, of course.

Tags: Don't Use the Zed Word, Journamalism

This entry was posted by John Sears on Tuesday, February 8th, 2011 at 11:55 pm and is filed under Zombie Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.