amd and intel usto work together?

[jorg]

i have a computer from the erily 80s and on the mother bored its a a rather large chip i am guessing the prosesor but on it it has the amd and intel logos on it!

any one clear this up for me?

[theknub]

amd and intel used to be part of the same company. at some point, amd spun off. i read a whole book about it once, but that was almost 11 years ago so i can't remember all the details.

from what i remember, intel actually encouraged the spin off to create competition in the market place so that they wouldn't have an antitrust / monopoly problem like microshaft.

btw, take all this with a grain of salt and some of your own research. i read the book too long ago and im not taking any time to research myself.

[jorg]

thanks

[thunderhawk]

AMD and Intel worked together once... AMD produced Intel chips for them once.
Look at this, from Wikipedia:

AMD 80286 1982

In February 1982, AMD signed a contract with Intel, becoming a licensed second-source manufacturer of 8086 and 8088 processors. IBM wanted to use the Intel 8088 in its IBM PC, but IBM's policy at the time was to require at least two sources for its chips. AMD later produced the 80286, or 286, under the same arrangement, but Intel cancelled the agreement in 1986, and refused to convey technical details of the i386 part. The growing popularity of the PC clone market meant Intel could produce CPUs on its own terms, rather than IBM's.

AMD challenged this decision, and subsequently won under arbitration. A long legal dispute followed, ending in 1991 when the Supreme Court of California sided with AMD and forced Intel to pay over $1 billion in compensation for violation of contract. Subsequent legal disputes centered on whether AMD had legal rights to use derivatives of Intel's microcode. Rulings were made in both directions. In the face of uncertainty, AMD was forced to develop "clean room" versions of Intel code. In this fashion, one engineering team described the function of the code, and a second team without access to the source code itself had to develop microcode that performed the same functionality.

Well, it's a brief summary of their common history. Not very detailed and take this information with a grain of salt... Some research on more reliable sources should point out more for you.

[theknub]

i remember the part about IBM requiring two sources, but the rest? man, college really took a toll on my brain.