Talk:Halt and Catch Fire/PaulChowRichardCavell

Conversation 1:

Hi Richard

Amazing that this is still a topic of conversation. I can   categorically attest that it was a joke. I wrote the manual and I   am the source of it. Don't know how else to document it!

BTW, it was not the same team as developed MIPS (Stanford) or MIPS-R   (MIPS Co.). There was one student who was part of all the teams at   some point and John Hennessy.

pc

Paul,

I just want to clarify what's happened with this. I've         attempted to modify the Wikipedia page to establish once and          for all that it's a joke, but the standard for inclusion on          Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. I attempted to cite my         personal correspondence with you, but they're not having it.

The problem is, of course, that it's not obvious that it's a         joke, and there is at least some credibility behind the          concept of an assembly instruction that would cause a chip to          literally combust.

Richard

-                 Original Message -

From:                 Paul Chow

Sent:                 07/10/10 10:05 PM

To:                 richardcavell@mail.com

Subject:                 Re: MIPS-X Hi Richard > You describe in the programmer's manual of the MIPS-X that there's a > 'Halt and Spontaneously Combust' instruction on NSA versions of the > chip. > > Just for the record, is this a joke or does it describe a genuine > feature of the chip? Yes, it is a joke. Having come from Canada and then working on a DARPA-sponsored project, I figured this was an appropriate "feature". Surprisingly, this made the rounds in Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIPS-X and Reddit (google reddit mips-x) and a few other forums a few years ago. I was alerted to this and explained it at that time. The wikipedia entry was updated but that has since disappeared. I guess someone preferred the "mystery" of leaving it unclear :-) pc

Conversation 2:

Hi Richard

The problem is that Wikipedia likes verifiability (sourcing)         rather than truth. I'm going to start a discussion on         Wikipedia about it. Because the "halt and catch fire" has         elements of silliness as well as reality, I think we need to          sort this out.

Should I publish another paper to clarify? :-)

Would you be offended if I post our email conversation to         other Wikipedia editors or otherwise online?

No problem. I prefer "truth".

pc