The Pentium Chronicles: The People, Passion, and Politics Behind Intel's Landmark Chips (Practitioners)

This is a fabulous book. I first read it several years ago, shortly after it appeared, and reread it recently. Colwell is a superb writer - and a pretty decent instructor as well. I'd read his columns in an IEEE publication and encouraged by that, bought a copy of his book. The story of the development of the Pentium chip(s) is fascinating in itself, as a description of the process of bringing into being an enormously complicated and complex artifact. But woven into the chapters are his observations of the process, from the viewpoint of a very senior manager of a large team of engineers (the phrase 'herding cats' certainly is applicable). These observations are almost a management textbook in themselves - and ought to be required reading in every MBA curriculum, and required for all managers of technical and engineering staff, especially including members of C-Suites. Highly recommended.

It's really a treat. It should be in the bookshelf of a grad student or practioner in the fields of computer and electronics engineering.It is not written by some professional writer, instead, it is a book written by a engineer, with the very first-hand experience of the development of P6 architecture. If this book should have some imperfection or even mistake, I will take a psychological perspective to anylyze it -- just like I analyze my own development memos. 8-) As a reader of At Random, I can say that the writing of Mr. Colwell is comparable with those professional writers.BTW, I think the subtitle is quite fit for the content of this book.

It promised to be an insiders' view of the making of a silicon masterpiece. Instead it was little more than a self-congratulatory diatribe on how wonderful the author's management technique was. "Insider stories" were scant, and it was no "chronicle" (timelime), at all.Unlike heady tomes such as "Commodore: a Company on the edge"(Brian Bagnall), or "The Soul of a New Machine" (Tracy Kidder), this book contains little or no history, little context, few (if any) insights on any of the design challenges, and very little even about the engineers themselves. It's all about "Me, Me Me" and how wonderful my management is. For the $32.84 (AUD) I paid for it - a total waste of time, and a VERY expensive book.

As may be likely with many readers, I first heard of Mr. Colwell from his IEEE Computer columns, of which I was big fan. Several times I was tempted to send him comments about the insights and occasional humor, but I never did. The same kind of writing and attitude is clearly on display in "Chronicles".Because other reviewers mentioned "Soul of a New Machine," I agree that it is hard to escape, even though the two books are much different. When I was a young engineer in the early 80s, "Soul" was (and is) a great book. I did not have the experience to grasp some lessons to be learned from the story, and a 1980s version of "Chronicles" would not have hit home, either.However, Mr. Colwell is completely believable in his anecdotes and in the presentation of the big picture, the project, and countless details both technical and personal. Experienced engineers will no doubt see themselves, their colleagues, and their projects in one form or another. I don't mean just the "Dilbert" moments and inevitable personal clashes, but also the serious business and technical challenges that any complex project must face. I found myself nodding in agreement again and again with his conclusions and advice.Two reasons I liked Mr. Colwell's columns are that he is not just a techno-geek and that an interesting feisty personality showed through. You see that feistiness at times in the book with stories of taking on the powers that be, for better or worse, without feeling like you are listening to someone covering his tracks to make himself look good. The true engineer comes through, with enough polish to be around executives and to be allowed with customers.

Really great! I enjoyed this book - rare opportunity to see inside of complex engineering projects. Excellent book indeed.

This book is about the development of Intel’s Pentium Pro processor. I was hoping for a book like “Soul of a New Machine” (development of the Eagle mini) or “Revolution in the Valley” (development of the Mac). Those books emphasized specific personnel interactions as well as provided some specific examples of hardware and software problems and solutions. These books were entertaining as well as informative. Instead, the first ¾ of this book is essentially a guide for managers of high-tech development projects … rather dry unless you’re a manager. The last ¼ was more interesting and covers the release of the processor and interactions among Intel’s development groups. In this section, personalities, quirkiness of Intel work environment, and interactions with processor consumers come to life. Overall, I would recommend the book only if you are a tech manager.

I am biased as I worked for Bob.

love it!

Despite being fairly short, this book is very difficult to read. Most of the text focuses on what the author thinks you should be learning from his experience, and any aspect of storytelling that might have engaged the reader is relegated to a few too short anecdotes. There is little attempt to introduce characters or even to explain what was done - instead we have to read that projects should be split into four phases that require different resources. I've read other similar books - such as To the Digital Age: Research Labs, Start-up Companies, and the Rise of MOS Technology (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology) - that are excellent, and show what this book could have been.