Down CPU memory lane

Anybody remember these?
Two Pentium Pro CPUs
This is a pair of 200 MHz Pentium Pro CPUs that I found lying around in our PACS storage area. It was probably pulled out of an old server several years ago. I thought they would make a good decoration piece for my desk.
It’s a beast of a chip with the entire package measuring 6.8×6.3 cm. The Pentium Pro’s were introduced in 1996, with this particular variant, 200MHz and 512 kB cache, coming out in mid 1997. This makes it a veritable fossil in computer time.
Haven’t quite decided yet what I’ll do with them or how I want to display them. Maybe I’ll see if I can pop the heat spreader off one of them to expose the actual CPU. Tried to take an x-ray of the die, but despite using some pretty hefty techniques, I wasn’t able to get any significant penetration through the chip. Managed to get a faint outline of some of the CPU at 90kVp and 50mAs, but nothing interesting enough to post. It’s a pretty dense package. Might have to try a different tactic and shield the surrounding area with some lead so I can really blast through the chip.


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