The Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) produced the Rigel chipset during the 1980s to power the (then) state-of-the-art VAX series of workstation and server computers. This set of chips contained a floating-point unit termed the Kiwei, a microprocessor code-named Rex, and a cache controller chip. Each of the chips in the set had its own logo. The cache controller logo was a cow, while the coprocessor featured a New Zealand kiwi bird. The microprocessor in the Rigel chipset contained a Tyrannosaurus rex driving a convertible sports car, which was intended as a pun on the then-current competitive marketing campaign to brand VAX and other CISC (complex instruction-set computer) chips as dinosaurs. Presented above is a digital image recorded in differential interference contrast illumination of the Rex microprocessor logo. The chip was loaned for photomicrography by Jean-Michel Friedt of Leuven, Belgium. View a brightfield image of the Tyrannosaurus rex. |
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