The Rolex

The Rolex

This incredible rendition of a Rolex wristwatch was discovered nested within the clock circuitry of a Hewlett-Packard PA-7100 microprocessor, the chip code named Thunderbird that also contains The Bird is the Word entry in the Silicon Zoo. The Rolex is another example of the ingenious Sunken Via method of constructing doodles using a bitmap of via shafts developed by HP chip designers in Fort Collins, Colorado. This method of constructing silicon creatures is based on the formation of images through patterns (a series of tiny squares), much like bitmap images are composed of a series of pixels, where each covered via shaft represents an individual pixel. The Rolex is made with over 5000 individual via shafts. Other entries in the gallery constructed in the same manner include: The Con Artist, This Bird's For You, The Sundial, and The Thunderbird. Additional information about the evolution of silicon doodles within HP microprocessor clock circuitry can be found in text accompanying the Con Artist gallery entry.


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