The Sundial

The Sundial

This beautiful rendition of an ancient sundial was discovered near the clock circuitry on the Hewlett-Packard PA-7300LC microprocessor that bore the in-house nickname of "Velociraptor" and also contains this dinosaur creature on another part of the chip. HP manager Rick Butler has informed us that the writing beneath the dial says "VR fp 1995", which stands for VelociRaptor floating point. We are also told that the sundial was partially covered due to the metal being placed on different layers during fabrication. This explains the contrast in definition between the upper and lower portions of the sundial. HP chip designers chose the sundial to represent the clock on this chip because it is much faster than any watch and time does not move in discrete "ticks".


© 1995-2022 by Michael W. Davidson and The Florida State University. All Rights Reserved. No images, graphics, software, scripts, or applets may be reproduced or used in any manner without permission from the copyright holders. Use of this website means you agree to all of the Legal Terms and Conditions set forth by the owners.
This website is maintained by our
Graphics & Web Programming Team
in collaboration with Optical Microscopy at the
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory.
Last modification: Wednesday, Mar 03, 2004 at 03:30 PM
Access Count Since February 12, 1999: 98152