TechSmec.com

Moore’s Law Bounty Sparks Wave of Library Theft

April 15th, 2005

To mark the 40th anniversary of Moore’s Law, the often quoted prediction by Gordon Moore that the number of components on a CPU would double every 2 years, while prices would fall at a similar rate, Intel offered a $10,000 bounty for a mint copy of the magazine where the article was first published.

The April 19, 1965 edition of Electronics Magazine is the tome in question, but it seems that the magazine is not as rare as the bounty would have you believe. In fact there are copies around the world in university libraries…or rather there were copies in university libraries.

First to report a big space on the shelf where the magazine once sat was the University of Illinois - others quickly followed, forcing academic institutions across the USA to put their copies under lock and key, including Stanford.

Quite what Intel thought it was doing by offering money for a magazine that was freely available is anyone’s guess. Why they thought the best way of getting it was to post the electronic equivalent of a wanted notice is even stranger. They are now reportedly sitting under a mound of copies.

Entry Filed under: Hardware Tech, Misc / Humour