Originally appeared in the Computer User

REPRINT RIGHTS FOR SALE
(Click here for permission.)

Stimulate the economy, give a poet a dollar.

I enjoyed serving this essay up for you, and I did it for free. But this writer is currently out of work, and a bit of revenue would gladden his heart. If you'd like to contribute to this site, consider dropping a $1 tip in the "Honor Box" here. Just click the CLICK TO PAY image here. Thanks - Mike
"Lots of us find it a very helpful, human, sometimes humorous, always interesting, often surprising column that has no peer on the freelance market, And, yes, you can use that as a testimonial if it helps."
-- Bill Dowd, Albany Times Union

"No one talks about the ups and downs of technology like Michael Finley. See his columns online at www.mfinley.com/. -- James S. Derk, Evansville (IN Courier

Check out The NEW Why Teams Don't Work WINNER, Financial Times/Booz Allen & Hamilton Global Business Book Award, "Best Management Book, 1995" by Mike & Harvey Robbins from Berrett-Koehler Publishers

I have been wondering how Intel came up with the name "Pentium." In 1994 Intel claimed the name came from the Greek root pent-, for "five." But the Pentium name was extended beyond the 586 level to the 686, and now even the 786 level of the chip series. What's the deal? Why no Sexium or Septum?

Then I remembered a course on ancient drama I took in college years ago. The origin of the Pentium name may lie in the ancient tragedy The Bacchae, by Euripedes.

The story takes place way back, when the god of wine and ecstasy Dionysus (Bacchus), is out and about, recruiting women followers in Greece. These women break completely from rational society and roam the hills doing god knows what.

A brash, macho young king named Pentheus meets Dionysus. The king despises the passion and unreason the god engenders. Dionysus, licking his chops at the rationalist king's hubris, invites Pentheus to come spy on the Bacchanalian rites and reveal their "mysteries," so that the thinking world can take appropriate measures.

So Pentheus disguises himself in a woman's dress and hides in a tree overlooking the ceremonies. To his astonishment, the women, including his own mother, Queen Agave, are magical: they touch something dead, and it springs back to life. On the down side, they go on berserk rampages and tear animals to bloody bits with their hands.

Then Dionysus springs his trap, revealing Pentheus' hiding place. The woman surround the young king and rip him apart. His own mother joyously hoists his head on a stick and marches with it back to Thebes, which will never be quite the same place again.

* * *

Still with me? Then you are wondering, as I am, why the heck Intel chose King Pentheus as the symbol for a microprocessor.

The answer is that there a is long, prosperous tradition of companies adopting mythological trademarks -- Atlas tires, Mobil Oil's winged Pegasus, Ajax the foaming cleanser. There's cachet in them fables Why wouldn't Intel name its chip after a clever king?

Personally, though, I would have named it after another Greek king, Theseus, killer of the Minotaur. Take a microchip, examine it under a magnifying glass, and see all the passageways and cul-de-sacs etched on the silicon wafer. The Theseum chip is modeled after the Labyrinth.

* * *

OK, so maybe Intel didn't name its chip after Pentheus.

But I still like the idea. I like it because it is, to use a word from college, ontological. It explains why things are the way they are. Winter and summer alternate, ontologically, because this world and the afterworld take turns loving Persephone. Evil exists, ontologically, because Pandora could not resist opening a vase given her by Zeus, and let all the ghoulies out.

Pentheus was as symbol for his modern generation, as the Pentium is for ours. Just as the chip believes all useful truth can be channeled through logic gates, Pentheus believed that the Bacchanalian mysteries would wilt in the face of his masculine intelligence. But this parade celebrates the dark side of human nature, not his vain certainties. In this parade, he was the confetti.

And that "torn to bits" part -- you gotta love that.

The Pentheus myth explains, ontologically, why our vaunted "information age" so often seems so empty, why digital technology alone cannot satisfy our appetites. It explains why even the proudest among us flip out occasionally, and do something mega-crazy.

At some point in our pretensions, someone holds a mirror up to us and our technological achievements, and there we are, like Pentheus of old, convinced we are made of sterner, manlier stuff than the mob, but primping in our reflection, and straightening our hems.

Myths are often technophobic -- the tower of Babel, the Midas touch, the riddle of the Sphinx all mocked the vanity of human certitude. The ancients loved the theme, and it has not lost its relevance. When the original Pentium chip -- so powerful, so brilliant -- was found, in 1995, to be unable to do complex long division, you could almost hear the gods chuckling.

America's Best-Loved Technology Writer(TM), Michael Finley has a free gift for visitors to http://mfinley.com.

America's Best-Loved Technology Writer(TM), Michael Finley has a free gift for visitors to http://mfinley.com.