An lame processor made by Intel. It was supposed to be Intel's answer to AMD and Cyrix in the low-end and midrange section of the pc market.
The Celeron was designed to be as cheap as possible. Not only in terms of production, but also in terms of design. So, instead of creating an all-new design that would actually compete, Intel just chopped parts of their Pentium II processor, until the desired level of cheapness had been achieved. The first Celeron to be rolled out was the 300A, and it quickly gained reputation for it's lackster
performance, increadible lag, and general lameness.
During the height of their (un)popularity
in the early 2000s, Celerons became the
laughing stock of every tech-savvy person. Like AOL, they quickly became a product for people who didn't know any better. Today, Celeron's continue the tradition of being nothing more than chopped versions of Intel's processors, but fortunately people have wisen up and look at the benchmarks before they buy, so naturally, their population has drammatically decreased in favor of AMD, again.
Nevertheless, Celerons can still be found in office desks, as they are notorious for being able to tolerate incredible amounts of dust, nicotine and filth without
breaking down, while being adequate in word-processing tasks and the like.
Me: This is my old pc, with a Celeron 667 in it. My father bought it, thinking he was getting an
equivalent to the Intel Pentium III 500Mhz processor. This is what happens when you leave a non tech-savvy person with a computer store salesmam.
Friend: I see it also has a tv card so you can do your video captures
Me: Is coding video in 174x144
resolution at 15fps with Indeo Video codec considered "capture"? Now
let's play Need For Speed III at medium graphics detail!