123c5975d8b2
tech



Hello Roy - 

--8<--cut 

CA>>> Could be a conflict of interest or some such but if SONY
CA>>> ever wakes up to what a silly computer most home users
CA>>> really want they could take over the home computer market
CA>>> in no time. ;-) 

RJT>> There was a mention somewhere in a magazine some time
RJT>> back about somebody taking a whole pile of those
RJT>> machines, loading linux on them, and using them as a
RJT>> cheap "array" of computers for something or other. Or
RJT>> maybe that was playstations, I don't recall. 

CA>> "Imagine a beowulf cluster of these ..." is a running gag
CA>> at SlashDot for just about anything and everything. 

RJT> I've been to that site for a few articles here and there,
RJT> but not often enough to pick up on that. 

CA>> If you find that concept interesting I do have a link to
CA>> instructions for setting up a beowulf cluster of legacy
CA>> hardware  DOS machines at my tech website and it's not a
CA>> gag, it's real. ;-) 

RJT> How old is the hardware you refer to here? 

8088 XTs? 

RJT> The thing that gets me about that stuff is that it still
RJT> takes up space, 

They don't all need monitors, stack them. :-) 

RJT> I'd need to find someplace to *put* all those machines, it
RJT> takes power (there are only _two_ outlets in this room), 

Powerstrip. 

RJT> and it takes networking (I have some cards, but don't plan
RJT> to use them all up like that). 

This setup uses serial port cables. 

RJT> And what do you get out of it? 

Bragging rights? 

RJT> My understanding is that this sort of thing is good if
RJT> you're running something that has a pretty heavy
RJT> computational load, 

True. 

RJT> but that's not the case for most of what I do here, which
RJT> tends to bottleneck with communication speeds (both LAN
RJT> and modem), and with storage space, which is why my next
RJT> project is going to be the server I've started but haven't
RJT> gotten around to finishing yet. 

100 ten gig hard drives in a RAID configuration? ;-) 

>
>        ,                          ,
>      o/      Charles.Angelich      \o       ,
>       __o/
>     / >          USA, MI           < \   __\__
 

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