----- Original Message -----
From: <jwbirdsa_at_picarefy.com>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, December 30, 2001 06:21 PM
Subject: Trailing-edge compute farm seeks gainful employment
> Supposing one has a farm of older, relatively slower machines (Sun-2's,
> Sun-3's, early SPARCs, 386es, very small VAXen, 68k-based Macs, etc.)
> running various Unixes (mostly NetBSD), networked together and connected
> to the Net. What does one do with it?
>
> I've been trying to think of some interesting, moderately useful
> distributed-computing project that they could sit and crank away at
> and haven't come up with much of anything. All the distributed projects
> that I know of are distributed because even fast machines aren't enough by
> themselves -- a trailing-edge farm can't make a useful contribution.
Hey-- I'm there too! I've got thousands of kilowatt/mips in the basement
that currentlty sit idle for lack of a Goal. I've got some lovely plans for
different boxen, but without something to work towards I just don't have the
motivation.
>
> If network Tierra (an artificial-life research project) had ever come
to
> pass, that would have been a superb application for these beasts. But it
> didn't.
Huh, this sounds neat. Looks like the pokemon project is still active--
evolve yer electrons!
http://www.his.atr.co.jp/~ray/pubs/alife7a/index.html
>
> Ideas, anyone? Please?
Non-portable space heating? Concrete slab compression testing? The
possibilities are endless! :)
>
> --James B.
Bob
Received on Sun Dec 30 2001 - 19:13:27 GMT