Janet, The concept is called 'Parallel Computing' and is accomplish by connecting multiple machines in what is called an 'Apple Seed Cluster'. With the proper software the individual computers, or nodes as they are called, are able to distribute a workload amongst themselves. Therefore greater processing power can be gained by adding additional nodes as they become available. I discussed the project with Anthony off line at the time. Here is his original message (from my archive) and some links I found that you may also find interesting:
http://exodus.physics.ucla.edu/appleseed/appleseed.html http://www.phys.subr.edu/computing/hpc/ Subject: [swap] Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2002 21:29:09 -0500 From: Anthony Waller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (LEM Swap List I have a request... kinda desperate and maybe offtopic. But definitely related to Old Macs and swapping/buying... Me and several other students are building an AppleSeed Cluster as a project for school... and I need nodes. The school has very very very few macs (evil evil anti-mac PC using network admins hate macs and want to kill me for this). Anyways, I need nodes. I am looking for PowerMacs. I can pay very little, as I am trying to come by a total of 16 nodes for the Machine. I already have 5, and am acquiring 3 more PowerMacs. 6100/other really bad and almost useless PowerMacs are great!!!, but IIci and their ilk are not--The Multiprocessor stuff doesn't run on 68K code. Or so I believe. The AppleSeed People all ignore all my emails, so I am relying on the fact that they require 8.6 to believe that there is no way to beowulf 68K macs. If you have information to the contrary, PLEASE email me. 68K macs are cheaper. If you live in the atlanta area (shipping is too expensive unless you are willing to donate the shipping cost to a good cause. or something.) and have any cheap PowerMacs... please I beg you to email me. Also contact me if you have any PowerMacs you'd like to donate... I think my school is non-profit (private HS, though) and you could be able to tax-deduct the donation of equipment. If you donate the stuff, you will get advertising exposure and time on the final Cluster, and have the knowledge of having advanced the mac case. by ad exposure I mean you can have an ad on the cluster's eventual website (which might be slash-dotted once I get some results. its not that unbelievable. Slashdot likes beowulf clusters). By time on the final cluster I mean that you can get me to run apps for you (but I won't code anything for you, though I will debug it. I don't have THAT much free time) on the cluster, or clients from distributed.net/seti@home run in your name. Plus, we will take "loaner" machines. The AppleSeed Cluster will probably "live" for about 1 year and a half (until the end of School year 2002-2003) so you can get your machines back at that time. maybe we can work out a rent-deal or something. I really don't want to take this route, as its too much of a hassle, and you probably can give away/sell cheap the machine if you can loan it out/rent it for a year and a half. But I will re-iterate my point. I am looking to buy PowerMacs. With some ram, hard drives, and network cards, preferably. We DON'T need monitors, keyboards, or your maxed out 9600 with G4 cards, SCSI-Ultra wide 3 and DVD-Ram. We ARE looking to buy that useless powermac 6100 with the dead modem and monitor that you keep in the basement to collect dust bunnies. Any powermacs that need a good home? We cannot accept monetary donations, unfortunately. Contact me if your commercial company wants to sponsor us, or something. I'm sure we can come to an arrangement. Add-On cards are also not really needed, though once I get the machine set up I might need more RAM, replacement HDs, etc. Mainly we are looking for bare-bones machines... if It boots and contains a 601 chip, we want it. For those who don't know, an AppleSeed Cluster is a distributed Parallel-processing node-based computer. Also known also a Beowulf Cluster, AppleSeed Clusters are a cheap way to learn about parallel processing and only require macs with network cards. No linux, no special stuff, etc. AppleSeed Clusters have outperformed expensive Cray Supercomputers at a fraction of the price. The idea is that the calculations are split up into small parts, and each computer performs one small part, therefore dividing the work and conquering it with the power of Apple. SETI@home is an example of distributed computing. An AppleSeed/Beowulf Cluster differs from SETI@home's approach in that all the computers are networked with fast ethernet on a LAN, allowing results to come in quickly and increasing the simplicity of writing programs for the Computer. Plus, with a LAN-based approach the packets don't need to be verified (i.e. nobody cheats). The Stone SouperComputer, one of the more famous Beowulf clusters, has managed to outperform many large and expensive supercomputers (i think its 33rd in the world) at a hardware cost of 0, by only utilizing "obsolete" computing equipment. flawed jai wrote: > <snip> > IIRC, there was a college kid here in the last year who inquired about > where he coud get abunch of 68k macs for his computer class, where they > were gonna try to do exactly that--combine the processors in series of > old boards and try to prove that old ones bunfled to share the load > could leave the singular big ones in the dust. > > i tried to search the swaplist archives, but couldn't get it to take me > back to last year. > he never reported back. i wonder what became of the project? it sounded > cool. > and besides, if it worked, we could dedicate those hills of old macs to > condensing them together as a supercomputer with multiple processors, > and give the world yet another reason not to trash them, but reuse them > in a way that would awe the typical human being who thinks that only the > newest is worth looking at. > janet -- Vintage Macs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Enter To Win A | -- Canon PowerShot Digital Cameras start at $299 | Free iBook! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Vintage Macs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/vintagemacs.shtml> The FAQ: <http://macfaq.org/> Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/vintage.macs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
