Home Made Super Computers?

[CanaBalistic]

Hey guys, I saw this a long while ago and thought it was a cool idea but i have no idea how they did it. Basicly, there is this charity that takes old computers and some how networked them together to share the proccessor task load. I believe they had more than 400 old computers running as one super computer.

Does anyone know how this was achieved or if i imagined the whole thing?

It would be a cool idea if you could add your old computers together and make a small home built supercomputer

[Omega]

There's a way to do it with linux, it's called a Beowulf cluster.

I also know there is a way to do it with windows, but i do not know how.

Google "Beowulf cluster", you should get alot of hits

[Mach]

This one?

http://stonesoup.esd.ornl.gov/

You can also check out wikipedia on parallel computing and Koza. I believe that he currently has the largest parallel computing setup with 1000 nodes that is owned by a single person.

[CanaBalistic]

I wonder if there is a way to use the same technique for grafix processors. I absolutly think it would kick some serious ass if you could use the cpu's and grafix cards from 2-10 computers to make one nice gaming rig.

[d_stilgar]

The problem is the bandwith between machines is too slow to share all that power. I'm sure someone could figure out a way to make it work decently, but for the most part it really isn't possible.

[Cevinzol]

http://www.beowulf.org/
too bad windows doesn't do this.

[nil8]

It's really useful for large number crunching, such as folding@home or SETI projects, but not really useful for real time apps/video games.

Beowulf isn't the only game in town, but it's the only one that is an OS.

The rest are applications that sit on an OS and run.

You're looking for distributed computing. Most comp sci majors have to make one of these programs before they get their degree.

[crenn]

The most common 'Mini' super computer I have seen is people using Mini-ITX boards in a cluster. And the best way to transfer data between computers is fibre optics.... don't ask me how though....

[aaronz8]

I think Multiplicity from Stardock.com can combine the power of multiple windows computers.

[CanaBalistic]

I checked into that and it only lets you control both computers. There is no way to make both cpu's function as one with Multiplicity(ironic...). It looks like a cool program and i think im going to try it with a server im going to build soon.

[nil8]

Windows is actually getting into the cluster market sometime next year with a server version. Redhat looked at it and laughed.

Read your slashdot people. This stuff is (kinda) important.