good excuse to run classic computers

Here's a thought. If you've got classic computers you'd love to run but can't think of anything to DO with them, (and they speak unix) go to http://setiathome.ssi.berkeley.edu and make your computer's idle cycles part of the SETI search for extraterrestrial life. They download you a chunk of data from the Arecebo radio telescope and your computer spends its idle time running analysis on that chunk, then sends the results back. They keep track of what platforms people are using too. Wouldn't it be cool if the machine that finally found a real ET signal turned out to be a Vax 11/780 sitting in some collector's garage? They also have it as a screensaver for mac and windows, too. For reference, a "work unit" - about 300k of data all told - will take about 20 hours to process on my PII/300 machine assuming I let it run continuously. -- Jim Strickland jim(a)DIESPAMMERSCUMcalico.litterbox.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Vote Meadocrat! Bill and Opus in 2000 - Who ELSE is there? -----------------------------------------------------------------------