27 Jan
1999
27 Jan
'99
1:23 a.m.
At 10:21 PM 1/26/99 -0800, Sam Ismail wrote:
To demonstrate that old
hardware that can be picked up for pennies can be combined to attain
amazing amounts of computing power.
Amazing? How many orders of magnitude difference in horsepower
between a C-64 and a $600 Best Buy Intel box? Perhaps I'm being
unromantic, and I certainly have too many old computers of the
XT/AT/486 variety, but I just don't "get" many of these distributed
computing projects. (I do leave my spare contemporary computers
working for the RC5 project at distributed.net, but that's another
story.) Take 10 computers at 1 horse each, and they're still not
equal to one contemporary (cheap) computer at 10 horses. Sure,
there's hack value in doing it, but mostly for people with too
much time on their hands, or for people who aren't paying for the
electric bill or the room to put them in. Hack away, sure - but
claim they're doing "useful" work?
- John