Piggy-back systems

[Brastius]

This may sound stupid, but I was wondering if anyone had ever experimented with piggy-backing two (or more?) motherboards together to make one computer system.
Is this possible? I have a 486/sux lying around doing nothing as well as a 386/25. I was thinking that there MUST be Something I could do to put them to use and maybe even make a half-decent system.
If anyone has any ideas, feel free (other than the obvious of LAN). ;p

-Brastius
"The thing about saying the wrong words is that A, I don't notice it, and B, sometimes orange water gibbon bucket and plastic." -Mr. Burrows (Michael Palin), Monty Python

[krusty the klown]

Hmmm.... such a thing has been done. A group of people salvaged a load of scrap 486 mobos and CPUs and did exactly that. They were able to build a supercomputer for peanuts (comparatively speaking). This thing was on the teraflops scale, making quite a number cruncher. One of the guys @ work knows something about it, so I'll post back with some search threads 4U.

From the brief conversation I had with him, the expensive bit is purchasing the interconnects and software, so it might not be feasible to DIY for 2 or 3 mobos, but if you had access to a couple of hundred and wanted to build a kick-@ss supercomputer quite cheaply, it can be done.

I'll get back in a day or so http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

[krusty the klown]

The project is called the Beowulf Project and you can find some info here:
http://www.beowulf.org/

and here:
http://www.beowulf-underground.org/

As one of the FAQ answers points out "can I do this with 100 386's? Yes, but it will be slower than a celeron 333, but a good way to learn"

[Brastius]

Way Cool! Alot deeper than I had figured, I'm gonna havta piecemeal one together now. Especially now that Cel 500's have gone down.
Thanks for the link. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

-Brastius

"Would Albert Einstein have ever hit on the Theory of Relativity if he hadn't of been Clever?" -Host "Frontiers of Medicine" (John Cleese), Monty Python

[krusty the klown]

Pretty smart eh?

Did you check out the 64 Athlon 700 cluster? Bit of a beast!

*****, just think what the Sysopt community could do with the watercooling and tweaking experts around..... Mmmmmmm...... 64 P3 500E's all clocking @ 825MHz......