Hey Billvon, Wendy - Sony PS2s Hacked into Supercomputer Cluster

[Guest]

I can't believe I missed this. The NCSA has hacked 70 Playstations and ganged them into a supercomputing cluster.

Story here.

Sony even sells a Linux hacking kit!

edit to correct URL

mh

"The mouse does not know life until it is in the mouth of the cat."

[AggieDave 6]

Talk about taking a piss on M$, who was trying to go after the folks hacking the Xbox to run Linux.

That's freak'n cool!

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[billvon 3,111]

I seem to remember Saddam's folks trying to get their hands on PS2's to build a supercomputer cluster . . . when supercomputers can be made out of toys, it's hard to control where they go.

[vdschoor 0]

Quote

I seem to remember Saddam's folks trying to get their hands on PS2's to build a supercomputer cluster . . . when supercomputers can be made out of toys, it's hard to control where they go.

When the PS2 first came out, weren't there export restrictions to China or something? Or at least there was talk of that.. I remember reading about it back then..

Pretty cool stuff though!
Iwan

[TheAnvil 0]

I wonder if a Pentium 4 equivalent could be made from 1000 ATARI 2600's?

Cool stuff Mark.

Vinny the Anvil
Post Traumatic Didn't Make The Lakers Syndrome is REAL
JACKASS POWER!!!!!!

[turtlespeed 226]

ok, so for us non computer literate types - just how powerful is this thing?

I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun

[lummy 4]

I was trying to find that out too...

IIRC an Xbox is basically a P3 733 box

I promise not to TP Davis under canopy.. I promise not to TP Davis under canopy.. eat sushi, get smoochieTTK#1

[wildblue 7]

They'll probably only need 1 Playstation 3 to do the same thing...

http://www.gamespot.com/all/news/news_6083656.html


IBM's 'super computer on a chip' they've announced. As the rumor goes, they're going to sell it to Sony for use in the PSX - and that in turn will help them become more affordable. Or at least help them fund the seriously powerful version of the chip. We'll see. Should be fun though, and may even destroy Moore's Law.

it's like incest - you're substituting convenience for quality

[TEB6363 0]

-->>So what are we going to do today Brain??? The same thing we try to do every day Pinkie - TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!

Once the plane takes off, you're gonna have to land - Might as well jump out!!

[turtlespeed 226]

you brought it up - What's moore's law?

I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun

[wildblue 7]

http://www.intel.com/research/silicon/mooreslaw.htm
another: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/M/Moores_Law.html

it's like incest - you're substituting convenience for quality

[riddler 0]

The concept of the "supercomputer" has been obsolete for more than a few years. It's cheaper and more reliable to network "normal" microprocessors together into clusters that have just as much or more power - that's all this "supercomputer" is anyway. One project I worked on in the early 90s had an Elexi supercomputer to do 6-DOF spacecraft simulations that cost $1 mil in maintenance every year, and took up an entire classified lab space. We replaced it with one Sun and one SG machine that did more than the supercomputer at 1/1000th the operating cost. If Saddam, or any terrorist wants a supercomputer, all they have to do is a little research on the Internet, get a dozen or more networked PCs and write some software.

Beowolf

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[PhillyKev 0]

Moore observed in 1965 that the trend was that the number of transistors on circuit boards doubled every couple of years. That's held true to this day.

[LivingInClip 0]

One day, I'll understand the obsession with hacking consoles for these things. As someone who has been into the gaming scene since Atari (and still collecting) and loves computers, I still don't see the point. Hacking the DC was part of it's death, now people are doin' th Xbox, down to the extent that there was callers on TechTv's 'The ScreenSavers' lastnight calling, asking how to transfer files from their PC to their Xbox, just for storage. Come on people! It's a game console, leave it alone. The same applies to the mass clustering of PS2 processors - which shouldn't of been to hard, see'ing as it there is Linux kits out there and more than enough knowledge on the clustering process.

I agree with the poster who said the idea of a "super computer" is dated. At one time, namely the 80's or so, it was a great idea. Now'a'days it really does not serve a true purpose, other than for CGI farms and maybe a project like S.E.T.I .

[turtlespeed 226]

that's alot of transistors.

I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun

[adamT 0]

How did hacking the Dreamcast contribute to its death?

[FallingILweenie 0]

well, that's what happens when the bars get old in Champaign...people start building supercomputers out of whatever they can find in their apartments....

one of my roommates when i was down at U of I worked in the Cave...i wish i had gotten a chance to see it.

[AndyMan 7]

close.

Moore postulated that the number of features (not transistors) per unit cost ($) would double every 18 monthes.


This means that you can get more features, or cheaper, but usually a combination of both.

Roughtly every two years you'll also see an article postulating the death of Moores law. If I had a penny for every time I'd seen one of these, I'd have almost enough for a cup of really, REALLY crappy coffee.

_Am

__

You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[PhillyKev 0]

Yes, close. I was paraphrasing. But FYI...I've heard the 18 month quote before, and that's just "close". In fact, he never proposed a law or theory. It was just dubbed that by the press. You can read the actual article that he wrote.

ftp://download.intel.com/research/silicon/moorespaper.pdf

[Guest]

Quote

One day, I'll understand the obsession with hacking consoles for these things. It's a game console, leave it alone.

Because it's FUN, of course!

For the same reason that some people hacked the silent-alert motors from pagers into vibrating nipple clamps...

"Hacking" is the highly respectable art of fiddling with a piece of hardware to make it do something radically different from what its creators intended, and the more outrageous, the better!

mh

"The mouse does not know life until it is in the mouth of the cat."

[billvon 3,111]

>I agree with the poster who said the idea of a "super computer" is
>dated. At one time, namely the 80's or so, it was a great idea.
> Now'a'days it really does not serve a true purpose, other than for
> CGI farms and maybe a project like S.E.T.I .

Or people who do numerical simulations, like aerodynamicists, biologists, astrophysicists or chemists. Simulating protein folding, for example, is critical to being able to understand how DNA works, and how genetic defects cause disease. It will take massive amounts of computing power to solve those sorts of problems. In many cases, such researchers actually turn to the public for help in providing computational power for their simulations.

[billvon 3,111]

>If Saddam, or any terrorist wants a supercomputer, all they have to
> do is a little research on the Internet, get a dozen or more
> networked PCs and write some software.

The understatement of the year! That's like saying if Saddam wants an F-16, all he has to do is some research on the net, get a bunch of aluminum, titanium, plastic and composite, and assemble an F-16. It's that "assemble an F-16" step that's the problem; "writing some software" is a similar effort. Which is the reason supercomputer centers aren't all that common.

[Kris 0]

Wow...imagine a Beowulf cluster of thos.....umm, sorry. Thought I was on Slashdot.org for a moment.

Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and
Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

[AndyMan 7]

Quote

The understatement of the year! That's like saying if Saddam wants an F-16, all he has to do is some research on the net, get a bunch of aluminum, titanium, plastic and composite, and assemble an F-16. It's that "assemble an F-16" step that's the problem; "writing some software" is a similar effort.

I disagree. Assembling a beowulf is hardly rocket-science grade engineering. Neither is coding for one. It's the kind of comp-sci that most respectable geeks could easily handle.

I assume Iraq has a half decent collection of geeks who are relatively current on technologies like Linux, Windows, and networking on commodity hardware.

There are only specific kinds of problems that can be solved with beowulf clusters, because they rely on ethernet for internodal communications, a relatively high latency system (compared to a high speed bus).

What I don't know, is to what degree dangerous siences we're worried about (like nuclear simulations) would perform on a relatively high latency system...

_Am

__

You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[riddler 0]

Quote

"writing some software"

I attended University with plenty of Iraqi students (my school was known for petroleum engineering)- a lot of them were very capable programmers. I'm sure many of them went back to Iraq and are now working as software developers. It's not easy writing paralleled algorithms, for sure, but I think there are plenty of Western-educated Iraqis that are capable of it.

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD