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Re: Commodore 64 "super computer" ?



Polymorph wrote:
On Nov 23, 1:45 pm, aiiad...@gmail.com wrote:

http://www.vintage.org/projects.php

The Commodore 64 Parallel Super-Computer!
The Vintage Computer Festival is planning to unveil the prototype of a
massively parallel Commodore 64 supercomputer at VCF X. The hardware
and networking design is being finalized and the drivers and software
specifications are being developed. Currently, we are in need of
sixteen Commodore 64 consoles for the initial prototype. These
consoles should be fully functional (including the graphics and sound
chips and all interface ports). All contributions will be acknowledged
by naming each donated Commodore 64 node on the network in honor of
the donor. Once the experimental 16-node cluster is debugged and fully
functional, we'll seek to expand the system to the full sixty-four
nodes. Those wishing to contribute to the project should send e-mail
to v...@vintage.org.



Sounds like Michael needs to lash a few more //e crates together and
we could have a head-to-head challenge - C64 Supercomputer vs Apple //
e Supercrate.   :-)

I have to admit, I'm wondering about their inspiration and the
networking primitives/protocols they intend to use.  ;-)

IIRC, the C=64 has a IEEE-488-like 8-bit parallel bus that
would be an interesting transport.  The real trick is not
letting the protocol swamp the functions--"running light
without overbyte".  ;-)

NadaNet as it stands (just lengthening a table) supports
127 machines, and 255 would be a trivial change affecting
only the "random" network boot protocol.

Of course, sharing a 10KB/sec net with >16 machines would
call for a relatively uncommunicative app...  ;-)

-michael

NadaPong: Network game demo for Apple II computers!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."