On Wednesday 02 October 2002 04:47 pm, martin f krafft wrote: > Where else do you get a 700 MHz P3 with 64Mb and 8Gb hdd with network > support for $200? Aside, Debian runs on it, so why worry?
Firstly, you need a mod chip for each Xbox. Secondly, you need to install them into each Xbox. Thirdly, how many Xboxes, mod chips, expensive Myrinet networks, and how much labor would it take to replace *one* dual Athlon 4? Striclty speaking, for some hard problems, where "connectivity" is very important, even 1000000 XBoxes working together will not reach the same performance. Luckily, most interesting number-crunching problems fall somewhere in the middle: connetivity is important, but some parallelization is possible. Our lab had to write a specific grant application for a Linux cluster. I just don't think a grant application asking for well over $20,000 to buy Xboxes, mod chips and network hardware has even the slightest chance of being approved. And even *if* one goes through the process of raising the money necessary for this, if Microsoft comes out with the new Xbox version that resists hacking by that time, you may just get stuck with 100 game consoles. As to the legal issues, IANAL and I don't even know under which jurisdiction you live. Consider my ealier statement a friendly suggestion to consult one. Cheers, Oleg -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
