One of the newest things in high speed computing is creating something
called "massively parallel computering".  A group of scientists at NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory pioneered this effort with a project they called
Beowulf.  Beowulf is a set of programs that links many Linux-powered
computers...from two to several hundred...together to form one very large
computer that challenges supercomputers in performance.

As an example, a short time ago, IBM built a Beowulf cluster of computers
using 36 of their Netfinity Xeon-powered systems.  That US$150,000 system
was as fast as a half million dollar Cray supercomputer and it used
completely free software.

Well, now The NOSPIN Group is beginning to look at parallel computers, or
clusters.  We've built a small Beowulf system that performs at the
equivilent of a 1,000MHz Celeron processor using parts that anybody can buy
at their local computer store...in fact, that's where most of the parts came
from!

The web page is a little sparse right now, but as time goes by, we hope to
learn more about how to make better use of this technology.  In the
meantime, please point your browser at http://www.nospin.org and click on
the NOSPIN Beowulf Project button.  The pages are served directly from the
cluster, so at times they may be slow, depending upon what testing is going
on.

Thanks,

Drew Dunn

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