[ExI] homebrew cold freon bath super computer

[Tomasz Rola]

On Sat, 10 Mar 2012, spike wrote:

[...]
> I presented the question this evening to a friend who is a processor
> hipster, and he assured me there are plenty of processors available whose
> power use is so low, I would be unlikely to need to resort to heat transfer
> heroics.  So then my task was to convince him that I really like heat
> transfer heroics.

Cool. If you'd like to play more with this, maybe overclocking some big 
multicore cpu would satiate you :-).

[...]
> drops below about 2C.  I think GIMPS would be a good application: very
> calculation intensive, doesn't require a lot of I/O, and if for whatever
> reason there is no I/O available for months at a time, it stores the work it
> has done.  We could have them grind away on 100 megadigit primes, for which
> the EFF 150kUSD prize is still out there.  Of course it wouldn't pay for the
> electricity used, since it would cost about 8 cents for each candidate, and
> the mathematical expectation is just over one cent each, but it would be
> cool anyway:
> 
> https://www.eff.org/awards/coop

Yes, primes, very sexy. I like them, too. Even without a prize.

> Tomasz, there is something I need to explain.  Back in the 80s, before there
> were all that many computer applications, those of us who were into that
> kind of thing used to build up fast computers, by finding the fastest
> processor board available, overclocking it, getting the fastest memory
> available, the biggest disk drive, some of which held a thousandth as much
> as a five dollar keychain drive today, assuming one had plenty of extra
> money to spend on it, and connect it all up to a 15 inch color monitor.
> Then we were in tall cotton, my young friends.  We were hot stuff, the bees
> knees.  It was a natural geek version of having a hopped up car.  Of course
> we still didn't really have any good applications for the machines in those
> days.

Yes, those were great days, in many ways. However, I would say there was 
nice soft back then, and even more important, people wanting to play with 
it. My definition of nice soft... well, let's say Common Lisp and 
Smalltalk fit the definition and leave it there. Now, there is all kind of 
computing power you'd want, but people program in languages like Java or 
Visual Basic, and I cannot see this as cool.

OTOH, I can see how it is always about making things from elements. Making 
hopped up cars, DIY computers or software from parts. The rest is in 
details, but general rule seems to stay the same.

> But it is making me nuts to think of processors going into the trash, 
> when they could be salvaged perhaps and put to work doing something, 
> even if useless.

I'm afraid you can't help it. I think about a decade ago, things were 
designed in more hack-friendly manner - like first models of iPaq PDAs 
which had JTAG interface, so it was possible to reprogram their flash 
even after bricking them. But I guess those days are over now. Myself, I 
simply got used to thinking of those devices as cement bricks. Once their 
software cannot be updated, they are as dead as if they browned out.

BTW, it is possible electronics is or will be designed in such a way, that 
after, say, five years something will pop and brown anyway. You know, just 
to be sure you upgrade to "better" thing. Unless you eke out more money 
in a shop, in which case you may get "unenhanced" version that will last 
ten years.

Thanks to computing entering mainstream consciousness, not many people 
care about hackability anymore. Selling products (and bringing money home) 
is important and since business always grows on throwing old stuff away, 
there is no point in reusing old product. Primes? What's this? Are they 
sold? If not, either they don't exist or are unimportant enough for the 
public to care.

Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...      **
**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com             **