Linking 2 computers to make one

[GhostKnight]

I was just surfing the web reading different computer related technical forms and how-to forum’s when I came across this thread in which I had to sign up to reply to what I read. After all my years of working on computers and hearing some very funny and sometimes crazy questions asked about how to do something or if it can be done. I have not once taken the approach most every single one of you have taken. The comments posted here answering a question that a non-tech person with limited funds and resources was asking were arrogant, self righteous and higher then thou art. I honestly don't know what joy and demented self pleasure this gives you by attempting to degrade another person for asking a question, even if it can’t be done, in a place that it is meant to be asked if it could be done. You could have answered diplomatically, matter of fact or even bluntly for that matter, without being blatantly cruel in most of what you said to this person. And for what does this serve to help or explain to anyone, anything at all? The answer is no, all it shows is your attempts to build your ego’s up by putting down a very interesting question, even if undoable, made by a person that stated they didn‘t have the money to do better at the time. I don’t know one person here that posted these comments to this person, but I am embarrassed to say the least of what I would consider my peers. What you did was beyond unprofessional and is a throwback to school yard bullying. Each one of you should be highly embarrassed by your actions of ill will towards this person. Because no one is a whiz at everything, and we all, yes even you mighty techs, ask stupid questions to other professionals out there that could belittle you the same exact way.

 

[jsc]

GhostKnight, I also took a look at this thread out of curiosity. You need to take a closer look. This thread didn't devolve into off-the-wallness until the ??? post.

Summary:
rmx77: Can this be done?
cjl: Nearly impossible.
rmx77: Can this be done?
cjl: Nearly impossible.
rmx77: Can this be done? I really want to do this.
mouse (bluntly): No. Don't waste you time.
waffle (bluntly with an explanation): Unless ... ,it can't be done.
rmx: I have imac and power mac. Link them?
mouse: Are you kidding?
rmx: No. I want to link two old computers.
Cragzman: Buy a new computer.
rmx: Can't afford it.
JDocs: Can't be done. We'd like to, but ...

So that's the original question and a dozen posts before it starts getting silly. And afterward, there's still 5 serious posts (not counting mine). I'd say we held up our end of the bargain.

 

[flyin15sec]

I was just surfing the web reading different computer related technical forms and how-to forum’s when I came across this thread in which I had to sign up to reply to what I read. After all my years of working on computers and hearing some very funny and sometimes crazy questions asked about how to do something or if it can be done. I have not once taken the approach most every single one of you have taken. The comments posted here answering a question that a non-tech person with limited funds and resources was asking were arrogant, self righteous and higher then thou art. I honestly don't know what joy and demented self pleasure this gives you by attempting to degrade another person for asking a question, even if it can’t be done, in a place that it is meant to be asked if it could be done. You could have answered diplomatically, matter of fact or even bluntly for that matter, without being blatantly cruel in most of what you said to this person. And for what does this serve to help or explain to anyone, anything at all? The answer is no, all it shows is your attempts to build your ego’s up by putting down a very interesting question, even if undoable, made by a person that stated they didn‘t have the money to do better at the time. I don’t know one person here that posted these comments to this person, but I am embarrassed to say the least of what I would consider my peers. What you did was beyond unprofessional and is a throwback to school yard bullying. Each one of you should be highly embarrassed by your actions of ill will towards this person. Because no one is a whiz at everything, and we all, yes even you mighty techs, ask stupid questions to other professionals out there that could belittle you the same exact way.

Looks like you're the one with "holier than thou" attitude, because of your experience. Many responses have been, NO IT WON'T work, that's pretty blunt to me. A few post poke fun at the idea, but that is expected, this is a public forum. As it is, it's an old thread, the OP probably won't ever read this thread anymore.

 

[B-Unit]

I was just surfing the web reading different computer related technical forms and how-to forum’s when I came across this thread in which I had to sign up to reply to what I read. After all my years of working on computers and hearing some very funny and sometimes crazy questions asked about how to do something or if it can be done. I have not once taken the approach most every single one of you have taken. The comments posted here answering a question that a non-tech person with limited funds and resources was asking were arrogant, self righteous and higher then thou art. I honestly don't know what joy and demented self pleasure this gives you by attempting to degrade another person for asking a question, even if it can’t be done, in a place that it is meant to be asked if it could be done. You could have answered diplomatically, matter of fact or even bluntly for that matter, without being blatantly cruel in most of what you said to this person. And for what does this serve to help or explain to anyone, anything at all? The answer is no, all it shows is your attempts to build your ego’s up by putting down a very interesting question, even if undoable, made by a person that stated they didn‘t have the money to do better at the time. I don’t know one person here that posted these comments to this person, but I am embarrassed to say the least of what I would consider my peers. What you did was beyond unprofessional and is a throwback to school yard bullying. Each one of you should be highly embarrassed by your actions of ill will towards this person. Because no one is a whiz at everything, and we all, yes even you mighty techs, ask stupid questions to other professionals out there that could belittle you the same exact way.

You sir are an idiot.

Several times the OP was told politely that it wasnt possible, to which his continued response was 'BUT I WANT 2!!!!' After the 5th time, hes fair game.

GTF off our forum tool.

 

[ac3144]

Well, you can DEFINITELY diy mod your computer to make it go faster.....
see:-http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/forum2.php?config=tomshardwareuk.inc&cat=10&post=262862&page=1&p=1&sondage=0&owntopic=1&trash=0&trash_post=0&print=0&numreponse=0&quote_only=0&new=0&nojs=0

It really works...
AC 😀

 

[XD_dued]

Honestly, this made my day lol DX

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Ask Intel theyre good with glue

 

[argon99]

YES IT"S POSSIBLE!!!

What you are talking about is known as a beowolf cluster. It requires a high speed network and Linux, BSD or Solaris. But it is usually done with many more nodes then just two. The first one had something like fifty computers. Now can it be done with a G3 I don't know. If Linux will run on a G3 then it can be done.

What it uses is "inter process communications" over the network. Just like right now you are using sockets to connect to a server to see this web site. The same type of process ( the word process here is different then process in a computer, English really sucks) is done with the processes on the computer. Usually there is one master and the rest are slaves. The master starts processes on the slaves to have the slaves do the work and the master gathers their output.

For you it's more work then what you will get out of it. Now if you had say forty g3s it might be worth a try.

 

[argon99]

You know, I was thinking of doing something similar to this... basically, I currently have an old crappy PC and am in the process of building a nice shiny new one.

However, I don't want the shiny new one to be sitting in the office, I want it in the basement where no thief would think to look for it.

Thus, I want to be using the old crappy one to basically remote desktop to the new one but I am not sure if that will be too laggy or not over a 805.11n wireless network.

Any thoughts ?

Well I don't know about windows but I do this for the computer that is attached to my TV. My laptop connects to my TVBOX with X11vnc. I also use X11VNC to help my eighty year old mother with her computing problems. She lives over a thousand miles away but I connect to her computer over the internet and control her system. It works great. Now if you must run windows, for some unknown reason, you could run Linux and then start a virtual machine that runs windows. But VNC is what you are looking for.

 

[Guest]

i'm not an great pc expert ore something but maybe its possible to take out your compartments like graphic card cpu etc... and link them together by buying a new motherboard maybe a secondhand one on ebay by which you get a faster pc but for less money.....

 

[theholylancer]

its possible, go and buy vmware ESX 4.0 with cluster support (~8k a year per computer, less if you got a huge cluster and negotiates prices) put said OS onto computer (i don't think they like macs, but hey who knows roflmao) and enable only one VM on all the clustered computers and off you go!

(may not be pratical or cheap, but hey you asked)

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Personally, I'll take my glue suggestion first, and if youre thrifty, youll have some left over

 

[theholylancer]

lol forget that use the hammer approach, thats much closer to the bare metal!

 

[Upendra09]

PM xtc28 and ask him how he did something like this, he used to mobos and made a built in display on his glass desk, and then a monitor for main display.

he used two mini itx boards, a couple processors and other stuff

 

[xtc28]

Well it is a very hard process to do actually. It will not work on G3 G4 or G5 series. As someone else posted above you almost need to have a doctorate in programming to make it work right. Windows server 08 HPC Edition will allow you to do this easier than ever but it is still a big deal. Contrary to popular belief my machine is NOT a gamer per say. My main node is when IM running Vista 64. Mostly I use it for a render farm for Autocad 2010 and 3DS max. If I were any one interested in this I would look into Server 08 HPC. I also use Ubuntu Linux with Kerrihged integrated into its kernal as my primary clustering OS. I am just learning this Server 08 getup. There are way to be able to use the cluster as one machine for gaming via a virtual machine under 08, but Im not there yet. Macintosh also offers clustering software but it doesnt support non Intel chipsets. Linux would do it but you would never be able to use it like you want to. So to answer your question, it is a no for your machines.

 

[theholylancer]

do the VM method with cluster actually allows 3d acceleration (it is windows with DX, so.....)? I mean VMware Fusion is kinda crappy for this and its suppose to be for multimedia stuff.

 

[xtc28]

Hyper-V is supposed to be used with lower end graphics crads for some reason. There are some work arounds for it and they all have pros and cons. Like using xp drivers instead of vista drivers in VM. However I believe most of the issues are lying in Nvidia drivers not ATI. I am not able to confirm this as of yet. Right now Im going through microsoft to better learn Server 08 and how to use the Microsoft Hyper-V to allow complete cluster use under a VM with DX10.1 Hardware acceleration. Microsoft says You cant do it with high end graphics Here:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961661. At the same time I have gotten wind of it being accomplished a couple of ways. I have read up on a couple of *NIX Distro that will allow use of direct hardware acess from within a virtual box. These are all BSD linux And a couple of others such as the one I mentioned U+K, but again I want to use Server 08 IF POSSIBLE! Once I am done with that its on to using Cuda on 2 compute nodes to help things get blazing fast. That may be a while down the road.

 

[theholylancer]

yeah, i mean my point is using a VM in linux to play games with full functionality of a box, while having the disposable use of a windows VM restore points and such (imagine, separate OS for different needs, the most vulnerable gets lots of restore points for shtf stuff and the most unused won't) and when working use linux.

this isn't working as DX9 barely works with low end cards with any virtualization product I've seen, nvm DX10 or 11.

 

[xtc28]

I do realize this. For the time being, like I said above, I am only really using the cluster for specific purposes. Not for gaming,...... YET. It will become possible when we get further along in the VM world. As for right now the direct harware support of Microsft Hyper-V is showing some promise. I am into the server 08 HPC pretty far and will continue to work on my project.

 

[theholylancer]

hmm ok, well if you don't publish any info care to drop me a PM?


thanks

btw i check PM not as often so umm, expect monthly turnaround if i didn't notice it at first lol

 

[amdfangirl]

i am looking to be able to link up 2 computers so both computers are one, like if the main computer to be used could also be able to use the processor and ram and hard drive and other hardware to be a faster computer. right now i am running a powermac g3 400mhz 1gb ram 2 30gb hd's dvd burner and other stuff and i have a pc i built i would like to use with the g3 to make one computer out of the 2. what can i do? how would i go bout doing it?

Well, you could use it with a render farm.

 

[theholylancer]

Also, I've heard that clustering on OpenVMS on Alphas were the king of clustering, with no reboots and all that, is this true? And how are the current stuff comparing against it?

 

[xtc28]

Open VMS is a Phenominal Server OS and clustering solution. I have not personaly used this type but my brother implements them and has had one up and running for almost 11 years no down time. Failover clustering at its best and Rolling upgrades. This system as far as I know will not do load balancing as well as some other clustering solutions but IS KING of the hill with High avaliablity/failover clustering. OPEN NVS Still has problems in direct hardware control such as 3d accelleration as I believe all VM boxes do.

Major release timeline
Date Version Note
October 25, 1977 V1.0 Initial commercial release
April, 1980 V2.0 VAX-11/750
April, 1982 V3.0 VAX-11/730
September, 1984 V4.0 VAX 8600 and MicroVMS (for MicroVAX)
April, 1988 V5.0 VAX 6000
November, 1992 V1.0 first OpenVMS AXP (Alpha) specific version
June, 1993 V6.0 VAX 7000 and 10000
April/May, 1994 V6.1 merging of VAX and Alpha AXP version numbers
January, 1996 V7.0 full 64-bit virtual addressing on Alpha
1997 V7.1
June, 2003 V8.0 limited availability eval for Integrity
February, 2005 V8.2 Common Alpha and Itanium release
September, 2006 V8.3 Alpha, Itanium dual-core support
October, 2007 V8.3-1H1 c-Class Integrity blade server support
OpenVMS supports up to 96 nodes in a single cluster, and allows mixed-architecture clusters, where VAX and Alpha systems, or Alpha and Itanium systems can co-exist in a single cluster (Various organizations have demonstrated triple-architecture clusters and cluster configurations with up to 150 nodes, but these configurations are not supported by HP). Sever 08 will effectively scale to thousands of cores/nodes and better use its resources at the moment but this may change with the 8.4 release of OPENVMS.
links openvms
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/info/spd/
OpenVMS documentation set.
OpenVMS supports up to 96 nodes in a single cluster, and allows mixed-architecture clusters, where VAX and Alpha systems, or Alpha and Itanium systems can co-exist in a single cluster (Various organizations have demonstrated triple-architecture clusters and cluster configurations with up to 150 nodes, but these configurations are not supported by HP).
http://www.hoffmanlabs.org/vmsfaq/

As for my project it is here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/forum2.php?config=tomshardwareus.inc&cat=31&post=267878&page=1&p=1&sondage=0&owntopic=1&trash=0&trash_post=0&print=0&numreponse=0&quote_only=0&new=0&nojs=0

 

[theholylancer]

oo thanks for the info

so i guess there is a reason for VMS shops and all that IT people whom just loves it and hate Itanic for trying to replace alpha and then fail them selves lol.

 

[xtc28]

YEP