[ydl-gen] Re: 4 old macs

[Eric Dunbar]

Hi, just a plug for my favourite distributed computing project,
Folding at Home, http://folding.stanford.edu/ (Unlike SETI Folding at Home
has a number of publications to its name... though, I guess SETI was
the grand-daddy of the distributed computing projects :-)

Anyway, just a comment about the economics of running all these "old"
computers, and it's something about which I am conflicted (the
environmental damage of producing computers/disposing of them vs. the
environmental damage of the electricity used by them).

Four "old style" (hardware energy efficiency), Old World, and one
NuBus Mac (6500s are PCI, right?) running 24/7 chew up a lot of
energy. For the sake of argument (and, simplicity of calculation ;-),
let's assume each uses 100 W/h. That's 400 W/h.

Per day that's 24 h x 400 W/h = 9.6 kWh. Per year (365.25 d) that's
3506.4 kWh. At $0.10/kWh that's $350.64.

Let's assume subsidised power (most electricity is (and is fossil
fuel-produced) since the environmental costs aren't paid by
coal/fossil fuel producers or electricity users, but are "paid" by all
through the "tradgedy of the commons") at $0.075/kWh (very realistic
price in NA) and that's $262.98/a.

If you were to replace all four computers with one that'd be $65.75
and you'd save $197.24/a on the other three.

For $200 USD you can pick yourself up a 400-500 MHz G4 on eBay (not
shipped, granted), and it would do everything... run Seti faster than
all of the OldWorld Macs together (or Folding at Home :-) :-) :-), act as
a server, DHCP server, firewall and wouldn't require BootX fiddling.

If your box is a dedicated DHCP server, it's far more economical to
purchase a cheap router (you can get them for $10 or $20 US). My
wireless/wired router (which will consume more power than a wired
router only) costs $10/a at $0.075/kWH if I assume that it draws the
MAXIMUM 16 W its powersupply is rated for (it's doubtful it does) vs.
my estimated $65.75 for a 100 W desktop.

Anyway, that's my environmental-economics post for the day. It's a
tragedy that "reuse" isn't always the best option in computers :-( :-(
(especially when you consider how damaging it is to produce them and
dispose of them).

Eric.

On 1/5/06, Rick Thomas <rbthomas55 at pobox.com> wrote:
> My reply is located at the end of this post.
>
> On Jan 5, 2006, at 1:03 PM, Dombi, George wrote:
>
> > Hi Rick,
> >
> > Help me Obi-won Kenobi, Help me.
> >
> > I'm hoping I can trouble you with a bunch of questions about running
> > linux on mac.
> >
> > I have 4 old world macs (three 6500 mac (603e chip) and one 6100 mac
> > (G3 upgrade chip) ). All run OS 9.1 nicely. And all were running
> > Seti at home. They were connected on a switch by Den Mother and Puppies
> > clustering software, which is an AppleSoft method of message passing
> > to connects Mac. It was OK but I had no software to run so I didn't
> > use it. Even Seti has changed away from OS 9.
> >
> > Now I want to go to Linux and run BOINC/Seti at home and Mpich for my
> > cluster software. So here are my questions. How do I do all of that?