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From: rpw3@rigden.wpd.sgi.com (Rob Warnock)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Multiprocessing in your own PC lab
Message-ID: <59239@sgi.sgi.com>
Date: 4 May 90 05:04:57 GMT
References: <0093608E.3DCAF480@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU> <892@blenheim.nsc.com>
Sender: rpw3@rigden.wpd.sgi.com
Reply-To: rpw3@sgi.com (Rob Warnock)
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA
Lines: 36

In article <892@blenheim.nsc.com> andrew@dtg.nsc.com writes:
+---------------
| <0093608E.3DCAF480@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU>, sysmgr@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU (Doug Mohney) :
| > I know this will sound hairbrained, but you only live once...
| > Couldn't you take a room full of workstations or PCs and (through the
| > appropriate software) treat them as a one big parallel processing machine?
| Not harebrained at all. Try IEEE Spectrum this month for the article by
| David Gelernter, "Stealing Idle Cycles" (or close) in the context of Linda
| and his "hypercomputer". It seems MIT Media Labs have something on these
| lines already running.....
+---------------

Remember, the original Worm was fiction (John Brunner's "The Shockwave Rider")
but the first real one (well, first highly publicized operational one) was the
Xerox PARC Worm (published over a decade ago in CACM), which was exactly what
you describe: A distributed computation that would "borrow" idle machines, then
leave when their owners did something on them (touched keyboard or mouse).

"Oh, my god, professor! I thought I had all the proper containment safeguards
in place, but my distributed F9 factoring program has leaked out onto the
Internet! I'm gonna get arrested for sure! What am I going to DOOooo...?!?!?"

"Now, now, my son. Here, first call CERT and then the FBI, and then we'll see
if we can find you a lawyer who'll take your case."

;-}   ;-}   ;-}


-Rob


-----
Rob Warnock, MS-9U/510		rpw3@sgi.com		rpw3@pei.com
Silicon Graphics, Inc.		(415)335-1673		Protocol Engines, Inc.
2011 N. Shoreline Blvd.
Mountain View, CA  94039-7311