From: mp3dion@hotmail.com (Dionysus)
Newsgroups: comp.parallel
Subject: home network?
Date: 8 Jul 1999 23:34:28 GMT
Organization: Me and my mates
Approved: bigrigg@cs.cmu.edu
Message-Id: <7m3ci4$9ku$1@goldenapple.srv.cs.cmu.edu>
Originator: bigrigg@ux6.sp.cs.cmu.edu
Xref: ukc comp.parallel:15719


ok, this is the story. I am a19yr old university student studying
computer engineering at the university of nsw. I am living on campus
(at college) and have a computer connected to the college network. I
also have access to a lot of spare parts (moslty 486s and early
pentiums) and i know it sounds like a lot of work, but what i would
like to be able to do is connect them all together in one large
network (probably about 4 or 5 computers). Moreover, i would like to
designate my fastest computer to be my main computer, and have it
linked to both my small network and the college network. I am as yet
undecided if i want to be running NT of just win95 on my fastest
computer, but it will probably be one of the two (i have a large
windows software base already built up), What i would like to do is
just treat the other computers as external cpus so that i can shunt
off work to them while reducing the load on my main computer. I am not
sure if this is possible or not...i do know that windows NT supports
not only extensive networking features but also a multi-thread
processing system whereby it will share work between a number of cpus
if they are on a multi-cpu board on the machine nt is running on, but
i do not know whether it can also use external cpus for this
task....ideally i would like to be able to share all cpu loads (i.e.
treat the external cpus as if they were actually a part of the system)
but i know that not all programs support multi-threading
themselves....also if it is more practical to have the main computer
on a peer-peer network and then route that network into the college
network i am quite happy to look into this possibility....i will
probably have the older computers running linux or something as i have
heard it has better networking features than any microsoft
product.....basically, what it all boils down to is that i have a lot
of parts lying around, wish to do something useful with them and am
wondering if anyone can tell me what is possible in this respect....as
may well have become evident i am short on networking expertise, but
as i intend to get a job in the field of networking when i finally get
out of uni i am very willing to learn..thanks heaps to all who reply,
your help is much appreciated..

-dionysus

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