Linux On Steroids: DIY supercomputer software from Sandia

[Tim May]

On Thursday, August 9, 2001, at 04:53 PM, Declan McCullagh wrote:

> On Thu, Aug 09, 2001 at 12:17:45PM -0700, Tim May wrote:
>> A better approach is to take the already-functional  machines already 
>> on
>> desktops and harness them for parallel computation. Hardly a new idea,
>> as it has been used for distributed key cracks, molecular modelling, 
>> and
>> SETI signal processing.
>>
>> We on the Cypherpunks list, including Jim Gillogly, Lucky Green, 
>> myself,
>> and others, proposed this in the mid-90s. Cf. articles on DES-busting
>> screen savers, circa mid-1995. The "Chinese Lottery" idea of using
>
> Even by then, it was a relatively old idea.  In 1988 or 1989, Richard
> Crandall wrote an application called "Godzilla" (later renamed Zilla
> after trademark threats) for NeXT computers that did parallel
> computation and was configurable. It was remarkably ahead of its
> time. I think it even was a screensaver too. NeXT used it at their
> corporate HQ in Redwood City (where I worked in 1990) and it was also
> available via the usual wustl/etc. FTP sites.

Thanks for the info. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. I get 
tired of people reinventing the wheel, but I am happy to be corrected 
that someone invented a wheel before I/we did.

As for NeXT, they pioneered in many areas. I wanted one in 1990, but 
couldn't justify spending $8-10K for a Cube, so I "settled" for a Mac 
IIci, which served me well for four years. (I spent a year writing the 
Cyphernomicon on it, for example, plus all of the early Cypherpunks 
traffic.)

Since then, I've had a succession of Macs, including: Powerbook 100, 
170, and G3. A 7100AV, a G4 Tower, and an iBook SE.

But now I also have the NeXT OS, even improved over NeXTStep, according 
to what I hear from NeXT fans. OS X ("OS Ten, not "OS Ex") is truly an 
enjoyable experience. Unix (BSD) for those who want to use it, the Mach 
kernel NeXT was earliest to adopt in a major product, and a stunning 
Aqua interface. I can't do it justice in this short article.

I have it on my G4 Tower, which I'm using now, and on my iBook. It' s 
caused me to abandon a few vendors who have been dragging their feet in 
favor of those who decided to embrace OS X in a major way. For those who 
are interested, here's what I'm mostly using right now:

-- OS X Mail for e-mail, replacing Eudora Pro that I have used in one 
form or another since 1992. Eudora runs under OS X, but they seem to 
have little effort to make it _consistent_ with OS X conventions. Mail 
is bundled-in with OS X; I understand that is based on the NeXTMail 
appication. Besides, after 9 years of using the same mailer, I'm 
enjoying the fresh outlook (pun intended).

-- Thoth for newsreading. Done by Brian Clarke, who did VA-Newswatcher 
and YA-Newswatcher. Lots of features. I send in my "shareware" fee for 
this, being so happy with this.

-- OmniWeb, a great browser from the Omni Group, a Seattle-based bunch 
of NeXT programmers who are turning out some nice apps. (This is a 
wonderful example of what happens to bigness: the Omni Group is about 10 
or fewer people. Compare their output to the "Netscape Division of 
AOL/Time Warner," or whatever it is called. When was the last time 
anyone seriously claimed the Netscape Navigator is better than 
Microsoft's Explorer?)

-- Explorer. Yes, I also use Explorer. Been using it more or less 
happily for several years. It does some things very well.

-- Squeak (Smalltalk). A fully Cocoaized (Objective C, the native lingo 
of OS X) virtual machine, with the source code running on the VM.

-- Apple Works, instead of Microsoft Office. This is the descendant of 
ClarisWorks, an "all-in-one"  package. It's fully OS X-optimized, which 
means a capable word processor, spreadsheet, outliner, etc.

(Yeah, I know about Microsoft Word. Being an old-timer, I can count on 
winning a lot of "Who used it first?" contests. I bought Microsoft Word 
1.0 for the IBM PC in late '83, back when it came bundled with the  
Microsoft Mouse. I did a paper in early '84 on my IBM PC, bought with my 
own money ($3000 in 1983 dollars. And I bought Microsoft Word 1.05 as 
soon as it appeared for the Mac, circa 1986. I've used it for many years 
since. However, for my 1995 paper on "Crypto Anarchy and Virtual 
Communities," widely distributed on the Net, I decided to use 
FrameMaker, which our own Hugh Daniel had earlier helped design. The 
world has moved away from elaborate printed pages, at least for laymen 
like us, so FrameMaker is unused by me. I may upgrade to the OS X 
version, or maybe not.)

In daily use of OS X, I am stunned by its power and robustness. Perhaps 
comparable to Linux (though even Gnome is not as "visually pleasing," 
which is why Easel was trying to do what it did, but ran out of money). 
Better than Windows, that's for sure. (I bought Windows 1.0 for my IBM 
PC in '85, and use Windows 98 in emulation mode on my Macs.)

Bottom line: I L-O-V-E OS X!


--Tim May