i can remember going out and buying a notcher...

---

No matter where you go, there you are...

Woah! Back-to-back-to-back-to-back Admin/Dev posts and 5.25"ers!!

---

Don't be sellin us short now NA... we were talking about 8" not 5.25" ;)

LOL.

Sorry, i think i'm sleep deprived.

Dig

---

I think I still have some basic programs that are stored on cassettes. Think they may be in a box in the basement.
And remember the osborn, what a pain in the back. They should have included a truss with that monster. The 2 inch scrolling screen.....

---

98SE XP2500+ @ 2.1 GHz Boinc v5.8.8

And God said"Let there be light."But then the program crashed because he was trying to access the 'light' property of a NULL universe pointer.

I don't need to know the size of your floppy... (That sounded wrong)

I was gonna bring up the 120-min 300b/s data audiocassettes, but I'd be dead before one of those suckers ever finish a LOAD or CLOAD...

[EDIT] Looks like Steve beat me to it!

---

Man, i thought my Comodore 64 was pretty darn slick! You could rewind and fast forward through your data on cassette tape and it took mere minutes to find it! LoL. I was stylin. I wish i still had that thing actually, if only for nostalgia value. :)

Dig

---

I know there's a CAS2WAV app out there somewhere for the Atari 400/800/XL/XE. I'm sure someone's done the same for C64/128/128+.

screeeeeeeeeeech!

---

> When I ran seti classic from windows xp ms dos window, I was cutting 3.5-4
> hours per work unit, now with boinc 4.25, I am up to 5-5.5 hours per seti wu.

I don't know why you're having problems.

I have WIn98Se, and was using Seti Classic's CLI client with Seti Driver.
I was crunching around 8 Work Units per day (3 hours-3 hours 15 min).
With Seti BOINC (V4.19) i am still crunching around 8 work units per day (3 hours-3 hours 15min).

Possibly to do with your settings- is it set to crunch all the time or only when the system is idle? If all the time then there's a good chance that you've got other processes running that have a higher priority than Seti BOINC, hence it gets less cruching resources.

---

Grant
Darwin NT

As I said before, benchmarks of 10 runs of dos 7.1 and even using win95 as the front, I continually complete the wu in 2.25 hours. When I switch boot back to xp, it takes 5-5.5 hours. exactly same hardware.

When I compared the xp setidriver driven seti client, I got 4-4.5 hours, and using boinc, I get 4-4.5 hours. and when seti and cpdn, I get 5-5.5 hours for set completions.
Seti is setup as the only program running in the boinc tests, no screen savers, no nothing. Check taskmgr, and it shows seti & seti, and only the other 10 normal minimum win apps running. I can even manually set the priority higher, just to make sure they are the cpu latency getters, and no difference then.

Make fun of old stuff if you will, but it is still the best. I have proven that on my system. And can do so easily again in the future when longhornslowhorn comes out. With dos7.10/win95 pairing I can run multiple processes at once, and it didn't affect the completion time for the seti. So one should easily have been able to utilize boinc to upload/download manage, but it won't run under 95.

Oh well, seems that old school in this scenario is best, and the mockers just don't know what they are missing when you run something that is stripped of 1000s of other unnecessary overheads.

I admit, there is a lot more that you can do with xp, but who needs something checking for dvd play when you only want to crunch numbers.

John Henry
Sevierville, TN

---

Thanks, and Keep on crunchin'
John Henry KI4JPL
Sevierville TN

I started with nothing,
and I still have some of it left.
<img src="http://www.boincstats.com/stats/banner.php?cpid=989478996ebd8eadba8f0809051cdde2">

FYI, I'm going to work on porting seti to a DSP, which will give 40bit accuracy, and with its throughput, should complete a work unit in 40-45 minutes. I don't even know if I will be able to get the data back to seti for upload, but I will see.

WHY?

Why not? just to see if it can be done.

Maybe I will learn a few tricks that will help seti in general, maybe not, but it will be fun to try. May not even succeed, but it will be interesting to say the least. To see if the results are different due to the extended precision.

John Henry
Sevierville, TN

---

Thanks, and Keep on crunchin'
John Henry KI4JPL
Sevierville TN

I started with nothing,
and I still have some of it left.
<img src="http://www.boincstats.com/stats/banner.php?cpid=989478996ebd8eadba8f0809051cdde2">

> As I said before, benchmarks of 10 runs of dos 7.1 and even using win95 as the
> front, I continually complete the wu in 2.25 hours. When I switch boot back to
> xp, it takes 5-5.5 hours. exactly same hardware.
> When I compared the xp setidriver driven seti client, I got 4-4.5 hours, and
> using boinc, I get 4-4.5 hours. and when seti and cpdn, I get 5-5.5 hours for
> set completions.
> Seti is setup as the only program running in the boinc tests, no screen
> savers, no nothing. Check taskmgr, and it shows seti & seti, and only the
> other 10 normal minimum win apps running. I can even manually set the priority
> higher, just to make sure they are the cpu latency getters, and no difference
> then.

Not that I'm any puter wizzard, but from what I gather from your last post, and if I take a look at your puters, you've got one hyperthreaded Pentium. So every Boinc-WU uses only one of the virtual 2 CPUs you've got.
I don't know nothing about classic, never did it, so I'm just uneducated guessing here.
Is it possible that your per-WU time is increasing, but you get the same amount of WUs through at the end of the day?

---

Gruesse vom Saenger

For questions about Boinc look in the BOINC-Wiki

Hi,
What your query is possible. Not sure. I would have to leave the ht computer doing nothing but set for a while. I will try that this weekend, and see how it crunches on its own. (after a system cleanup, defrag, etc.) As it is now, in the day, it is crunching seti, almost 90% dedicated to it, with a little bit of non seti once in a while. In the evening is when I do my playing around with OS and other things, so it may not be up and running in the evenings. Then into the night, it is back to crunching 100% again.
The times I quote are primarily for the times it is running ONLY seti at night. I realize that anything I do on the puter will affect the results. Need to compare apples to apples, not to nectarines.
So my daily completion will be sporadic.
The nonHT is similar. It is my work puter so it is only dedicated into the evening/night, then doing code / compiling / emulating in the day.

Thanks for the input,
John Henry
Sevierville, TN

---

Thanks, and Keep on crunchin'
John Henry KI4JPL
Sevierville TN

I started with nothing,
and I still have some of it left.
<img src="http://www.boincstats.com/stats/banner.php?cpid=989478996ebd8eadba8f0809051cdde2">

> FYI, I'm going to work on porting seti to a DSP, which will give 40bit
> accuracy, and with its throughput, should complete a work unit in 40-45
> minutes. I don't even know if I will be able to get the data back to seti for
> upload, but I will see.
>

Not quite sure what you mean by 40 bit accuracy, but I suspect you may run into problems with the results (on some projects at least).

I believe it is essential that all processing, whatever the platform, is done using compatible (identical?) maths libraries or you may return results - which although maybe 'more accurate' will not agree with the results returned by others so you'll get no credit.

---

40 bit accuracy is exactly what it means. In the DSP I am thinking of using, I can utilize 40 bit true floating point processing, not the fixed point float emulation processing that the math libraries in windows and most other OSs utilize. It also has a triple alu process core, if you know DSPs, then you know what this means. IF not, it means that three full floating point multiplies instructions are done at the same time, and each instruction only takes 1 clock cycle to complete, through a 42 bit instruction, on rare cases, it does require a pre-fetch, but only if the pipeline requires to handle a special case, so written in the native assembly, this will not be the case. And for those that will start laughing at using an assembler, have you seen a DSP assembly language lately? IF not, then you are missing something, 90% looks like C, but then you know the instruction is executed in one cycle, ahhh, the beauty of simplicity and speed. This is on a 6Ghz core, which means essentially 18Ghz given triple alu pipeline. And no stupid interrupts happening to service a dvde controller that isn't even loaded, or the other 100s of unknown multi-events in windows and other OSs.
Once done, I can transfer it on the ethernet to my main computer for its boinc to send back, and see what happens.

I can only imagine that this would give compatible responses to the values that I get when I run seti through windows xp. If I do get a different answer, then I would have to doubt the answers given by windows. If they point to something else, then somewhere something is wrong. Of course, the first few times I run it, I expect differences, until I work out the problems in my own software, but after a while, it should be a lot closer, and possibly even exact, or at least within a small margin. If not, then I hate to say it, but I would have to doubt the math utilized in seti for windows. Imagine that, that the entire world has been running seti, and computing wrong results for the last few years. Imagine telling the super seti farmers that their investments have been for an inaccuracy. Somehow I doubt it, so of course, my answers should be compatible. If not, hell will break loose, and everyone will condemn me for exposing a farce, which I doubt.

If I am only in this for credit, as it seems that most people on this board are, just look at the number of seti farms, geesh, this wasn't meant for that, it was meant for everyone to help where they can, not for people to buy recognition for their capability to purchase 100s of computers. If that is what this venture is really for, then I will have gotten into this for the wrong reason, just like many others have. So many people on here only want more credit. When the only real reason to get on here is to find out if something is out there.

hmmmm gotta get faster, gotta get more credit, that is what matters, gotta beat my neighbor... bah humbug, I'm in this for finding something, not for a pat on the back saying I have the fastest machine. If I wanted that, I would do what other seti farmers on here have done, gone and bought my way to the top, by buying hundreds of xeon processors, or buying 100 of the new quad HT computers, and ... bought an airconditioner for that room, and built a new addition onto my house, and... not earned it, but bought it.

Me, I'm in it to learn. Hope you are too. Maybe we together can find something out there.

John Henry
Sevierville, TN.

---

Thanks, and Keep on crunchin'
John Henry KI4JPL
Sevierville TN

I started with nothing,
and I still have some of it left.
<img src="http://www.boincstats.com/stats/banner.php?cpid=989478996ebd8eadba8f0809051cdde2">

> If I am only in this for credit, as it seems that most people on this board
> are, just look at the number of seti farms, geesh, this wasn't meant for that,
> it was meant for everyone to help where they can, not for people to buy
> recognition for their capability to purchase 100s of computers. If that is
> what this venture is really for, then I will have gotten into this for the
> wrong reason, just like many others have. So many people on here only want
> more credit. When the only real reason to get on here is to find out if
> something is out there.
>

You make some good valid points John, and i have to be honest i've never quite understood the concept of 'farming' myself. But if folks get enjoyment out of the competition then that's cool too. To each his or her own.

The SETI developers certainly never intended people to create extra CPU cycles, raise utility bills, and deplete natural resources for the project. To the best of my knowledge, they still request that only spare CPU cycles be donated to the cause. Heck, we already have more computing power than we need for SETI. I myself have always admired the underdog, the guy with one machine that donates what he can, crunches away slowly but surely, still gets enthralled by watching the screensaver, and is genuinely excited about the science behind it all. This is the guy i secretly hope finds 'the' signal. ;)

Everyone crunches for their own reasons though, and they're all valid if they provide enjoyment for the user. :)

Happy Crunching!

Dig

---

i agree with some of what you are saying

i hope that the idea behind "farms and faster" is that they too are hoping to find something out there, only quicker than you or I.

as far as the SETI farce, well if you can expose it, we heard it from you first (i'll be the first to bow and chant "we're not worthy...") :-)

if you can create a simpler form or program that gets the required results accurately time after time, i can only hope that it will work on my computer also. i'm not interested in accumulating 10,000 credits a day, but interested in a program that is quicker and hopefully less cpu-intensive than most or all of them are today.

i don't know what it would take to convince them to change the way they process or determine that your or my results are correct.

(am i still making sense here?)


.

---

No matter where you go, there you are...

> i agree with some of what you are saying
>
> i hope that the idea behind "farms and faster" is that they too are hoping to
> find something out there, only quicker than you or I.
>
THAT is EXACTLY why I "farm"! I started small but since my hobby is computers, specifically fixing them, I get lots of doanted computers. Seemed like a waste to let them just sit around doing nothing, so they too started searching the signals. Lo and behold I am a "farmer"!!!
One thing led to another, machines got cheaper, people upgraded more often, kids needed their own computers, friends started paying me off in computers for fixing theirs or helping them buy a new one, I have a larger "farm"!
NOW I am up to 15 on Boinc and 5 on Classic, I am a LARGE "farmer"!!! At least by MY standards! Along the way I have learned networking, how to use KVM switches and when to and not to use them, what software works for sitting at my computer and be able to control the "farm", lots of things I would NEVER have been able to learn any other way! I even have my own server, an old dual 300mhz Compaq that was given to me. It is slow and takes around 19 hours to do one Classic unit but it does the job. Now my son wants a new computer, he needs to be able to do things faster so he isn't up half the night doing his homework, sooo a new computer is up and running, an AMD 3000 with an 80 gig hard drive and 512 meg of ram, cd-rw and a floppy drive. His old machine will become a "farm" only machine. Of course his new one will do Seti also!

---

no wonder i can't get more than 2 wu's, mikey is hogging them all! j/k



.

---

No matter where you go, there you are...

> If I am only in this for credit, as it seems that most people on this board
> are, just look at the number of seti farms, geesh, this wasn't meant for that,
> it was meant for everyone to help where they can, not for people to buy
> recognition for their capability to purchase 100s of computers. If that is
> what this venture is really for, then I will have gotten into this for the
> wrong reason, just like many others have. So many people on here only want
> more credit. When the only real reason to get on here is to find out if
> something is out there.

The reason to make a "farm" is probably as varied as the number of people that made them. Some do make a farm to increase the credit score, some to contribute more to science, some because they have access to a number of computers (when I was teaching I would install SETI@Home on the lab computers as they were going to be on anyway), etc.

However they got here, I welcome all contributions as should all of us ... regardless of the motivations ...

---

The only time I have a problem with farms is when the owners of those farms complain about having to manage those farms.

---

98SE XP2500+ @ 2.1 GHz Boinc v5.8.8

And God said"Let there be light."But then the program crashed because he was trying to access the 'light' property of a NULL universe pointer.