[Info-vax] BOINC for VMS

[Neil Rieck]

> 
> I ran SETI on one, later two Alpha Server 1200 5/533 systems (dual cpu
> each) during the last two years of the SETI project. The systems
> managed to stay in the top 5 of the group that started on the same
> day.
> It was not possible to build BOINC (I can't program C++ and wasn't
> willing to learn it).
> I agree that SETI and BOINC can do a lot for marketing, especially
> when hobbyist systems can compete too.
> But we know what happened to Alpha. Even if VMS was ported to Intel's
> x64 platform I and given proper FP support I wouldn't try to join
> BOINC.
> Hans

Me too. I previously ran SETI-at-home on AS-4100 as well as AS-DS20e but that all ended (IIRC) in 2002 when SETI-at-home moved over to BOINC. I haven't contributed to SETI-at-home since then which means my high SETI scores are only due to Alpha.

http://www.boincstats.com/signature/user_10937.gif
http://boincstats.com/search/all_projects.php?cpid=c5da64921fc5b5891671d682394b7ec0

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As far as my x86 platforms are concerned, I am playing with an SMP-client (which grabs all 4 cores) for folding-at-home which "I think" does not require MMX/SSE. Science clients crunching numbers on a graphics card also do not require MMX/SSE. So non-x86 single CPU platforms would need to either "emulate MMX/SSE" or "be able to offload to a graphics card". Although building a BOINC client for Alpha might have some academic value, if your true interest is promoting science then I fear it is more practical to fix up a few not-so-old PCs (don't bother with anything lower than P4) then put them to work in your basement in a small folding farm. (a term which refers to protein-folding)

Neil Rieck
Kitchener / Waterloo / Cambridge,
Ontario, Canada.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/docs/folding_at_home.html