IBM mainframe goes for 99 cents

[Patrick Finnegan]

JimD declared on Thursday 24 February 2005 10:58 pm:
> Patrick Finnegan wrote:
> >On Thu, 24 Feb 2005, Computer Collector Newsletter wrote:
> >>Who else on this list owns a mainframe?  What the heck do you DO
> >>with it?
> >
> ><SNIP>
>
> Talk about a mainframe, well actually a real big farm, take a look at
> this.
> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=64031&item=5754
>425731&rd=1 Still listed in the top 500 supers. Battell surplus. zero
> bids, $12,500 starting bid.
> Jim Davis.
> I would get it, if I had free power.

Despite what the seller claims, it's definately too slow to be on the 
top500 list.  When I looked into it, I found out it was last on the list  
in June of 2002, and wasn't very high up (low 300s).

The machine is (or was, with all of the frames, which the seller doesn't 
seem to have in the auction listing) only 512 processors of 120/135MHz 
processors.  They're not horribly slow, but definately not 
computationally worthwhile.  The ~900 processors of IBM SP (375MHz 
POWER3) we have at work (well, we've got 320 now, soon to add another 
576) won't even make it onto the TOP500 list this next time around I'm 
pretty sure.

As far as memory and disk space go, you'll probably be using up a good 
chunk of the disk space per node for OS and software; and the memory is 
evenly distributed between all the nodes.  Having a large amount of 
contiguous memory and disk (like what you can with an IBM p690) is much 
more interesting from an HPC standpoint. :)

One rack of the SP system would be sort of cool to have, but having that 
many frames just doesn't make any sense no matter how I try to look at 
it.

Pat
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