homemade supercomputer

So, right now I'm interning at IBM, learning COBOL, hopefully eventually going to be working on mainframes, and they have a bunch of labtops that they are planning on destroying. I asked if I could have some, and they agreed. Is there a way of composing a mini-mainframe by piecing together computers manually? If yes, how would I go about stringing these labtops together?

It would technically be possible, but no one has documented a way of going about it. I remember there was one person who had made a supercomputer out of 100 PS2's ( http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/26/technology/26XSUPE.html ) and you may be able to contact them about it, if you wish. I've also heard rumors that the U.S. Air Force built a supercomputer out of PS3's ( http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion/30/us-air-force-builds-supercomputer-using-ps3s/469171/ )

Unfortunately, these both cost an extreme amount of money. I think your best bet is to contact one of those centers and ask them for tips and information on how they did it, and ask them if it would be possible to make a smaller-scale version of that,  using only a few laptops and such.

Mpi and as fast of a network as you can get.

Oopsy, I forgot Condor for high throughput. For SSI there's openSSI but it's fairly inactive.  There's Kerrighed but the latest ones are only for 64 bit x86.  Don't think they been too active lately too. Plus SSI doesn't scale well either.  Most supercomputing is done with MPI anyway, as far as I know.

>>2
I contacted NCSA for info on how to do this, waiting for a reply now.
>>4
A bit over my head for now, can you try and simplify as I research a bunch of your words?

MPI stands for message passing interface.  It's API you use on the code. It communicates in the node and between the nodes.

SSI stands for single system image.  On each computer there's software that transfers processes etc. On the head node it is like all of the CPU cores are on that computer.  This means you don't have to get MPI enabled software or write your own and you can run pretty much well any software on it.  The down side is overheard and setting up the system.  Most SSI software is picky and installing it can be nontrivial.

High throughput is where you have a lot of jobs/tasks to run and you just send each task out to each node.  Rather than running one task really fast you have many tasks which are independent.

So, I have a bunch of motherboards with the works, all exposed without casing. Do you guys know if submerging them in alcohol cooled with dry ice would make a good cooling system? I feel as if they are running a bit hot, even with their fans running properly. If not(suggesting that I don't use the alcohol submersion), what do you suggest I do to keep the systems cool?

You can get your own IBM mainframe for nothing, you just have to have a truck and be able to pick one up. I have two z-series in my garage from a failed business, completely useless to me but cost me a lot of money once so I haven't destroyed them. No one wants to pick them up. There are many more just like me sitting on various IBM servers wanting to get rid of them for nothing. Take a look on craigslist or something.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/southampton-engineers-build-a-raspberry-pi-supercomputer

Have you considered the possibility of setting up a Beowulf cluster? This might get you where you want to go.

IBMer checking in. Whats your BC#?

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