For grins I put BOINC/SETI2 on my 486DX2-66. This isn't just any old 486. It's been upgraded with an AMD P5-133 processor and 64MB RAM :-) It benchmarks as a Pentium 58 which was about average for 1996.

It works fine, if slowly. I could crunch a SETI1 (pre 3.08) unit in 4 days. I only did one of those. Too blasted long.

I am currently at 146 hours CPU time (6 days) with an estimated 66 hours to go. I think I'll only do 1 WU on this machine.

I submit this to the You-Can-Do-It-If-You-Really-Want-To-But-Not-Recommended file. I suggest adding a Kilowatt-Hour/WU benchmark for all machines :-)

I'm curious if the WU tailoring feature of BOINC will eventually allow some useful participation for the computationally challenged.

Purple Rabbit....and yes, I do have newer computers.

> For grins I put BOINC/SETI2 on my 486DX2-66. This isn't just any old 486. It's
> been upgraded with an AMD P5-133 processor and 64MB RAM :-) It benchmarks as a
> Pentium 58 which was about average for 1996.
>
> It works fine, if slowly. I could crunch a SETI1 (pre 3.08) unit in 4 days. I
> only did one of those. Too blasted long.
>
> I am currently at 146 hours CPU time (6 days) with an estimated 66 hours to
> go. I think I'll only do 1 WU on this machine.
>
> I submit this to the You-Can-Do-It-If-You-Really-Want-To-But-Not-Recommended
> file. I suggest adding a Kilowatt-Hour/WU benchmark for all machines :-)
>
> I'm curious if the WU tailoring feature of BOINC will eventually allow some
> useful participation for the computationally challenged.
>
> Purple Rabbit....and yes, I do have newer computers.

I have a 486DX33 that I used on seti 1 for years. It took on average 6.5 days to do 1 wu. It just sat in the corner and ran for years on end (since 99) doing them. It pulled from my cache on my server right along with all my other units, and about every week sure as clockwork it would come around looking for a new wu.

I finally retired it about 6 months ago, in a major effort to reduce my electricy bill. It was quite sad when I reached over and pulled its little plug from the wall.


Darren

Darren

I feel your pain :-) Working equipment MUST have a use. My Dad offered me some of his old computers (better than a 486, but still really old) and I turned him down. The point was to make the 486 DO SOMETHING. It still works!

Purple Rabbit

> Darren
>
> I feel your pain :-) Working equipment MUST have a use. My Dad offered me some
> of his old computers (better than a 486, but still really old) and I turned
> him down. The point was to make the 486 DO SOMETHING. It still works!
>
> Purple Rabbit
>

I have a Commodore 64 that still works.

My 486dx4 was doing wu's in around 26 hours 5 years ago. Then they changed what computation was done and it went up to like 60 odd hours.
Two aliens walked into an observatory and looked up at Uranus....

As a final update, my 486 completed its WU in 302 hours (12.5 days). It was a nice experiment. I don't think I'll do it again :-)

EDIT (23 July): Still no credit given. Maybe my experiement was a bust.

PS: It seems Predictor doesn't like 486 machines. It bails out immediately after download.