I only run BOINC and happy with the way it works and can do work for several projects. It is much better in my opinion than Classic, but each person has there own ideas about the two programs.

A lot of people have been saying on many message boards that Classic is going to shut down soon!! I have not seen any thing offical about that on any SETI web page (except the forum). Closing fown joining Classic seems like a start to close it down.

With so many people saying it will close down in June, than July, now Sept. Whare on the web site (not counting the Forum) is this information??

If Classic is going to be closed down on a certain day it seems like SETI would post the data on the web site or at least say that it is comming.

If someone lets me know which page to find that on I will let friends who run classic know of the link, as they do not believe it will ever close down.

Also if SETI says they are doing the same units over and over, on what page can that be found (again not counting the forum pages).

Cheers
Ray Brown
BOINC user
Happy Crunching

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There is no exact time table for when Classic shuts down, and there is no page that gives a schedule.

I believe that the steps are:

1) Turn off account creation.
2) Turn off downloads.
3) Turn on the screen saver message to indicate that the project is closed.
4) Turn off uploads.

Someplace in this list there is supposed to be an email sent as well.

AFAIK, the only step taken so far is 1.

At least two of the developers have indicated that the WUs that BOINC and classic are crunching at the moment are from the same tapes, and that the ones in classic have in the past averaged about 9 results / WU with peaks higher than 40 / WU.

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BOINC WIKI

There is no "Official Close Date" yet. It has always been the intention that SetiClassic would be eclipsed by SetiBOINC.

While the timeline for this transition has been slipping it is progressing. See the June 21 news on SetiClassic or the now very outdated timeline. Or you could point out that many of the links for the SetiClassic site now point to SetiBOINC (technical news).

Then there is always the big honkin' banner at the top of the SetiClassic Site which reads: NOTICE: SETI@home is switching to new software called BOINC, which lets you run other projects (like Climateprediction.net and Einstein@home) on your computer as well as SETI@home. Please visit our new SETI@home/BOINC web site.

While there is no official date for the SetiClassic shutdown, many feel that it will happen very shortly. New registration for SetiCalssic has been closed and their hardware is being moved over to SetiBOINC.

[edit]my spelling sucks[/edit]

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7,049 S@H Classic Credits

I have several friends running SETI classic who say "it will run run forever and I am happy with it" also they say if it was going to close down that SETI would at least say that one the web site even without a time line.

Hard to convince them when I can only give them what it on the boards.

Whare the Classic page says:

"NOTICE: SETI@home is switching to new software called BOINC, which lets you run other projects (like Climateprediction.net and Einstein@home) on your computer as well as SETI@home. Please visit our new SETI@home/BOINC web site."

It would be good if thay added Classic will be closed down when all is running smothley with BOINC or someting to that effect.

Maby a few more would change over earlier so there would not be as much of a rush all at one time. That should make it easier on the Servers if the rest come over slowley until time to close down.

Ray

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There is also a 4.5 months old warning message in the classic board from Matt Lebofsky, saying that the message boards will close down "soon" and that classic users should start to use the BOINC fora here instead.

I don't think that there are too many folks who think Classic will live forever. I think most know the end is near but are just getting one last push in while it lasts. I'm crunching some Classic right now just for nostalgia's sake and to run the credits up on an old account that I only recently retrieved the password for. It's just for fun, which if I'm not mistaken is still permitted. :)

Also bear in mind that many many people crunching Classic right now, like myself as you can see, have already gotten our feet wet with Boinc and have it all set and ready to go when the time comes. The final switch might not be as bad as everyone thinks.

As far as I know, Classic still gets new WU when Boinc gets them. The unit I'm crunching right now is from 2005.

Have fun everyone. :)

Dig

I kinda feel like DIGGER does on this matter ... most crunchers are at least familiar with BOINCseti, and they CAN read the writing on the wall; eventually SETIclassic will close. Until then however, they prefer to run the classic version over the BOINC version. Their ranks are thinning -- the graph of active classic crunchers is now below the 300,000 level, and dropping sharply.

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I kinda feel like DIGGER does on this matter ... most crunchers are at least familiar with BOINCseti, and they CAN read the writing on the wall; eventually SETIclassic will close. Until then however, they prefer to run the classic version over the BOINC version. Their ranks are thinning -- the graph of active classic crunchers is now below the 300,000 level, and dropping sharply.

It is surprising how many don't know about it. Several that I send email to did not know untill I told tham in June.

Many of them just let it run, run and run, never going to the SETI web site. Two of them came over to BOINC, the others think change is a waist of time as the Classic works in there opinion. Most of these are prople who use the computers a lot and just ignore it running in the background. The servers at SETI can go down for a few days, and they do not even notice it as they never look at the program.

Most are interested in History and just donate there extra computer power to it because of a couple of us who started it early. They just put SETI on there systems a few years ago and never look as they really have no interest.

I would say that probably 1/4 of the Classic users are like that, but no way of finding out. And a lot of those probably don't use the seti screen saver, at least the ones I talk to don't use it.

<B>Well at least they are trying to let there extra computer power be used, that is a lot more than 99% of the prople with computers will do.</B>

Cheers

Ray
Planet Earth

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SETI classic richly deserves credit for making the first world wide distributed computing system on a ridiculously small budget. Plus, I like their screensaver better.
It is great that people are having fun with it, but I fear SETI has hit a brick wall until it can completely transfer to BOINC. I would like to see issues like using other telescopes or looking at other frequencies rather than continuously seeing the same old issues over and over about how to handle both classic and BOINC SETI. I would like to see how the migration to more and more BOINC computers is going (10%? 20%? 50%?) and maybe a rough estimate about when it will happen. (September 2005? January 2006?)
I have temporairily stopped taking BOINC seti work units to help ease the deluge until after the migration is complete. Though there would be much knashing of teeth and riots in the street, I believe it would be worthwhile to, after announcing several weeks in advance, just close down both BOINC and classic for a few weeks (or however long it would take) and reopen with BOINC alone. There might be chaos for awhile, but at least we would open with all resources focused on BOINC. I fear if we wait for a smooth transition and try to please everyone, we will never complete the migration. We have been SETI BOINCing for over a year now.

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I think the conscientious thing for everyone to do is to encourage the setiClassic users to make the switch as soon as possible.
* setiBoinc offers to do more science, so why wait?
* setiBoinc has faster clients, so why wait?
* closing setiClassic will release resources for setiBoinc, so why wait?
* setiBoinc has resolved their most severe start up pains, so why wait?
* Switching to setiBoinc is really quite easy (I did it), so why wait?
* Nostalgia and credit mongering may constitute a serious personality flaw, ....

So why wait??

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May this Farce be with You

A "future directions" on classic "predicts" the following schedule
Souther Hemisphere data recording 12-03
Southern Hemisphere Client 01-04
BOINC Astropulse 12-03
My concern about forever putting off the migration in order to please all is that we are stuck scientifically from moving on. I would rather take the lumps of everyone complaining, and just close down to get it done rather than pursue the illusive dream of a smooth transition and making everyone happy.

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I have several friends running SETI classic who say "it will run run forever and I am happy with it" also they say if it was going to close down that SETI would at least say that one the web site even without a time line.
Hard to convince them when I can only give them what it on the boards.
Whare the Classic page says:
"NOTICE: SETI@home is switching to new software called BOINC, which lets you run other projects (like Climateprediction.net and Einstein@home) on your computer as well as SETI@home. Please visit our new SETI@home/BOINC web site."
It would be good if thay added Classic will be closed down when all is running smothley with BOINC or someting to that effect.
Maby a few more would change over earlier so there would not be as much of a rush all at one time. That should make it easier on the Servers if the rest come over slowley until time to close down.
Ray

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/tech_news.php skip down to June 13th..this link is to "technical news" on the main Boinc page.
Seti Classic web page is here: http://seticlassic.ssl.berkeley.edu/
the "notice" is center top.

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So why wait??

when seti classic closes down, my BeOS pc will have to retire from seti forever. or at least until someone figures out how to hack both sources. but so many sections of the code are incompatible that this will happen no time soon.

So why wait??

when seti classic closes down, my BeOS pc will have to retire from seti forever...

Why stay on the long forgotten BeOS?

Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Another observation, pe se. setiClassic still has 300,000 "active" users, although the fall off of users is dramatic. setiBoinc has a little over half that. Together with the last few days of tumult (computers switching, databases being rebuilt, etc.) one might say setiBoinc isn't ready.

On the other hand, the problem may be that the queue balancing act (switching in processes and hardware to address an imbalance) may be too dynamic to cope with, with limited resources, and that the sooner we get to a stable work load (read: close setiClassic) the better balanced the system can be made, and the better behaved the overall system will be.

Sorry about BeOS. There is a museum in DC that might take it.

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May this Farce be with You

SETI classic richly deserves credit for making the first world wide distributed computing system on a ridiculously small budget. Plus, I like their screensaver better.

Yes SETI CLASSIC broke new ground, don't think that they thought it would take off like it did. I remember others saying n one will donate comuter time to a project like that. WOW were they wrong.

But like other things that broke ground in the past it is time to move one to bigger and better things. Imagine if we did not use modern tools as the stone age tools worked good. Or they never developed color TV as the old black & white worked?

Yes seti classic deserves a lot of credit but time to move on. Classic was designed for the narrow strone beam from the Arecibo radio telescope. BOINC SETI can use signals from a lot of others when they get them. Some ot the other radio telescopes are a lot smaller, but cover much more of the sky at one time. BOING also lets them cover many more radio wavelenghts.

If we wait untill classic closes down there could be so many changeing over at one time that it could overwelhm the BOINC SETI system. Some way of getting more to change over to BOINC at a slow stedy pace probably would be the best thing.

As was pointed out in another posting the number of classic users has dropped from a high of around 650 thousand to just under 300 thousand over about 2 years. If we could get about 10% of them to change each Mo. rather than a shut down it would be a lot easier on the servers.

I have found that most of the classic users that I have talked to do not know of boinc as they never go the the SETI web site (I was one of them myself).

If you ever find one on an email list for some other subject just let them know about the advantages of BOINC and encourage them to come over. This should make it a lot easier on the system when shut down time comes around.

Cheers
Ray Brown
Planet Earth

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So why wait??

when seti classic closes down, my BeOS pc will have to retire from seti forever...

Why stay on the long forgotten BeOS?

Martin

Same with my old Pentium 133 with only 32 megs of ram. Can't see adding more ram as that one is on the way out anyways. That takes so long that I don't even run classic on it, about 90 hours per WU.
Ray

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You can "emulate" the SETI@Home Classic screen saver. Directions are in the Wiki ... where else? :)

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It looks like they are getting ready to send messages to Classic Users:

"August 3, 2005: Jeff and I just fired up on old classic SETI@home client on a windows box to test a new server feature to send arbitrary messages to the old clients (to inform users to switch over to BOINC). It was then as it fired up that I realized I haven't seen the pretty colors of that screensaver in over a year. My how times have changed." From Matt's Slog

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It looks like they are getting ready to send messages to Classic Users:

"August 3, 2005: Jeff and I just fired up on old classic SETI@home client on a windows box to test a new server feature to send arbitrary messages to the old clients (to inform users to switch over to BOINC). It was then as it fired up that I realized I haven't seen the pretty colors of that screensaver in over a year. My how times have changed." From Matt's Slog

Thanks Brian, I wanted to post this earlier, but was tied up... ;-)