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AppleCrate II: Apple II-Based Parallel Computer

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the now-that's-useful dept.

sproketboy noted that many years ago Michael J. Mahon built the AppleCrate — a parallel stack of Apple IIs — for no good reason. Recently he came back with the AppleCrate II, which more than doubles the number of motherboards, and at least triples the awesomeness.

126 comments

  1. yes but... by Kildjean · · Score: 0

    will it run quake?

    --
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    1. Re:yes but... by StripedCow · · Score: 2

      I'm even wondering if this thing runs faster than my cellphone...

      --
      If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
    2. Re:yes but... by jakdin · · Score: 0

      will it run quake?

      ...will it even run?

      --
      "As I always say, why jack-off when you can jack-in!" - Plughead from "Circuitry Man" (1990)
    3. Re:yes but... by snowgirl · · Score: 1

      Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these....

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      WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
    4. Re:yes but... by ShavedOrangutan · · Score: 1

      I'm even wondering if this thing runs faster than my cellphone...

      1MHz * 17?

      Nope.

      --
      Godaddy is a scam and a ripoff.
    5. Re:yes but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My new fangled washer and dryer DSP's run at 400 Mhz.

    6. Re:yes but... by ShavedOrangutan · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but will your washer or dryer run CHOPLIFTER?

      I think not. But I wouldn't be surprised if it'll update your facebook status.

      --
      Godaddy is a scam and a ripoff.
    7. Re:yes but... by Gordonjcp · · Score: 1

      The Apple IIGS ran Wolfenstein 3D, so... maybe.

    8. Re:yes but... by The+Optimizer · · Score: 1

      If you have the same T-mobile HTC that my girlfriend has... the answer is "hell yes".

    9. Re:yes but... by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      I'm even wondering if this thing runs faster than my cellphone...

      Even? The original Quake ran OK, but not great on a P60. On a P133, it ran well. On a P133 with a Riva128 (yeah, so I couldn't justify a Voodoo) it ran great. Have you any idea how much faster your cellphone is?

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    10. Re:yes but... by kvvbassboy · · Score: 1

      will it run debian?

    11. Re:yes but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just because you give your blowup doll a mobile phone it doesn't mean she's real. Also it's not cute but creepy that you set the phone to auto answer so you can call her from work. Still worse is the auto dialing script.

    12. Re:yes but... by gmhowell · · Score: 1

      Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these....

      Hehe.

      --
      Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
  2. My name is finally appropriate by cpu6502 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Apple II == 6502 CPU from Commodore Semiconductor

    I'd sooner have an Apple IIgs stack however (with its 16 bit 65000). Same ease-of-use as the original 8 bit computer, but operates about six times faster, and has a Mac-style OS.

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    1. Re:My name is finally appropriate by chill · · Score: 2

      16-bit 65000...is that like, 3000 less than the Motorola 68000? Did Apple get a discount, or just not use the extra transistors?

      And if you were going for M68000-based machines, why not the Atari ST or Commodore Amiga? (Nothing like dredging up decades-old flame wars. :-)

      --
      Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
    2. Re:My name is finally appropriate by j00r0m4nc3r · · Score: 4, Informative

      Apple II == 6502 CPU from Commodore Semiconductor

      No, the 6502 was designed by Motorola and manufactured by MOS Tech. Besides, he's using enhanced 2e's which sported a 65c02 which was designed by Western Design Center...

    3. Re:My name is finally appropriate by Osgeld · · Score: 1

      Commodore owned MOS technologies but I have never heard it called that before

    4. Re:My name is finally appropriate by Arlet · · Score: 3, Informative

      More correctly, the 6502 was designed by Chuck Peddle and Bill Mensch. Both engineers were working for Motorola, but the 6502 was an underground project. Management didn't approve of their efforts to create a cheaper version of the 6800. They left, and started working for MOS to finish the design.

    5. Re:My name is finally appropriate by NullProg · · Score: 1

      Blasphemy. My limited edition "Woz" IIgs has a 65816 in it.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WDC_65816/65802

      Enjoy,

      --
      It's just the normal noises in here.
    6. Re:My name is finally appropriate by Xtifr · · Score: 3, Informative

      It was actually the 65c816, which was a 16-bit version of the 6502, completely unrelated to the m68k, and binary-compatible with the 6502 so the IIgs could still run old Apple II software.

    7. Re:My name is finally appropriate by drgould · · Score: 2

      No, the 6502 was designed by Motorola and manufactured by MOS Tech.

      Almost, but not quite. The 6501 was designed by a team at Motorola but Motorola management was uninterested so the entire design team resigned en masse, shopped the design around and finally MOS Technology produced it.

      The 6501 was pin-compatible with the Motorola 6800, Motorola sued immediately so the not-pin-compatible, but otherwise identical, 6502 was designed and produced.

      And the rest is history.

    8. Re:My name is finally appropriate by cpu6502 · · Score: 1

      >>>16-bit 65000...is that like, 3000 less than the Motorola 68000? Did Apple get a discount?

      Funny, but your joke is actually truthful. 6500 processors originated at Motorola as a cheap alternative to the 6800 ($25 versus $300), but when Motorola tried to kill the project, the engineers spun-off their own company. In fact before today's "everything intel" or everything x86 world, multiple lines of CPUs existed:

      Commodore's 6502/8502 series (used in 90% of the 8 bit computers/game consoles)
      Zilog's Z80 series
      Motorola
      and Intel

      The Commodore and Zilog lines never went higher than 16 bit, while Motorola's lines stopped at 32 bit (68060 and PowerPC). Only Intel and various spinoffs still survive since the early 1970s.

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    9. Re:My name is finally appropriate by chill · · Score: 1

      Ah! I had totally forgotten about that beast. That was so long ago my memory of the 8-bit era is a bit pixelated.

      --
      Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
    10. Re:My name is finally appropriate by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

      No your wrong. The 6502 was designed by Chuck Peddle and Bill Mench who went to MOS they came up with the 6502that after Motorla sued them for making the 6800 pin compatible 6501. MOS was later bought by Commodore in 1976.
      So yes for most of Apples life they where using a Commodore CPU.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    11. Re:My name is finally appropriate by Xtifr · · Score: 1

      I think you're missing the point. If he wanted performance, he could have used a machine built in this century. Here, the goal is clearly to show what can be done with underpowered machines, so using a more powerful machine would somewhat defeat the point. Plus, using a popular machine for its day makes the experiment resonate more with more people than choosing something as obscure as the IIgs would have done. Not to mention the fact that it's got to be a whole lot easier to find old Apple IIs, since so many more of them were made and sold. I think my brother may still have one in his basement somewhere.

    12. Re:My name is finally appropriate by cpu6502 · · Score: 1

      >>>MOS Tech

      A division of Commodore Semiconductor Group in Norristown, PA since 1975.

      >>>Western Design Center.

      A licensee of Commodore Semiconductor, who owned the 6502 IP. The arrangement was similar to how AMD licensed the 8088 and 80286 from intel. i.e. Second sourced.

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    13. Re:My name is finally appropriate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      FYI, modded you Informative to combat vindictive asshat moderators.

      Go ahead, mods, mod me offtopic.

    14. Re:My name is finally appropriate by cpu6502 · · Score: 0

      >>>the goal is clearly to show what can be done with underpowered machines, so using a more powerful machine would somewhat defeat the point.

      You mean like if I bought a 45hp Lupo to prove my point that... um... not sure? I guess that I can get to work with only 1/6 gallon of fuel. (just joking)

      I like to write word processing documents on my C64 just to prove that "yes these old computers did actual work". I guess this is guy is trying to do the same thing.

      >>>using a popular machine for its day

      Hardly "popular". Apple IIe sold what? 500,000 units? Both Atari and Commodore and even the ugly green monochrome IBM PC outsold it.

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    15. Re:My name is finally appropriate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, Zylog produced the Z8000 (32bit) and the Z800 (16/32bit) cpu's.
      The Z8000 - though better than the x86 (Didn't suffer form segmented architecture) was not chosen by IBM
      The Z800 has software computability with the Z80 (16 bit) but can address up to 512mb RAM (segmented)

    16. Re:My name is finally appropriate by hawguy · · Score: 1

      Hey, everyone is telling me that cpu speed doesn't matter anymore, it's all about the cores, so the 8 cpu AppleCrate should be twice as fast as my 4-core desktop machine. The 17 CPU Applecrate II must be blazingly fast! I'd love to see some Javascript benchmarks for that.

      So what if my desktop has 2.5GHz CPU and the Apple IIe runs at .001Ghz, more cores is what matters!

    17. Re:My name is finally appropriate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The Wikipedia article says that Commodore Semiconductor Group purchased MOS Tech after the 6502 was first produced. I'm not sure who to believe: Wikipedia or a Slashdot troll with 6502 in his nick.

    18. Re:My name is finally appropriate by msauve · · Score: 1

      If you were to go through old A2 motherboards, I think you'd find that 6502s made by Synertek were predominant. MOS licensed the 6502 to both Synertek and Rockwell.

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    19. Re:My name is finally appropriate by SETIGuy · · Score: 1

      The Commodore and Zilog lines never went higher than 16 bit.

      There was the Zilog Z8000 which was as 32bit as the Motorola 68000. It had a 16-bit ALU with ability to merge adjacent registers into 32bit or 64bit values. The Z80000 (aka Z320) was a true 32-bit processor. The Motorola 68000 had 32 bit registers, but a 16-bit ALU.

      Assigning the 6502 to Commodore is a misnomer. The original 6502 was made by MOS Technology and licensed to Rockwell and Synertek. MOS Technologies was later purchased by Commodore. The 65C02, 65C802 and the 65C816 were designed by Western Digital, and second sourced by many companies. I don't think Commodore produced either. But you are correct that no 32bit version exists in silicon.

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    20. Re:My name is finally appropriate by SETIGuy · · Score: 1

      Just to be accurate, the Z8000 did have a segmented architecture. But it was a logical segmented architecture with segment number being the upper bits of the address, rather than the weird segment arithmetic chosen by intel. You could actually use the segment number as the input to an external MMU.

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    21. Re:My name is finally appropriate by rimcrazy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Western Design Center WAS Bill Mench. I worked with him. He had the rights to the 6502 as well as the follow on 16C6502. Bright guy but a disaster to work with. The world revolved around Bill. Did not matter that all of the world semiconductor fabs had their own design rules for how THEY manufactured semiconductors. Bill designed things based upon what he thought they SHOULD be using. Made for very fun times when you had to do silly things like DRC and timing analysis. In particular race condition analysis because you.... oh.... ran your CLOCK lines in poly (aka resistor) instead of metal. Can you say "Race Condition?" or how about "Lets beat the clock!"...............

      gad I thought I forgot those days....................

      --
      "TV, a medium as it is neither rare nor well done." Ernie Kovacs
    22. Re:My name is finally appropriate by rimcrazy · · Score: 1

      I meant the 65C816. Been too long. That chip was a MotherF*@#&*#&*@# to get working........

      --
      "TV, a medium as it is neither rare nor well done." Ernie Kovacs
    23. Re:My name is finally appropriate by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

      But it is still a MOS 6502. AKA a Commodore CPU. Just because it was licensed doesn't change that.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    24. Re:My name is finally appropriate by lawnboy5-O · · Score: 1

      Exactly! man its been awhile... thanks for the refresher.

    25. Re:My name is finally appropriate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They also chose the 65c816 because they didn't want it competing with the Macintosh, which was running on the 68000, but has less memory, a smaller monochrome only display and a host of other limitations.

    26. Re:My name is finally appropriate by lawnboy5-O · · Score: 1

      Fascinating!!

    27. Re:My name is finally appropriate by msauve · · Score: 1

      The 6502 was developed by MOS Technology. That Commodore bought them after it was designed and produced doesn't make it a "Commodore CPU." Either way you look at it, that's the case. You can credit the CPU designer (MOS Technology independent of Commodore), or you can credit the manufacturer (Synertek), but it's not a "Commodore CPU," nor was it ever referred to as such.

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    28. Re:My name is finally appropriate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is only a machine and not Brian Wilson

    29. Re:My name is finally appropriate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      your wrong => you're wrong == you are wrong

    30. Re:My name is finally appropriate by kmdrtako · · Score: 1

      Apple II == 6502 CPU from Commodore Semiconductor

      No, Apple ][ == 6502 CPU from MOS Technologies

    31. Re:My name is finally appropriate by Algae_94 · · Score: 1

      The 68000 had a 16-bit ALU, but from the 68020 onward the series had a 32-bit ALU

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/68000_family

    32. Re:My name is finally appropriate by bhtooefr · · Score: 1

      Of course, the Z80 had a 4-bit ALU, IIRC.

      And, the CMOS 65xx variants were designed and (I believe) manufactured by Western Design Center, not Western Digital Corporation, as well as manufactured by various second sources. (Well, that's not completely true - the W65C816S was designed by Sanyo, because the original W65C816 sucked ass, and Sanyo had to redesign it to fix the bugs, when they needed a 65816 for something they were designing. But, this was very late into the IIGS's life, and too late for it to be much of an effect on the IIGS market other than for hobbyist accelerator overclocking.)

    33. Re:My name is finally appropriate by bhtooefr · · Score: 1

      And, actually, Commodore Business Machines didn't make any computers at all until they bought MOS, and their computers before the Amiga were all descendants of MOS designs, so it could be argued that everything from the KIM-1 (which was pre-CBM), to the PET (the first CBM computer), to the C128 were all MOS machines.

      (The Amiga was bought from outside of Commodore, so...)

    34. Re:My name is finally appropriate by Xtifr · · Score: 1

      Hardly "popular". Apple IIe sold what? 500,000 units?

      Don't know about the IIe specifically, but the II series (of which the IIe was the most popular and longest-lived) overall sold between 5 and 6 million. The 8-bit Atari machines (which were considered fairly successful) only sold about 2 million. Moreover, the Apple II was the only machine to be successful in both the home and small business markets until the IBM PC came along. In fact, until the PC, the Apple II was the most popular microcomputer for businesses, outselling the whole CP/M family combined. (This was primarily due to the popularity of Visicalc, the original "killer app".) The C64 outsold the Apple II series overall (by about the same factor that the Apple II outsold Atari), but it had no penetration in the business market.

      So yeah, I think describing the Apple II series as "popular" is pretty reasonable, especially if you're going to mention it in the same breath as Atari.

    35. Re:My name is finally appropriate by bhtooefr · · Score: 1

      It's estimated that there were 5-6 million Apple IIs sold in its entire run.

      As of the //e's launch, there were 750,000 units sold, so subtract that to remove the ][ and ][ Plus.

      That leaves the //c, which was considered only a moderate success, and the IIGS, which was gimped to keep it from competing against the Mac, and was most often used as a faster //e anyway. (And, in fact, the //e was sold for a year AFTER the IIGS was discontinued.) The //e was considered a wild success, too...

    36. Re:My name is finally appropriate by gmhowell · · Score: 1

      Hardly "popular". Apple IIe sold what? 500,000 units? Both Atari and Commodore and even the ugly green monochrome IBM PC outsold it.

      Troll, troll, troll. ~1,000,000 units in 1984 alone.

      --
      Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
    37. Re:My name is finally appropriate by cpu6502 · · Score: 1

      >>>Assigning the 6502 to Commodore is a misnomer.

      Not really.
      Why do you think Commodore could sell their C64s for just $200?
      Answer: Because they were able to get the 65XXs and 85XXs for FREE. That gave them a competitive advantage over atari, apple, et cetera who were forced to pay full price. It's a key reason why the C64 sold 30 million units: because it was cheaper than the others.

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    38. Re:My name is finally appropriate by cpu6502 · · Score: 1

      >>>No, Apple ][ == 6502 CPU from MOS Technologies

      which was purchased by Commodore in 1976.
      i.e. Apple ][ == 6502 CPU from CSG.
      i.e. Atari 800== 6502 CPU from CSG.
      i.e. Atari VCS==6507 CPU from CSG
      i.e. Nintendo ES==6502 core from CSG

      "And now you know..... the rest of the story."

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    39. Re:My name is finally appropriate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're a retard. Please kill yourself at the earliest possible convenience.

    40. Re:My name is finally appropriate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The rest of the story: You're a faggot.

    41. Re:My name is finally appropriate by NuShrike · · Score: 1

      You suck. It is the 65C816 by WDC which was at least 2x faster than an 8088 and > 4x faster than a 6502 from MOS. Of course that's stock numbers because the latest 65C816s run closer to 20MHz and faster than the original 2.8MHz (2.6MHz under load). Still have my IIGS.

      What's the point though now an Android phone can emulate it n-times faster.

    42. Re:My name is finally appropriate by Kymermosst · · Score: 1

      Back when I was younger I wanted to see if I could get my hands on some "new old stock" 65C802s (an '816 with external buses scaled down to a 65C02-compatible package) for a personal project. So I emailed their sales address to see if they might know of a supplier who still had some or if they perhaps had some inventory to unload.

      I got a reply from Bill Mensch himself. That was an interesting conversation that finally ended with me saying something like "I *really* only want like 5 chips and the project isn't going to be monetized... so maybe you should get back to whatever you do, and I'll just wrap a few adapters..."

      --
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    43. Re:My name is finally appropriate by SETIGuy · · Score: 1

      By the time you could get a C64 for $200, you could get a 6502 for $1.50. And it's not true that use on part build by a subsidiary or even the same company get you the part for free. Unless that kind of accounting is how Commodore ran itself into the ground. If a company gets $10 by selling it to someone else, you can be damn sure the per unit cost is accounted as close to the same. If it isn't the suits would decide that it's better not to use a part internally if you make more money by selling it.

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  3. 20% cooler by 0racle · · Score: 1

    It's 20% cooler, at most.

    --
    "I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
  4. oblig by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of these?

  5. Imagine... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just imagine a Beowulf cluster of these.

  6. News for Nerds... by bigsexyjoe · · Score: 0

    ...Stuff that matters?

    --
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    1. Re:News for Nerds... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's meant to be interpreted as || rather than &&. Short-circuit evaluation saves a lot of time when validating article submissions.

    2. Re:News for Nerds... by bigsexyjoe · · Score: 1

      Okay, good point.

      --
      Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
  7. Supercomputer? by SnarfQuest · · Score: 1

    Isn't this like running a program on a Cyber CDC 6600, a state of the art supercomputer when it was developed, instead of a generic PC which would do the same job in less than 1/10 of the time.

    --
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    1. Re:Supercomputer? by clang_jangle · · Score: 1

      Other than the generic PC being a bit limiting if you want to learn more about cluster computing? Correct.

      --
      Caveat Utilitor
    2. Re:Supercomputer? by lostchicken · · Score: 2

      Of course, nowadays the generic PC is a cluster computer. How many single-core machines do you see these days? Factor in the GPU, and you pretty much are hacking on a mid-80s vector computer.

      --
      -twb
    3. Re:Supercomputer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shit, probably more like 1/50000th the time.

    4. Re:Supercomputer? by sensei+moreh · · Score: 1

      Hey, I used to write and run programs on a CDC 6600. Guess that means I'm old.

      --
      Geology - it's not rocket science; it's rock science
  8. Nice, but by StripedCow · · Score: 1

    I would be more impressed if he built a 6502 processor with DIY chemical processing.

    --
    If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
    1. Re:Nice, but by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I would be more impressed if he built a Saturn V rocket in his basement, but this is pretty neat.

  9. It runs OS X by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    NT

  10. Needs a single chip by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    This is nice, but I would have been more impressed by a bunch of Apple 2s made in Verilog and integrated into a single chip.

  11. Cool but... by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

    This is really cool and there are a lot of really interesting ideas but wouldn't using PC motherboards have worked just as well. Seems a waste to hack AppleIIe boards for this when they could be used to keep Apple IIs running.
    I like the idea of using the offsets to create the system and NADA net is also a very interesting hack but a stack of cheap PC mother boards from EBay would be alot more powerful and would leave the AppleII boards free to be used to keep the old classics alive.

    --
    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    1. Re:Cool but... by lostchicken · · Score: 1

      If you really wanted cheap and simple, a network of AVRs would be approximately what he has here. Meanwhile, I can use the Apple IIe boards to restore more Apple IIe's...

      --
      -twb
    2. Re:Cool but... by nurb432 · · Score: 1

      From the way it looks the boards were not modified at least so they could be returned to normal service someday.

      If he did modify them permanently, he should be drawn and quartered.

      --
      ---- Booth was a patriot ----
    3. Re:Cool but... by tekrat · · Score: 3, Informative

      If you look at this actual website, it becomes more obvious WHY he's using Apple II boards.

      #1) He's using discrete components and actual wire and solder to cobble the boards into a single computer. He uses perf-board and socketed chips to build his extra peripherals. YOU CANNOT DO THAT with modern Intel-based mobos. They are all surface mount and pretty much unhackable unless you've got some elYte equipment.

      #2) The Apple II board was built by a hacker, for hackers. That makes it the obvious choice in a nutshell. This is exactly the kind of stuff Woz wanted people to do with his creation.

      #3) There's no challenge to doing parallel computing with an intel mobo -- they are already coming off the shelf with 8 cores. What's the fun in that?

      --
      If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
    4. Re:Cool but... by poptones · · Score: 1

      Except you can buy an Apple IIe motherboard that IS based on an ASIC and actually runs BETTER than the original AND uses like a tenth the power. It's also more reliable because it has, basically, one motherboard chip, one cpu, two memory chips, and not much else.

    5. Re:Cool but... by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

      "#1) He's using discrete components and actual wire and solder to cobble the boards into a single computer. He uses perf-board and socketed chips to build his extra peripherals. YOU CANNOT DO THAT with modern Intel-based mobos. They are all surface mount and pretty much unhackable unless you've got some elYte equipment."
      Depends on the motherboard. If you find some old ones that have printer ports you can use them for all sorts of bit banged IO.
      Or you could us a pic or avr interfaced to the USB port if you wanted to.

      I am pretty sure that I know the real answer. He really likes the Apple II. Which is a fine answer IMHO.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    6. Re:Cool but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I would have had a hard time disassembling all those Apple //e's, too!

      But a few months earlier, I had happened upon an auction of a couple dozen Apple //e main boards for less than a dollar a board.

      I didn't isolate the fetal stem cells--I only worked with them afterward. ;-)

      -michael (mjmahon)

    7. Re:Cool but... by DriedClexler · · Score: 4, Insightful

      #2) The Apple II board was built by a hacker, for hackers. That makes it the obvious choice in a nutshell. This is exactly the kind of stuff Woz wanted people to do with his creation.

      Wow, kind of a reminder of how much they've changed. These days it's, "You need an Apple technician to replace the battery / hard drive / casing / logo..."

      --
      Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
    8. Re:Cool but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "If you find some old ones that have printer ports you can use them for all sorts of bit banged IO.
      Or you could us a pic or avr interfaced to the USB port if you wanted to.

      I am pretty sure that I know the real answer. He really likes the Apple II. Which is a fine answer IMHO.

      However, the printer port only runs at a MHz or so, so no real speed advantage. And the killer is that it is almost impossible to get deterministic timing from a PC, both because of interrupts (which would have to be disabled for the entire length of a packet) and because of the non-deterministic execution of cached (not to mention multi-threaded) processors. The PC was simply not designed for bit-banging, but the Apple II was.

      And, yes, I do really like the Apple II. It was the last personal computer for which all the paper manuals required to fully understand it and modify it weighed less than the computer itself. ;-)

      -michael

    9. Re:Cool but... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      He's using discrete components and actual wire and solder to cobble the boards into a single computer. He uses perf-board and socketed chips to build his extra peripherals. YOU CANNOT DO THAT with modern Intel-based mobos. They are all surface mount and pretty much unhackable unless you've got some elYte equipment.

      His extra peripherals are some hardware tied off the serial ports and an audio mixer that takes sixteen TTL signals (in the Applecrate II) and mixes them. He also rewrote part of the boot code, you can do that on PCs too. So there's nothing you couldn't do with PC motherboards here except stack them without some kind of fancy active cooling.

      There's no challenge to doing parallel computing with an intel mobo -- they are already coming off the shelf with 8 cores. What's the fun in that?

      More to the point, they already come with at least one GigE interface.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    10. Re:Cool but... by shmlco · · Score: 1

      "He's using discrete components and actual wire and solder to cobble the boards into a single computer. He uses perf-board and socketed chips to build his extra peripherals. ... The Apple II board was built by a hacker, for hackers. That makes it the obvious choice in a nutshell."

      That's how stuff was done back them. Processors and RAM were dropped into sockets. Boards had discrete parts. "Upgrades" meant filling in the empty RAM sockets so you had 48K of RAM and not just 16K.

      --
      Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
    11. Re:Cool but... by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 1

      Wow, kind of a reminder of how much they've changed. These days it's, "You need an Apple technician to replace the battery / hard drive / casing / logo..."

      Not much has changed; that was always Jobs's mantra -- it was just Woz's crew that prized hackability. That's why Jobs was in charge of sales. Hackability went out with the Lisa.

    12. Re:Cool but... by c600g · · Score: 1

      Wow, kind of a reminder of how much they've changed. These days it's, "You need an Apple technician to replace the battery / hard drive / casing / logo..."

      That is why I haven't owned an Apple Computer since my old and faithful Apple ][e. I used that computer from around 6th grade until I was in my first year of graduate school, when I finally bought a 386DX PC. Crazy, I know.

      And finally, a story where my user name makes sense...

    13. Re:Cool but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Did you really just suggest using USB as an interconnect for cluster computing?!

      Intrigued, newsletter, etc.

    14. Re:Cool but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, that Apple II doesn't have any onboard serial ports. You had to get an expansion card for that.

      From what I can tell, he's using the annunciators (there are 4, I believe, on the internal 16-pin game port socket) which are just general purpose pins whose voltage can be brought high or low (Woz thought they might be useful for something, but they had no other purpose), and the joystick buttons (there are 3 available) to send signals to and from his ad-hoc network bus.

      The audio came from the speakers on each motherboard on the original, but I don't see where he says he's pulling the TTL level signal off of the new design. However, as I recall there's a corresponding ROM call to "click" either the cassette output or one of the annunciators the same way you'd "click" the speaker. So it may be that way. Either way, no serial ports, per se.

    15. Re:Cool but... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Well, that makes plenty of sense. As a former Amigan on a budget I have a bunch of experience with PLIP, which is pretty much the same story except again on much fancier hardware and with a port which was meant for I/O which was supplied with the hardware.

      Maybe I have this totally confused with some other computer, but IIRC the way you get audio out of an Apple II from Applesoft BASIC is to either PEEK or POKE the correct address, implying that it's just an address line someplace that's tied to the audio amplifier.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    16. Re:Cool but... by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

      Never seen a USB network adaptor. Now worse than an Apple.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    17. Re:Cool but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Indeed--you are "reboot"!

    18. Re:Cool but... by cpt+kangarooski · · Score: 1

      Yes, I remember upgrading the RAM on my first computer by inserting ICs into sockets. But what I continue to find really amazing is how cheap absolutely mind-boggling amounts of memory are now. I recently upgraded a machine to 8GB of RAM for about $100; it seems like only yesterday that I could have spent several times as much money to upgrade a machine to 8MB. Likewise, I've still got some old 160kB 5.25" floppy disks hanging around... now I could easily carry many gigs of storage around on a keychain, and once they come out in a 9.5mm height, I'll have upgraded my laptop to 1TB.

      It's crazy, I tell you.

      --
      -- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
    19. Re:Cool but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right, but they aren't "serial ports". They are flip-flops that can be toggled by software
      and levels that can be read by software as true or false. ;-)

      And using them for synchronous communication requires deterministic software execution--no interrupts.

      -michael

    20. Re:Cool but... by mjmahon · · Score: 1

      Bingo on the annunciators and the button inputs. But I did intercept the TTL output of the speaker flipflop. That is a much cleaner signal than what comes out of the AC-coupled speaker amplifier, and it is readily available on a solder pad intended for an integrated audio amplifier chip that was never populated on the Apple //e boards. This TTL level is actually full of digital noise, as you would expect, so it is used to drive an inverter powered by a "quiet" +5v level created from the +12v supply to the audio processor board. The output of this inverter is clean, and is mixed with other similar outputs prior to being filtered by a three-pole Sallen-Key lowpass filter to eliminate the 22.05kHz PWM pulse frequency. -michael

    21. Re:Cool but... by SkimTony · · Score: 1

      Out of curiosity, do you get much demand for restored Apple IIe's?

    22. Re:Cool but... by mrgiles · · Score: 1

      It's a different world out there now. It's not just hackers that use computers anymore, mostly it's people who wouldn't know a CPU from a Hard Drive.

    23. Re:Cool but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think that there are enough people now that Apple could come out with a 'hacker' line of product and be able to move quite a bit of it. The nice thing is they could separate it from their normal consumer lines, and not offer the same support, but regaining some of the hacker cred and open system cred that they are really lacking at the moment. Because right now they feel really more locked down than ever, and they haven't been a hacker's company since the Apple II.

    24. Re:Cool but... by shmlco · · Score: 1

      "... it seems like only yesterday that I could have spent several times as much money to upgrade a machine to 8MB."

      Several times? I once upgraded my first Macintosh II to 8MB of RAM, and I swear I paid at least $1,1000 to do so...

      --
      Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
    25. Re:Cool but... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      I sit corrected. It's nice that there were some user-addressable bits in there someplace that you could adapt to the purpose.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  12. C64 stack by JavaBear · · Score: 2

    Would it even be possible to make a stack with Commodore 64's?

    1. Re:C64 stack by SockPuppetOfTheWeek · · Score: 2

      Wouldn't exactly be 64-bit anymore then, would it?

    2. Re:C64 stack by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Why not? They're communicating via serial so the same kind of thing should be pretty easy to do. On the other hand, it might be niftier to utilize the expansion bus for communications to leave the serial ports free.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:C64 stack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      C=64 ...heretic! Apple II forever!

      My screamer Apple II gs sports a ZipGS overdrive processor at 8mhz, a RAMFast SCSI card feeding a 256mb SCSI drive formated into various 32mb ProDOS partitions, and a 90MB Bernoulli SCSI with removable cartridges (90 mb) It also has a 8mb memory card 4 main, 4 as a ramdrive), a Superdisk card so it can address 1.4mb floppy disks, a LANceGS Ethernet card so I can get it on the internet at 10BasedT (it is not how well the horse can talk, it is that it can talk...at all)
      Who needs these new fangled Intel boxes.

    4. Re:C64 stack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The 2k area between $ce00 and $cfff was reserved for an IEEE expansion card. With clever use of the R/W lines and tri-state buffering, you could send 8-bit values between the C=64 computers without a problem. The c=64 already has a serial bus (used to connect to the 1541 floppy drive and printer), and I think the bus supports device addresses 0-15, so you could use that (would have to fix the ROMs in most to not respond to default addresses). It would be more exciting to see multiple C=64s connected to individual drives via serial busses, and using the cartridge port to do networking. Or you could use the cassette port for networking as well, but that's CPU intensive.

    5. Re:C64 stack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That has already been done, back in 1997:
      http://lng.sourceforge.net/lunix/doc/lnet.txt
      Works with up to 6 C64's.

    6. Re:C64 stack by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      (useful technical response deleted)

      This right here is why Slashdot is still great. Cowardly or not, keep it up.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    7. Re:C64 stack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The 2k area between $ce00 and $cfff was reserved for an IEEE expansion card. With clever use of the R/W lines and tri-state buffering, you could send 8-bit values between the C=64 computers without a problem. The c=64 already has a serial bus (used to connect to the 1541 floppy drive and printer), and I think the bus supports device addresses 0-15, so you could use that (would have to fix the ROMs in most to not respond to default addresses). It would be more exciting to see multiple C=64s connected to individual drives via serial busses, and using the cartridge port to do networking. Or you could use the cassette port for networking as well, but that's CPU intensive.

      Nope, its $de00 to $dfff that is used for the expansion card.

    8. Re:C64 stack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is only with Commodore (like L. Ron Hubbard was) machines whereas as this is done with Apple machines (though not the ones where 64K ws enough)

    9. Re:C64 stack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Would'nt you be whoring for points with a lame question, or would you ?

      Would it even be possible to make a stack with Commodore 64's?

    10. Re:C64 stack by swalve · · Score: 1

      And it only cost $35,000! Why, you could almost buy a Mac Pro for that nowadays!

      (It is 10baseT, not based)

  13. Space-saving by ItsJustAPseudonym · · Score: 1

    From the article for the II version: "This 'hi-rise' construction makes the 'stack' quite rigid and sturdy, while eliminating the need for a space-consuming exoskeleton."

    Well, what are you waiting for? Slap a touch screen on that puppy, and make it a 17-processor tablet computer!

    1. Re:Space-saving by lawnboy5-O · · Score: 1

      Or, wire it to the human centipad: http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s15e01-humancentipad

  14. AAAAGHHH! by poptones · · Score: 2

    The 6800 came from Motorola. The 6502 was the successor the the 6501, both of which came from MOSTEK. Commodore may have had cpus contracted out, but the 6500 came nearly a decade before commodore hit the bigtime. MOSTEK was one of the leaders at the time because they offered experimenters a $20 "kit" that included a manual AND a 6501 CPU chip. This price was phenomenal at the time. The 6502 was the cpu that powered the KIM and SYM microcomputer kits, which were also very capable and very affordable - at $250 they were a fraction the price of the 8080 and z80 based machines of the time, and were equally capable (in fact, in many cases, much faster).

    NOT a 65000, NOT a 68000, not a 6800, and so on. The 6800 was a slightly different beast, pushed by Motorola because they thought they had the power to overcome mostek's intertia because they're freaking motorola. But the 6800 was inferior in many ways, and it didn't happen until the 65xx line was long sold and dying.

    1. Re:AAAAGHHH! by SETIGuy · · Score: 2

      Mostek was very much a different company than the one that built the 6502. MOS Technologies built the 6502.

      --
      Support SETI@home
    2. Re:AAAAGHHH! by cpu6502 · · Score: 1

      >>>The 6502 was the successor the the 6501, both of which came from MOSTEK. Commodore may have had cpus contracted out, but the 6500 came nearly a decade before commodore hit the bigtime.

      Stop spreading incorrect information.
      - The 6501 was developed by Motorola engineers.
      - Motorola didn't want to sell it, so the engineers created a spinoff company: MOS.
      - MOS became Commodore Semiconductor in 1976 (not 86 as you incorrectly implied).

      --
      My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
  15. Re:I hate the earth by pavon · · Score: 1

    The boards are powered by a PC AT power supply. The average power consumed by an Apple //e board is about 4.2 watts, so the whole 17-board crate consumes only about 70 watts in total, and both the AppleCrate and the power supply run only a few degrees above ambient temperature.

  16. Still can't run Crysis... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What a shame.

  17. Anybody else notice a similarity by kasperd · · Score: 1

    I for one think these two cubes do look similar: http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon/CrateII.jpg http://www.startrek.com/legacy_media/images/200508/tng-142-j25-borg-cube/320x240.jpg

    --

    Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
  18. love this topic by hb253 · · Score: 1

    Is this what Slashdot used to be like? It's great! People talking about bit banging, soldering, discrete components, hacking. It brings a smile to my face.

    --
    Self awareness - try it!
  19. Typo by HairyNevus · · Score: 1
    TFA has a typo in the first line: "AppleCrate I (at the time I didn't realize that it was number "I" ;-) was great fun"

    Should be: "AppleCrate I (at the time I didn't realize that it was number "I" ;-)) was great fun".

    crap, now I forget the html code for sarcasm...

    --
    You were critically hit for no damage. The bruise will look nice, and maybe the scars will make good party talk.
    1. Re:Typo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have made it a habit, and therefore a rule, to use an ending ;-) as a closed parenthesis--and I recommend the convention to all,
      since humorous/ironic remarks are often made inside parentheses.

      (And I just discovered that Slashdot has a limit to the frequency of even relevant, knowledgeable responses. ;-)

      -michael

    2. Re:Typo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      (you're a fag ;-)

  20. Imagine, if you can... by haaz · · Score: 1

    What would it be like to play Ultima IV on this thing?

    --
    -- haaz.
  21. But only Apple.... by DrYak · · Score: 1

    but only Apple is going at great lengths to stop more savvy users to experiment...

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
  22. It makes one wonder... by Bones3D_mac · · Score: 1

    What kind of impact would this have had if people were doing this back in 70's?

    Granted, this guy is just using it mostly for audio processing. (Impressively done, though... especially if you ever experimented with audio sampling on an Apple II using self-designed software and custom-built I/O interfaces)

    What I'm curious about, is whether the video output from each of thee boards could be combined into either a single high resolution display matrix approaching VGA at a low depth, or layered atop each other to increase output depth, but at the Apple II's default resolution. (Basically, something like the output of 12 machines combined into a 4x3 matrix on a single display, which would be controlled by a 13th machine for high res output, or layering the output from all 12 machines with the 13th machine controlling the alpha value of each layer to create the illusion of a higher bit depth than the Apple II was capable of.)

    Maybe then all that shareware porno imagery every library in america once hosted might actually have been identifiable...

    --


    8==8 Bones 8==8