I’ve never had much use for video games personally but the development of powerful personal computers we now enjoy was driven by various entertainments. (After all, you can run spreadsheets just fine on a 486) Now the game machines have become so powerful that SONY is thinking about marketing their collective computational might to research institutions: “Sony mulls Playstation 3 supercomputing grid”
Neato. You hit pause, your Playstation could help solve protein-folding problems while you eat dinner. I’m still not likely to play video games, though.
It’s an old idea.
I don’t think I preserved a link anywhere, but there was a college that implemented a supercomputer using a cluster of networked PS/2 playstations. Rather than using the CPU, they did the number-crunching with the graphics chip.
Reminds me of the time when some enterprising students coded their numerical math classwork in PostScript and ran them on Apple LasterWriters, because the printers were faster than the PCs they had available at the time. Needless to say, other users were not entirely amused.
I have a friend that uses some sort of Linux on his PS3. He says that it allows him to write blu-ray disks (I haven’t verified that tho).
He tells me that PS3 has a recovery/restore feature that allows him to rebuild the PS3 after messing with it by putting Linux on it. I’ve seen him do all kinds of non-playing on the thing, and it plays DVDs super hot, as well as allowing downloading of PVRd programs.
It looks like a great bargain for $600. Much better bargain than the $300 Apple Tv.
We had export restrictions back in the 90s on the original PS because of similar concerns—that the North Koreans and/or Chinese would disassemble and use the processors in nuclear simulation grids.
Hell, if we want to hurt them, we should export them at a loss so their kids gain about 100lbs playing GTA.
It’s a pretty cool idea. I think Google Desktop can do the same if you allow it to.
Man if only I had $600 to kill on a PS/3…
Not only will they become fat, but will develop ADD and I would imagine there would be a slight drop in intelligence as well…
Linux on PS/3 is possible and a great idea from what I hear. You are basically buying a subsidized computer when you get a PS/3. You can’t but the kind of power you get in a PS/3 in $600 PC.
Here’s the little USB card reader dealie. I got it at Wal-Mart
The reader is made by Lexar and folds up dinky. PNY card shown but I also tried a Lexar card which worked fine.
Checked on the Blu-Ray writing with PS3. My friend didn’t get it to work despite a number of hacks attempted.