Re: COMPUTE

["Thomas Steffen" <steffen.list.account@gmail.com>]

On 8/5/06, Australian National University <minduploading.net@gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes, that is not a typo: we
> are looking for a 32-bit EXE that can provide an emulated 64-bit Processor
> ON a 32-bit machine.

I think qemu (www.qemu.org) can do that. It does run on Windows, and
in the latest version it can emulate an AMD64 system. I am not sure
whether you can run Windows inside the virtual machine, since the
emulation is still somewhat experimental.

AMD also used to ship an emulator for development purposes before the
AMD64 CPU was ready, but I am not sure whether that is still the case.

> like a 3 gHZ PENTIUM 4 so that it
> could run a proper X64 OPERATING SYSTEM such as MICROSOFT WINDOWS X64
> COMPUTE CLUSTER at a (terrible) speed of 500mhz or so (given the exchange
> for 64-bit power) ?

I guess I also fail to see what that would be good for. I think the
performance impact is more several, so the target system will be much
slower than an amd64 at 500 MHz. And you will never get the main
advantage of AMD64: the extended address space. So why bother?

> Obviously our basic goal here is to allow X86
> machines to join compute clusters and circumvent Microsoft's limitation of
> forcing people to use the AMD64 Processor.

Nobody is forcing you to use anything. Just go Linux, and you can use
your old machines with several different kinds of cluster solutions.

> Any reply will be quoted and
> may be re-printed in any journal printed by the University.

Quoted, we will see, but not printed. If you want to print me, you
have to ask me.

Yours,
Thomas