Dual pentium 1 mobo's

[IwishIcouldprogramandhack]

Question - I might be acquiring a few older pentium one computers, from a friend who would otherwise be throwing them out.

Are there any mobos out there who support multiple pentium I's? Preferably more than 2

Also

What could I use that computer for?

Thanks

 

[BatmanNate]

I've never heard of a multiprocessor solution based on socket 4, 5, or 7 (Pentium 586 formats) however they did make Pentium Pro duals and quads. The Pentium pro was the first 686 processor, similiar to the Pentium 2 in almost all regards, and it comes in the socket 8 format. Although in this day and age, a dual Pentium system wouldn't afford you the performance that would make it worth assembling to begin with. Most recent MS OS's that support SMP would bog it down too heavily, and if you don't even know what you'd use it for, then you probably don't need it. For more information regarding the subject of SMP, check out 2cpu.com. If you are getting multiple pentium machines, you could cluster them using some variety of unix, or you could run a distributed computing project between them. (Join TeamAnand!!) Best of luck!

 

[jcmkk]

Since it doesn't look like you're gonna have much luck with multiproccessing, you can build a Linux Beowulf cluster. Go here for more information. You can also build a cluster with NT based OSes, but it is more difficult.

 

[Shide1]

There were some tyan tomcat boards that supported 2 pentiums.

 

[crypticlogin]

For some reason, I can't think of the manufacturer's name (which probably means they've been out of business or absorbed by someone else) but they made dual and quad Socket7 boards. ALPS? I'm leaning towards something to do with mountains, but I can't be too sure. I think IBM even made a custom 128-unit board for Socket7, but that was for internal use and/or research.

But IIRC, you needed matched cores on all the CPUs on the ALPS(?) board and the VRMs were pricey even when in production. Other than having the novelty of a quad board (and paying the price/performance premium for one), I wouldn't expect it to be used effectively with a modern OS, like BatmanNate said.

 

[Shide1]

here is the tyan dual pentium board


http://www.tyan.com/products/html/a_tomcatiiid.html

 

[Colt45]

there are some dual socket 7 boards, but the performance isnt there.

nowadays the price for 2 Pentium pro's and a dual mobo is very very reasonable.

plus you have 256, 512, or 1024KB cache on chip (not on die though). still loads faster than they socket 7 coast module, because the cache on a ppro is at chip speed

they came in 256/512KB 150? 166 and 180mhz versions, as well as 256/512/1024KB 200mhz versions.

you could probably get a pair of 256/200/66's for $15 or so if you look around.. and i'd guess $20 or so for the mobo. it will be leaps and bounds better than a dual P54C system.

PPro's are optimized for 32bit code, so NT4/NT5 would work fairly good on them, and theres always linux as well, which is a valid soloution.

Dual P54C mobo's are pretty rare anyways.. so i'd expect to pay at least $30 for one.