What got you started in DC?

[Ozzer]

As this is a nice new forum about DC in general I though I might start what might become a perpetual thread.

So here goes.

What got your started in DC in the first place?
What was your first DC project?




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I'll Start

Well I first gave DC a try back in Mid 97 using RC5-56 (thats going back a way now) and it was as a means of stress testing a new server I was configuring at work.

I then gave SETI a try and crunched my 486 till I upgraded to a P60.
Then for some reason I lost all interest in DC till a good mate (wylie) somehow got involved in DC. Through him I came along and joined this forum. I found it a nice friendly place where I could statify my competative streak occasionally with stomping fellow team members in the DC ladders.

Today I crunch a bit here and a bit there. I no longer live and breathe DC (which I did for a little while there) Now I consider it a bit of fun. Having said that though if there is ever a team call of arms I will be there with bells on and will borg as many machines as I can in the name of TEAM NINJA !!!

[Monkeymia]

Good idea Ozzer,

I originally started with an AMD 450Mhz processor (dogs danglies then) doing SETI for overclockers.com. The units were taking me around 22 - 22.5 hours to complete SETI inspired me and I really thought that I would find something, still chance...

Got more serious with DC after joining TPR, where I moved onto more biological projects. At the time TPR were really hardcore SETI and I tended to wander over this way as this team (or an earlier version of) seemed so knowledgable in this field.

Processing power and dedication to the cause has waned for me, its more now about the people and the banter. The causes themselves have now exploded and it is difficult to keep track of them all and I still like to dabble with different ones.

[wyles]

I was an avid reader of the alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.amd newsgroup trying to expand my limited PC knowledge. A member from the parent A.C.H.O group (hi X if you're watching ) posted a message about joining the groups genome@home team. I registered on the forum and got hooked.

ACHO and a few other teams merged to become The Genome Collective (but we dont talk about that right ). I joined the Picard forum Ninjamicros after a drag race between a few teams went really well in...hell...2000?? . Gradually drifted over as I wanted to branch out from genome but got little support there, picard/ninjamicros ended up Team Ninja in another long sorry tale, and now my modest fleet resides comfortably here.

[Meadmaker]

Easy to answer - I got my first internet-capable computer on the very day Seti@Home went "live"

I crunched nothing else (Cyrix 300 - 33 hours/woot) until I discovered a team to join and found the forums, where I finally got around to trying Genome@Home (still the best client EVER IMHO)

That snowballed, and now I have more computers than my wife thinks we have room for, and a £135/month electricity bill.....

[Gunslinger]

I first got involved in Distributed Computing projects in 1981 (that isn't a mispront ) when I was involved in coding operating systems for multiple discrete processors that were used to solve problems that were amenable to parallel processing. Although the systems were on the same physical site, the principles had a lot in common with current global DC projects (scheduling, validation, redundancy, etc.)

My focus moved on to other things, but I retained a fascination with the idea of solving computationally intense problems using commodity processors (instead of hideously expensive super-computers)

I was drawn to the first attempts at global distributed networks in the mid 1990s and, being a certified sci-fi looney, I naturally joined SETI (in May 1999)

From then, on to G@H, DF, F@H and many, many more...

[wombat]

What got me started was a family history of cancer and early deaths, together with the need to buy technology and fiddle with it. I think my first team was OCS, then OCUK then hear.

[Ragnarog]

I think I started on DES-II or RC5-64, before Seti@home went live.

My hardware at the time was a couple Amiga's running at 14 Mhz and later at a whopping 50Mhz (68050 CPU) and as a topping 240MHz with a PPC 603e

Other hardware was a 486-DX-100 (AMD of course) then later the K6-233, K6-2/300/350/450, K6-3/450, Duron 750, and now it starts to get all fuzzy because of multiple computers being used

I've had every amd platform except SlotA and crunched through seti for a long time, solo until I joined Team picard and a year later joined their forums (on ninjamicros). Been stuck with this excellent lot until now and not planning to leave a friendly place

Rag

[Rusty]

I started visiting Wylies Forum and asked one day how Jules and Wylie meet, NM was the answer, so I joined and kicked around for awhile to see what the idea was.. And I started DF, on a P3 500mhz

[Jules]

In what seems like another lifetime ago, I found my way to a small intimate group at 3DHQ, which is where I was first introduced to the world of distributed computing.

My very first project, which is still very dear to me, was Distributed Folding. What a great time we had and friendships were formed that will last a lifetime I was hooked. I've done various projects since..but having been diagnosed with cancer myself in May...my preference for the medical and biological projects has been reinforced.

[N.V.M.]

i just looked and haven't really been doing this too long.(2003) i started with D2OL but that was shortlived because of the problems there. then,Distributed Folding, man i went nuts on that one. then , i came here, and you guys made me a multitasking omnicruncher,lol. sure learned a lot of tricks doing that,especially using Linux,yet much more to go. must try Boinc Optimzer...

[Fizban]

well I started in 1997, and it was Primenet. Did that for a few years on my trusty AMD K6-233, had a break and joined Team picard. It took 6 months of seti crunching for me to find the Team Picard/Ninja forum. I won't go over history...

Breathing DC, Doing Dnetc 25 & Bionic Seti.

I'll give MS Server 2003 enterprise the weekend on my beast if NAT is still dodgy it's going to BSD or Linux

[Scooby Doo]

Started seti on July 6th 1999 with OCUK then moved to NM and got talking to John Dunlop on ICQ who told me about Genome@home. Stopped doing seti and stared G@H. Did this for quite a while then stopped doing DC . Some time later I started up doing DF with 3dhq/NM. Currently doing FAD with FreeDC.

Next project ........... Undecided

[Terminator]

I've always been interested in astronomy/space stuff so when Seti came along in 1999 it was the logical thing to get invloved in and it snowballed from there

[Hans Arne Iversen]

Started with Seit for SkzDaLimit. Moved over to the genome collective and did g@h, df, tsc, f@h, etc....
Currently doing folding for TheGnomeCollective and Seti for Team Ninja. I am thinking about moving from foldig to something else, but I haven't decided what.

[atomicronjohn]

The "Prince of Public Relation" Rusty got me in to it after a few months of gentle persuasion.