@ MiAmigo
Great! I say some references to Debian for Itanium, but I didn't know if it would support something this complex.
I really wish I had a spare two grand (plus a huge amount for shipping from the wrong coast).
Over 300GB of memory and 72 cores?
Sheesh!
Any photos of the native display?
What can you run on it?
Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of the display, as I have pulled the system apart to service a few issues, chief among them the replacement of one of the R-Bricks.
The thing to keep in mind about purchasing these systems pretty much 'sight unseen' from EBay is that usually, they have not been stored correctly (temperature, space, and dust-wise), and may have sat in these environs for months, if not years. (Unless you get lucky enough to get your hands on one 'fresh' from the lab or server room, as it were.)
So, even though the seller (who knew nothing about these systems, other than he had one he desperately wanted to get rid of!) assured me it was in 'perfect working order' when he got it, I assumed the worst, and knew I had my work cut out for me.
What entailed after the uncrating (an adventure it itself!), was a complete inspection of all the 3700's subsystems for damaged or worn parts, potential electrical issues, and just missing 'stuff'. Believe me, I found plenty of all of those, but nothing insurmountable.
Once I finally did get it up and running, I was glad to find that all of the processor cores worked, there were no RAM failures, and at first, no communication issues between bricks, that is, until the R-Brick failure, which was caused by a bit of rust, metal and electrical fatigue.
Because of that, the system is currently down, with the offending R-Brick pulled. (The system still has one functioning R-brick, and can actually run at half its capacity.)
Right now I'm considering the best route of repair, either fix it myself (a little bit of soldering), or replacing the entire unit.
These so-called 'brick' components (which are very BIG and HEAVY) can be ludicrously expensive on EBay, unless one is patient, and waits for the right vendor with a burning desire to just 'get rid' of the thing. (I actually picked up a $500.00+ C-Brick, fully functional and chock full of Itanium cores, for fifty bucks - the price of shipping it to me - simply because the seller just wanted to get rid of it!)
When it is all back up and running, and Debian is percolating along, I have a number of ideas for my own personal applications and projects, just to see what I can make it do and/or use it for. I have even entertained the idea of interfacing it with my 'other' supercomputer - the Beowulf Plateau - for a few joint computing projects which require massive computing power.
(Speaking of power - another thing to remember is that these systems do require a lot of dedicated cooling in an enclosed, controllable space.)
