On 9/3/2015 11:23 PM, Robert Green wrote:
"Don Y" wrote in message
...
On 9/3/2015 5:55 AM, Robert Green wrote:

If the former, no computer cable I've seen should be used. Just
not even current capacity (along with another friction fit point to
cause arcing).

The modular power cord to one of my machines handles its 2200W load...

I hope you're not talking a PC that draws 2200W. That's a lot of juice.

It's a computer. PC has a very specific connotation.

I thought you were running a minicomputer but a blade server is close
enough. I used to run a BBS with 16 nodes using the precursor to blades, an
Alloy server setup and an ATT 6300 as the main PC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alloy_Computer_Products

In 1984 Alloy developed the PC-Slave card which consisted of an X86 (8086
or V20) processor, either 256k or 1 Meg of memory and two serial ports. This

This is similar, conceptually, to what my needs are. The difference being
my "nodes" are more loosely coupled; instead of an ISA bus that allows you
to "talk" to each of the cards, each card talks to the others over the
network.

card used RTNX (later renamed NTNX) to use the host processor to act as a
file server. Dumb PC-Term terminals were attached to the PC-Slave to allow
the running of DOS programs. At the time it was much cheaper to use this
solution rather than network multiple computers

It's still cheaper. With multiple computers, you bring along more disks,
keyboards, monitors, etc. (even if you run headless). And, they take up
more space!

Each slave card was connected to a USR modem - they were very nice to my PC
group, donating first eight 2400 BPS modems and then when we expanded they
gave us sixteen 9600 BPS units at a time when those suckers sold for $500.
It was good PR because people who wanted to connect at what was then the
fastest modem in the world also bought them.

Yeah, I used a USR many years ago. Along with Telebit "PEP" modems to
talk to UN*X boxen.

A wee bit bigger, heavier, NOISIER and more capable than most "PC's" :

The Alloy unit wasn't nearly as powerful or capable but for its time, it was
pretty hot stuff. Really. We had to cut louvered vents into the door to
the tiny room holding the BBS gear and even that wasn't enough. We had to
have a ceiling fan installed.

Perhaps more important than the advances in cost and compute power that
have taken place over the years is the advances in power reduction!
E.g., my current design uses 500MHz processors that *could* run on
*batteries*!