[12:00 PM] Low End Mac Launches SETI@home Team For PowerMac 6100 Owners!
by Staff
In yet another effort to boost participation at Team Mac Observer, the Mac SETI@home team that is currently the #19 Club Team, Low End Mac has launched a special sub-team for PowerMac 6100 owners. Low End Mac operates a number of E-mail Lists for owners of older Macintosh computers, and his 6100 list is one of the biggest! The PowerMac 6100 was the first, and slowest, of all the PowerMac models. Running with a 60 MHz PowerPC 601 processor, these machines, along with their 7100 and 8100 siblings, were the last to use the NuBus architecture. According to Low End Mac:
The Power Macintosh 6100 was the slowest Power Mac Apple ever made, but it's fast enough to contribute to SETI@home and Team Mac Observer.
Last Monday we set up a 6100/66 with Mac OS 8.1 and SETI@home 2.0.4 software. For maximum efficiency, we've turned off AppleTalk and run SETI@home as an application, not a screen saver. By doing this, setting graphics to 648x480 and minimum bit-depth, and the rolling up the SETI@home window when the program is running, the 6100 is able to run through work units as efficiently as possible.
Joining Team 6100 is easier than joining other SETI@home teams. You don't need a password; you just need to sign on as "Team 6100" when you first launch SETI@home.
Here's all you have to do:
Have a 6100/60 or 66 that can connect to the Internet and can run SETI@home uninterrupted for over 64 hours per week. (No chipped or otherwise accelerated 6100s, please, this is very much a low end project.)
Configure your 6100 to run efficiently: turn off AppleTalk, QuickTime, Virtual Memory, and other unnecessary control panels and extensions. You need Internet access and should have Window Shade (which is part of the Mac OS these days).
Install SETI@home and restart your computer.
Sign on as "Team 6100" (without quotes) and run SETI@home as an application, not as a screen saver.
Once SETI@home is successfully loading the first work unit, scroll up the application window. This greatly reduces the load on your 6100. (In screen saver mode with graphics running, we've heard it can take 400 hours to complete a work unit!)
E-mail me at team6100@reformed.net to let me know you're joining the team. I'll add you to the list, along with details about your computer and OS.
Optional: once you've completed your first work unit, let us know how long it took so we can list times on this page.
Based on traffic to the 6100 page on Low End Mac, I believe this is the most widely uses Macintosh out there, so I'm hoping Team 6100 will expand to at least 100 computers.
I hope to hear from you soon.
If you are interested in joining this sub-team, you can find more information at Low End Mac. If you have an accelerated 6100 or some other Macintosh and you want to join the SETI@home project, read all about it. We can use all the help we can get in getting ahead of the 18 teams in front of us!
If you want to learn more about Low End Mac's great E-mail Lists, head to Low End Mac's Web site and look for the direct links to each list on the right hand sidebar.
