10 Basic stamps = 1×10^-20 of a Pentium 3

That video was… a video – but _what_ does that contraption do other than say “Computer N Here”

And it comes with a supercomputer price tag too with all those stamps!

It is innovative that is for sure, but the thing about the large number if input\output thing I would classify as more of a feature of mainframes rather than supercomputers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainframe_computer#Mainframes_vs._supercomputers

I would thing if he wanted it to be even more portable and more streamlined he would have used something like expresspcb to create a “module” that can link up to other similar modules, he could probably reduce the footprint of this computer dramatically, and make it easily expandable at the same time.

Once again proving that people have far more money and free time than I…

haha,
that’s real hack
i like it

Heh, How’d you like to try to get that thing through airport security in a carry on? LOL!

let’s see now:

BS – about 4000 instructions per second
mega32 – 16000000 instructions per second
epic fail

but crazy mad scientist props!

arduino fans , you thik it much different from BS ? No. the real upgrade will be using plain chips, just add crystal and 2 caps and here you have dirty cheap and fast micro controller

Also just pondering, how many FLOPs can the various hobbyist uc’s perform?

On an unrelated note, I found this reading up about Colossus:
“My laptop digested ciphertext at a speed of 1.2 million characters per second – 240 times faster than Colossus. If you scale the CPU frequency by that factor, you get an equivalent clock of 5.8 MHz for Colossus. That is a remarkable speed for a computer built in 1944.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer

Amazing!

Is anyone else reminded of Euclid from the film Pi?

All that’s needed now are ants and paranoia! :D

An absolutely brilliant idea. I love the fact that there are people who take on the “Can Do” attitude, and do it just because they can.

Getting the thing to work is usually the topmost priority, aesthetics are cool too, but they often come later in the process.

It looks like a lot of hacks come through in the phase where the idea is to show off the working project as opposed to a “finished product”.

It’s cool to have really good attention to tying wires up, but you just wait till _you_ do it and then have to cut it all apart to de-bug or retrofit.
It’s a pain in the ass, wastes effort and takes up a lot of time.

i really must add that the video was complete crap.

really very unfortunate.

Great functioning supercomputer humanoido! The real power is in the parallel running of all those programs at the same time, clustering technology of both hardware and software, and your supercomputer is a fine example. Very powerful indeed! Thank you!!

humanoido, I like the idea of a hobby supercomputer. Those other supercomputers cost millions of dollars. This one is a great learning tool and in my price range. Plus it does programs with the same powerful parallel clustering. Kind of like a micro-supercomputer, eh?

the supercomputer video is professional and the best I’ve seen,would like to see more… i saw many uses for it posted at the forum for this supercomputer…

This “supercomputer” would not be considered fast in the 70s, a 4mhz z80 would be more powerful. They basic stamps are a complete ripoff, $70 each but you would need over 5300 of them to equal the performance of a pentium 1! (massively low estimate)

Who wants to build a supercomputer? I do! It sounds like a new tv show. I’m in. Er… this is the best idea since sex

There are many race cars that are not the fastest cars in the world, yet they are still race cars. Theres nothing wrong with using the midrange and top level stamps to create a project like this, that offers huge power not based on being the fastest in the world, but the originality of being the first hobby supercomputer, with the most powerful number of io stamp capability in the world is enough for me. I applaud his super success!

it true a school program and not know properly program basic stamp it would look like run slow. Ever school project i made ran fast.. haha

it’s simply super!

i like the idea that many programs can cluster up and run in parallel, yet be controlled by one master program running at the same time. That’s awesome raw power!!! I give it a perfect 10!

Read the original article at the parallax forum and realized there are many ways to harness the power. Really want one I can purchase as a kit or something.

No one ever built a hobby basic stamp supercomputer before. Checked the web. give it a perfect score for originality, creativity, inventiveness, superior design, and more – have my own list! He calls it a basic stamp supercomputer on superpbasic on supernet. Really it’s the first superstamp ever made.

looks like a great product because it’s low cost and hobby orientated.

personally i prefer the basic language stamp microcontroller. its easier to program and has a faster learning curve – better than arduino microcontroller. I think he made the right choice for a hobby project at a skill level that is more suitable to hobbyists and this will have more educational value to more people getting into stamps and their first supercomputer. Simple is better.

http://www.parallax.com if anyone is interested.

Dude, really? At least use a useful ic like an arduino, or propellor or a 555 timer…(lol)

555? ROTFLMAO!!!! the 555 is a timer chip, not a processor —HAVE U MIssed the point? the point is, he built it, it works, its the first. If u want propeller or other, go built it, but it will be more complicated, harder to build, more difficult to program, its not about the chip

The Basic Stamp is a good microcontroller?

Really?

The following is a list of only some of its flaws

It is not structured.
It is not strongly typed. (This means that there is no promotion or coercion.)
It relies heavily on the GOTO statement.) (This makes for very disorganized code.)
It has many mystic , unnecessary, and restrictive instructions.
It has limited nesting.
There is NO recursion.

– — – — – — – — – — –

Perhaps one of its BIGGEST flaws is that it does not follow the fundamental rules of math (Order of Operations)

In Order of Operations the way that a math problem is supposed to be solved is like so, Parenthesis, Exponents,
Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction.

In following these rules, the following expression would evaluate in the way described below.

Here 4 is divided by 2. Then, 2 + 2 is left. When this is solved, the answer is 4.

2 + 4 / 2 = 4

In PBASIC however, 2 is added to 4 which leaves 6 / 2. When this is solved the answer is 3.

2 + 4 / 2 = 3 (???)

– — – — – — – — – — –

Actually, no.

I say that the Basic Stamp is the most useless microcontroller on the market. That is NOT a supercomputer.

humanoido, the idea you have is new and the first. We hobbyists salute you in appreciation. Now anyone can have a beautiful supercomputer as a project. This is just awesome. We thank you so much..

humanoido, nice project, give u a high 5. Most useful, great demo video, I like yor ideas.

I agree with eric …
There is too much people around that have more money and more time than me.

It’s not a supercomputer and it’s not a cluster.
A small net of basic stamps can’t be a supercomputer.

Think about USB … in your computer right now there are a lot of usb devices working together.
Almost every device have its own processor or microctonroller.

Then, I own a supercomputer???? Wow.

I’m not sure why some people have a bone to pick about the semantics of a supercomputer. This is a very neat cool project for anyone wanting to get into real parallel cluster supercomputing very cheap. Humanoido gives you a way to do it. I like the idea of a USB supercomputer that can program 216 clustered sensors of your choice and process data and run paralleled programs at the same time. Excellent idea!

humanoido has created a great little supercomputer for the hobbyist. This is amazing and wonderful. By the way, I love Parallax Stamps and I love this Basic Stamp Supercomputer.

It was ironical about USB :)

i’ve always liked the idea of making a distributed computer out of microcontrollers, although the basic stamp is certainly not the ideal microcontroller for the job. i’d like to see a pcb packed with a ton of small, cheap single-chip microcontrollers, working together. the ‘sx’ controller (which, ironically, some of the basic stamps are actually built out of) is 2$ per chip and runs at 75mips. with 50$ worth of these, you could get 1.8gips. still not the most cost effective thing in the world, but a step in the right direction for those dreaming of a future controlled by billion-core neural-network cpus. :)

One thing I like about humanoido’s Basic Stamp Supercomputer is that it’s reality. It’s built and working. All those other guys talking about other chips are just full of lip service.

I like how humanoido used the sx chip. That guy is some kind of magician to mix and match. It’s true, the Basic Stamp is extremely powerful. The supercomputer is even more powerful! His latest post at the parallax forum details the upgrade.

Hello, thank you for all the wonderful comments and suggestions. I have increased the number of computers in the Basic Stamp Supercomputer. Details at youtube and Parallax Forums. It now has the SX chip, 2px and others for added power. I’m working to add the IBM super chips into the cluster. Keep up those great comments! Thanks again!

like man make the supercomputer control more supercomputers dude..

This is most certainly not a supercomputer, stop calling it a supercomputer. It’s also not the first hobbyist “supercomputer” either.

Anyone who has clustered a few machines together through a network to do something such as graphics rendering has built a supercomputer far more powerful than this machine.

I’m not saying this isn’t a neat thing, it is very neat, but it’s just a bunch of microcontrollers that can talk to each other.

Great stamp supercomputer! It’s the supreme of all stamps!!!

good sound project and should be on tv.

Great Success!!! I found over 10,000 google links to this project!!! Wow!!!

fIGUREed on the quad core upgrade saidn to petaflogs range, cool, want to get me some obaords too

…discovered this awesome link. Great going! Nice Basic Stamp Supercomputer! Good for hobby too. Love the movie.

Hey – Very good hack project to build the fastest basic stamp supercomputer.