Hobby super computer building isn’t something you hear about every day. This project is even more peculiar due to the fact that it is a supercomputer built with BASIC Stamps. [humanoido] posted some great pictures and detailed info about his project. We’re not completely sure what definition of supercomputer he’s using, but he states that it beats out the others in 10 categories. Those categories are: smaller, lighter, portable, field operable, runs on batteries, has greatest number of input/output, has greatest number of sensors/variety, lowest power consumption, lowest unit cost, and easiest to program. Those sound a little more like features than supercomputing categories to us, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that this is one cool jumble of wires.
You may be wondering what it does. Well, so are we. From what he says, it talks in Chinese and English and has a plethora of other input and output devices. It also displays status of its internal communications. Catch a video after the break.
[youtube=http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=huukEEwy-3E]
[thanks Jeff]
just caught this on the news. Very newsworthy Basic Stamp Supercomputer. Not the fastest but many fine qualities. Amazing you built it.
My computer had 19000 google links, very popular invention! How do you wire that?
Well, it is a super looking thing, but it still uses basic, so basically it is super!
Why has nobody made a pascal stamp?
what it is – a super stamp aggregate and conglomerate that perfectly models a supercomputer at the hobby level using hobby parts
The slower (2Mhz instead of Basic Stamps 20 or 50) MicroStamp11 will run Pascal.
You can find a chip for any language, but only a few are well documented with examples.
at school we just stick with pbasic. it most easy to use, does all we want, its free and has tons of stuff to show how to use it –
another thing I built some stuff like this with it and all the stuff was free so you gotta like it – all perallax stuff
Its nice to see someone can bring this complex stuff down to hobby level. when can we buy one?
just saw the movie and link. very nicely done!
Our school put two of the BS2 boards together, it’s working perfect. will take a feat of engineering and a miracle get it to do 20 parallax stamps like this supercomputer.
also the simple one pin interface is brilliant! If we had tried that, our project could be less complicated, and maybe it would be more than 2 computers, like 20 like yours…
what are some of the things it can be used for? Oh, found it. Brains, security, AI, Robots… cool…
i like this movie, great job, and the way all the computers run together at the same time
this is cool. never saw this in a hobby project before. great going! Originality. 5/5 perfect stars.
HOW MANY OF THOSE 8Hz CHIPS DID HE PUT
IN THERE!?!?!?!?
I mean, in order to even approach supercomputer
quality, it would have to be at least a million of
those things clustered together. I mean, What’s
the point?
PS. Does hackaday.com have an IRC? I would like to ask a question…
looks like it could be a hundred 5mip chips but
I have always wanted to create a supercomputer
(similar in design to his, except with stronger
chips) but I keep running into this road block
in using these newer processors in these newer
PC’s. My question is: How do you make a board
for those new chips, like the AMD Athlon, and
all of these super-new things? I wanted to give
these really big corporational supercomputers
a run for their money, but a) I have no idea
where to get a pinouts and usage manual, and
b) I have no idea how they’re soldered in there!
If somebody has an aswer, PLEASE let me know, and
email me at: Phaction.5@gmail.com
Wow. The response is divided between skeptics pointing out the obvious and people who have omitted the “basic stamp” part out of the title.
I believe those “stronger” chips you speak about require much more “strength” to use. I’m sure humanoido used a Basic Stamp simply because it’s easier to use and he could finish the project in our lifetime. Just by the fact that no one did this project with the Athlon tells you something. But I’d bet my money that humanoido could help you get started. He’s a great guy who has already taken too much punishment here. Why don’t you contact him at the Parallax Forum if you have questions about his project? Have a great day and good luck!
LOLOfreakLOLOLfreakOLOLOfreakLOL,
The video is a total hoot!
I thought I was a hardware geek!
The video with the goofy sound montage was
so ubergeek that I laughed and freaked and I’ve
been a prototyping engineer for 20 years!
On the other hand I have to give the guy credit
for his follow thru. I’ve seen much bigger rat nests than this. The contraption in a way is a work of performance art more than anything else and sort of cool to look at, but the way it was presented in the video is what made my day!
I bet the guy watched way too much NASA channel
and 2001:ASO.
Could be tens of thousands of new applications for this, even in the most simple form – lots of processors/software all running at the same time.
I think that the way you have linked many chips to work together is genius. I was thinking about trying something similar with the PICaxe. Not the best chip to use, but i am familiar with the PICaxe.
Good effort,
Benny M
It looks like the concept is brilliant and will work with most hobby chips using similar principles – it’s an advantage to work with a chip that one is familiar with. Excellent.
This is a totally amazing accomplishment.
My God!!! His video is fantastic! Something right out of the future!!!!
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=huukEEwy-3E
Why not just use some propeller chips each one has 8 32bit CPUs?
It’s still cool since it has like of blinking lights and displays.
why not use more basic stamps? luv the vid…
What happens if a wire comes off? Will it still work? Ok, sorry a bit negative. Great project. If I had any intelligence, I’d build one too.
Very good use of technology and many original ideas shown in the youtube movie.
You probably want to submit this to the Smithsonian Institute because this is the only one, and the first one made with Basics Stamps.
This is a new concept in hobby computing as it looks like code is capable of running in parallel across all the processors. This can make processors super. Very good idea.
found this project on google – anyone building more of these?
IMPRESSIVE!
This is NOT a supercomputer, by todays standards it is crap compared to Pentium 3, but I like the idea.
I was working on something like this also, but I could not get more then three basic stamps with my money, and I was working on making a seperate protocall so that I would not have to mess with slow speeds using one wire.
Either way, I do not understand why there are lots of people going ga ga over this when a better use of his time and money could have been used to make a PIC “super computer”.
Maybe it’s the consideration that he actually did something more than lip service and put one together and made it work.
Since the Basic Stamp is a Pic Chip, I’m sure you can call this a Pic Chip Supercomputer. :) Have a great Christmas!
Dude, if you read the movie blog, he’s now connecting it to pc’s faster than P3. I think this is the most spectacular project!
This is a full scale supercomputer by the true definition.
Outstanding Hack! You turned a common chip into a super project!
Just doing some research and his post now has a 2 stamp wiring example for guys on a thin budget.
cool!
The epic-ness of this video alone just gives me the shivers.
agreed, the video is spectacular!
In the words of Homer Simpson, “It’s so unnecessary!”
Awesome! I got started with Basic stamps that led to my career at NASA. This project is what I dream about doing someday.
I’d be willing to bet that half of the glowing statements in the comments here were posted by “Dr” Humanoido himself. Especially considering all of the posts which point out that it’s the first Stamp-based “supercomputer.” I have engineered the first Stamp-based toilet- it has a heterogeneous Super-Beowulf network of MCUs, even more wires *and* an analog computing capacity achieved with a matrix of H2O suspended in a patented stable derivative of sintered Al6Si2O13. Sure, it sounds fancy- but in the end, it’s still a Stamp-based toilet that doesn’t do much of anything.
Don’t get me wrong- this is a fun project. But, like Mr. Simpson said above, it is completely unnecessary. There’s really no innovation here- just a nice little movie. The statements made by Humanoido are grandiose, bordering on those made by someone with megalomania. Check out this link for a lot more of the ramblings of someone with what appears to be a form of manic schizophrenia or a very special form of autism:
http://forums.parallax.com/forums/default.aspx?f=21&m=343484
It’s a real treat to read some of his code- I recommend one of his programs which implement a fully-conscious Artificial Intelligent Being. Apparently, humanoido’s genius is such that he can code up a new conscious entity in 80 lines of BASIC code. To those 80 lines code, there are _500_ lines of self-important claims about the “supercomputer,” or the ability of the AI to act creatively- write poetry, etc.
John McCarthy would bow down before him if he was able to write the code he claims to- and if he did it in 80 lines, John McCarthy would probably jump off a bridge. Or something.
Somebody call MIT- obviously we have an unparalleled genius on our hands!
I kid you not!
http://forums.parallax.com/forums/attach.aspx?a=33046
It’s sad, really. The guy is obviously pretty smart on some levels- he can articulate himself very well, he can handle writing simplistic BASIC programs, knows how to solder, can prepare plastic bits without trouble, etc. But something isn’t right- someone this smart but grounded in sanity would know how how embarrassingly laughable his claims and statements are. He isn’t a computer scientist- he’s just playing one on TV. Trying to make real some fantasy of being a smart, famous, and well-respected scientist at the cutting edge of his field.
thank you for your support!
dr. humanoido’s psychiatrist
I came across this through google. It’s a hack that is truly innovative for basic Stamps with all claims appearing accurate. This model appears to be fully functional. According to research, his claim of being the first with this type of stamp project is accurate. This and his newer projects are all very interesting, some of which have found their way into universities and school curriculum, as I can attest. There are obviously some lesser jealous minds posting here who have more time on their hands than intelligence. If you don’t like the project, just leave. humanoido, this is work appreciated by everyone here enjoying the hobby and those of us creating technical projects for school and higher learning. We look forward to your next project.
I agree with mitmen on this. Obviously stanlykinkleheim is retarded to go off like that. Humanoido has offered many hours of research and proven results at no charge. His open source projects are accurate and easily duplicated. I especially enjoyed the two links. The program in under 80 lines of BASIC that achieves Self Evolving Enumerating Deterministic Code is an eye opener. I am sure many hobbyists with small processors and little budget but wanting to do introductory AI will welcome this. On one level, this code is similar to the popular game of life where life forms evolve and can be watched in their transformations. Only here, the life forms output is not only on the screen – it communicates in English and achieve some great things represented in simple ways with code. The other link shows another project altogether, which moves processors with robots to achieve simulations and reproductions of some physics experiments, such as the doppler effect, beat frequency, and constructive destructive interference of sound waves. Again I agree with mitmen this is a first as I have never seen a computer with physically moving Stamp cores. While visiting the links I saw several newer stamp supercomputers by humanoido for example seed at http://forums.parallax.com/forums/default.aspx?f=21&m=361377&p=1 and tricore, minuscule and one more. If you follow more url links, he has a robot connected to a stamp supercomputer. This is some really great stuff not to be put down. Personally I don’t care if he’s an attorney and doing hobby stuff in his spare time, or not, or whatever. I’m enjoying these projects very much.
i have a few things to say to this
1: used way too much time on the vid.
2: it doesn’t do much other than ping itself
3: this is considered a CLUSTER COMPUTER not a SUPERCOMPUTER
4: my Dreamcast is faster than that thing!
5: Print your own PCB or use PCBExpress
6: bring it in to the maker fare as a Proof of concept! (after you clean up that ball of wires and/or get a printed PCB.
7: I know I’m commenting on something ridiculously old but still don’t care so don’t CRITICIZE ME!