In late 1993, Becker and Thomas Sterling, both working at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, began thinking about the possibilities of cluster computing. In the summer of 1994, Wiglaf — the first Beowulf cluster, sporting 16 66-Mhz 486 DX4 processors connected by channel-bonded ethernet — was born. It cost about $40,000 to build.

Haha, all I could think of was that they built a beowulf cluster that cost $40,000 from 16 TI-83 calculators. Well I am sure they would definitely get more bang for their buck with that kind of money today.

I am always looking for reasons to build my own mini-cluster at home, but have yet to find one. Maybe I will create a network of popular sites one day that will require the use of server farms to maintain…hmm…that’s a though.

And no I am not telling some project “Happy Birthday”. That’s just weird.