Seventy PlayStations Link Up Into $50,000 Linux Supercomputer

In many ways game machines today are not toys but instead the most advanced – and economical – computer building blocks now available. Playstation’s main videogame competitor, the Xbox, has been the attention of much hacking effort to get it to run the “free” Linux operating system as well – much to manufacturer Microsoft’s dismay. The XBox Linux Project and others have recently succeeded in this effort, and the debate has turned from the technical to the legal regarding the usage of such modifications. Nonetheless, so-called Beowulf clusters of cheap Xbox computer boards have also been demonstrated.