Super abacus: a Beowulf class parallel computer for multimedia signal processing research
A few thousands years ago, Chinese people used small rods connected to movable counters such as beads to construct a low-cost calculation device, which is called Abacus. Today, Beowulf-class parallel computer using such similar approach to construct a low-cost supercomputing system, in which Pentium-based computers (beads) are connected by a Fast Ethernet switch (rods) to form a parallel supercomputer. This paper presents our experiences learnt from the construction of a 17-node Beowulf-class cluster called Super Abacus. The system is designed to provide high computational power for handling real-time multimedia signal processing such as audio/video compression, multimedia database searching and content-based audio/video classification so as to support multimedia signal processing research projects in CityU Image Processing Laboratory. The technologies and methodologies to achieve the goal of lower system cost with better performance will be described.