This is not an April Fools post – although when you get to the end of it you may wonder.

As a proof of concept of the MetaWrap Apache_mod interface I’m going to write something that distributes grid tasks to web browsers as JavaScript transcoded from the MetaWrap VM.

Whenever someone visits a particular web page, either by included .js script file or an IFRAME I’ll run some code that performs some small part of batch task that’s been registered on a MetaWrap server.

Maybe not really a practical test unless I get some force multiplier from JavaScript being the only real “Run Anywhere” language out there and get a really huge number of users.

This is really a test of the MetaWrap server and the ability to create and coordinate a distributed computing task and display the results.

Aiming for something that will run on IE, Mozilla and as many mobile phone browsers that I can find that can run JavaScript of some kind. I figure there are so many 200Mhz + phones out there that it may be worthwhile.

Plan is to build a database of jobs that will render an ultra high resolution Mandelbrot set.

Or maybe ray trace a scene.

Need some way to allow people to navigate the completed Mandelbrot set online – which is a task in itself.

[Update 7/8/2005]

Google maps style interface would go nicely!

Using Action XML format to encode jobs. At this rate though not going to be finished for another year.. 😦

[update 13/11/2005]

Javascript Mandelbrot set generator

http://jepstone.net/blog/?p=128

JavaScript Ray Tracer

http://www.slimeland.com/raytrace/