Let's be honest. While the mantra of BOINC has been "spare computer time" most of us have a bunch of old machines that we run BOINC on because, historically, computers that had been on for a very long time then shut off for a very long time tended not to turn on again. Yes, newer machines aren't so prone to that, but older ones were.

When NVidia abandoned the 470 driver a massive pile of quite functional cards were relegated to Noveau (sp?) only drivers on Linux. I have quite a few NVS 310, 510, Quadro 2000, and even some Zotac GT 630 cards. The 630 is/was a favorite because it had 384 CUDA core. Not a lot by today's expensive standards, but still quite capable of crunching. Those NVS cards could/will easily run four monitors.

Let's be honest about the machines that are out there. Oceans of i-7 gen-4 small form factor computers are out there. These machines rolled off corporate leases long ago. Many went to the "refurbished" market in America but about half went to the poorer EU countries. (I worked on the IPOS project for Intel years ago and those were the numbers they gave me.) In the EU it is illegal to bundle OS and hardware so most of the machines get Linux. Even more fantastic (to me at least) is when they get traded in there they get shipped to areas of third world countries with electricity.

Keep in mind I'm talking about the HP and Lenovo machines built for the corporate markets. The Dell, HP, etc. "consumer market" machines don't last that long.

These corporate desktops were well made. Most had power supplies that didn't get anywhere near 350W, yet you could have a video card that would run four monitors in them. Goodnes! I gave away an i-5 gen-3 this summer to a kid that had been helping me. It had a bunch of RAM, SSD, four monitor video card, and a USB 3.x wifi dongle. It booted fast and still had snappy response. He is the typical consumer user. Just wanted to check email, look things up on the Internet, play Solitaire and Othello.

Consider the messaging

The legacy messaging was about "spare computing power while you were using your computer." Everybody leaves desktops on so they can get updates while you are asleep. If you leave a computer off for a week then turn it on you can't actually use it for about 45 minutes while everything on it realizes it hasn't checked for updates in a week. If you are unfortunate enough to be running Windows you probably even have to reboot 2-3 times as part of that process.

It's time for BOINC to admit "desktops just get left on" so you need to tell potential volunteers "let us run while you aren't there."

Some years ago I was installing a new Linux distro on one of these type machines. One of the projects I used to like popped up a message along the lines of "your CUDA isn't new enough or good enough to participate in our project." It was like NVidia itself was behind the project just to sell new video cards! (kind of like dropping 470 support) What kind of message does this relay to potential volunteers?

Yes, we are beggars, but we only beg for Rolls Royce with under 12K miles on it. Your six year old Nissan Altima isn't good enough for us. Please pass the Grey Poupon.

That's what it conveyed to me and I've been in IT 40 years. That message is completely counter to "idle resources" mantra of old. Take a good look at the machine that qualified, with its 800+W power supply and thousand dollar video card that needs one, sometimes two, power leads plugged directly into it because it draws so much juice the motherboard can't handle it.

If one shops around online they can find even 7th gen i7 computers for under $300. Under $400 if you don't feel like looking too hard. Many/most will have an NVidia card needing a driver NVidia no longer supports but the NVK will. By not supporting NVK CUDA access BOINC has eliminated millions of potential computers from around the world. If you shop around you can find the GT 630 and NVS based video cards for $30 or less.

Since Gateway first existed, Americans have been conditioned to believe $300 will buy them a "family computer." The one you plan the budget on, check email, kids do their homework with, etc. Despite manufacturers wanting to change that story it is stuck in people's minds. BOINC needs to fully support this class of machine. Once it does, we can blog about it and others can reach out to school based things like the "weekly reader" type classroom newsletters (if they still exist) so parents who wish to instill some sense of "social responsibility" can chat with their children about why BOINC is being loaded onto the family computer to help find a cure for whatever. Kids can then check the progress of their support.

If you are allowing projects to demand Rolls Royce video cards then you've already alienated 90+% of potential volunteers. You need to have software that lets pitches like:

Your family computer can help cure cancer

That old computer in your closet could help end psoriatic arthritis

Your family computer is the Rosetta Stone for curing diseases

etc.

be how a younger generation get pulled into helping.

Be honest. Most of us originally joined because of SETI. SETI is gone. You need a pitch for today's kids and their parents.

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