>I dont think HIPPI is that expensive. 

Buying from Essential (I checked on the last purchase about a year ago)
the NIC's were $2200 and a 16x16 fully populated (multi-mode shortwave
fiber) switch was in the $35K range.  Prices may have fallen since
then.  I doubt that you'll get below $3K/port.

>CERN does build their own cards based on PCI and glasfibre, and I happen 
>to know the guy who is writing the Linux-driver for them. If intrested, 
>I pass you the email.

Please do, I'll pass it on to those still active on the project.

>HIPPI though is probably not an option for distributed computing. 

As was pointed out in a $ balanced system with PC's probably not.
Now a 700MHz Alpha 4K (about $20K w/2GB[? I think]) might work out a little 
differently in the spreadsheet.

>On the other hand it does TCP/IP in an interesting manner - the packet 
>is send to the kernel using DMA directly to the place where need - if 
>I understood the concept right.

Well, if you can pick an address to transfer directly to/from you might
as well pick a useful one!?!?!?

Paul