>From the GIMPS page: "You could be the first person to find a 1,000,000 digit prime number! However, these exponents take quite a while to test. A 200 MHz Pentium computer will take 4 weeks to test a single exponent! These ranges are definitely not recommended for 486 or Cyrix 6x86 owners." "Slower Pentiums (120MHz and below) can be used in double-checking previous Lucas-Lehmer tests. You could find a new Mersenne prime if the previous Lucas-Lehmer test was incorrect. You must use version 18 of the program and use the PrimeNet server's web pages to get double-checking assignments." "486/100s or better and Cyrix 6x86s can be used in factoring Mersenne numbers. You won't find any Mersenne primes this way, but your results will be used to update the database to help speed up the Lucas-Lehmer testing. You must use the PrimeNet server's web pages to get factoring assignments." And there IS a reason why, left to it's own devices, Primenet will hand out double-checks to machines P166 and under, and why 486 machines will get factoring assignments. Scott must have considered the "suitability to task" when deciding on these limits. And as we can see, George has expressed his opinion also on what machines are suitable for what type of work. We're all free to check out first time LL tests in the 7M range and run it on our 486DX-40, but personally I think that is a ridiculous concept. While every machine *can* be useful for GIMPS, they are useful for different things...486's are fine for factoring, P166 and below are fine for double-checking the smaller numbers. On the other hand, there is a point where a machine is no longer useful, and I would certainly lump 386 class machines into this category. At some point, factoring will take to long for 486's under 120MHz or so, and even eventually, double-checking assignments will exceed the reasonable limits of Pentium class machines. I certainly think that if ANY assignment takes longer than 12 months, you'd be better off on a codebreaking contest or something of the sort. Something to consider...maybe even ECM or the like. Wouldn't it be nice to go out of 1999 having done first time LL tests on all exponents under 5.26M? C'mon folks, set goals for yourself! Currently, there's only about 210 exponents under this (which will finish off the 256K FFT size numbers). And I'd like to be able to prove M37 and M38 are actually 37 and 38! There's just under 7,000 exponents to double-check (according to the GIMPS status page) to prove this...so get those slower machines cracking on the double-checks! It's just as important as doing first time LL tests if you ask me. :-) And I vow not to poach more numbers, though I'd hope that George and Scott would take the matter of "exponent hoarders" into consideration. Consider this nasty response my brother and I got from a <name withheld>: "I'm starting to realise that you probably are the most stupid and ignorant person I have ever discussed anything with. What makes you think someone are using a 486 for testing, even if Primenet tells you that it would take two years to finish one exponent? You don't _know_, and you do not intend to ask, because you have no repsect for any ideas other than those you find in your own little world." Well, he/she is right...I don't know what kind of machine it's running on, just because it'll take 2 years to test oen exponent. In fact, I'd be quite wrong if I said it was a 486 since a 486 would finish it up MUCH faster in all likelihood (I mean, we are talking about numbers in the 4M-5M range). Maybe it is a 386, or a pocket calculator. :-) And, FWIW, ad hominem attacks are never useful...consider cutting out the words like "stupid" and "ignorant" if you really want to make a point. Or these fun quotes: "Well, since you are stupid, I'll keep two of my assignments below M37, which are reserved directly from George, outside Primenet. I might even return bogus results for them sometime next year. They will not be tested properly until they had a third check sometime in perhaps 2002. Don't that make you feel smart, while you take the fun out of the project? What the heck, if you want to kill the fun for other people, I'm free to take your fun away, right? I can play really dirty too, if I want to. "I have a 486DX40, and it needs half a year to complete a factoring assignment, so I find it hard to belive that it can do a LL-test in only four times longer, but I'll reserve one and try just to nag you. Nah, thinking about it, I think I'll use my old 386DX20 instead. I can tell it to pretend to be a PIII and see how long it takes until someone figures." Well, obviously this person is trying to make their point by stooping even lower than he/she accuses me of being. Again, not a great way to make a point, but very helpful in understanding this person's mindset. That's *all* we'd need is for this person to start sending in bogus reports on the residue of his/her numbers. Very adult, very smart. But look, no more poaching for me once I get these done...it'll take my PPro 200 only 2 weeks to finish off an exponent that someone has been camping on for 1 year (with 2 more years to go) so I don't feel the least bit bad about doing that. But like I said, after these are done with, the problem is essentially gone since new assignments follow the new rules where they WILL expire if you don't check in for 60 days past the next expected checkin date, making this whole bloody argument a moot point. George will have to figure out how to deal with weirdo's like the above guy/gal who threaten to falsify test results and camp on numbers for years at a time...but that's through his email reservation system and that's his baby to handle. Aaron ________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
