<<I still believe that the number is finite, in contrast to what appears to be the majority view>> The "majority view" is the way it is because a number of Darn Good (TM) heuristic arguments have been made that the number of Mersenne Primes is infinite, just like Darn Good (TM) heuristic arguments exist that the number of Fermat primes is finite (and probably =4). TI-81s run on 2MHz Z80s, but TI-85s run on 6MHz Z80s. And it is possible to overclock them something like 6x. Whoo! Now, you couldn't run a LL test program on a TI-85, but it might just be possible on a TI-92+. They have a 10 MHz Motorola 68000 processor, and something like 512K of memory. You could build yourself one of those memory expanders that have been designed for the TI-92+, and BOOM, instant LL tester. Or even factoring machine. Could you factor a Mersenne number without storing it in memory? (Answer: I don't *think* so....) Ptoo bad. If we could factor Mersenne numbers on an unmodified TI-92+, then there'd be a lot of people who'd run that program. TIs actually aren't that useless. You can do RSA cryptography on a TI-92, 92+, or 89. <<I'm not so bad off>> My TI-85 goes with me wherever I go - got a problem with that? :-D Well, that's it. S.T.L. ________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
