Mersenne Digest Wednesday, September 15 1999 Volume 01 : Number 626 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 11:26:27 +0100 From: Tony Gott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Mersenne: v. 19.0.1 George: I've noticed a reduction in iteration time from 0.237 to 0.223 on exponent 8143921 using PIII/500, so well done in tweaking speed. Also no probelms in installation or running so far. Tony Gott _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 17:01:30 +0200 From: Paul Landon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Mersenne: sci.math FAQ I have been reading the sci.math FAQ and in amongst strange things like clock arithmetic and imaginary numbers I found the entry below for Mersenne Primes. I'm sure there is more to be said than this, would somebody volunteer to give the editor (Alex L�pez-Ortiz [EMAIL PROTECTED] ) something? Whilst I am on the subject of FAQs, I noticed that the most frequently asked question is "Why isn't this question in the FAQ?" (with apologies to Russell :-) To attempt to solve this I think we should put it in the next version and then therefore we must take it out again of the next version...! (with apologies to Lewis Carroll also known as Reverend Charles Dodgson, Professor of Symbolic Logic at and Master of Christ Church College Oxford :-) ============ Largest known Mersenne prime Mersenne primes are primes of the form 2 ^p-1. For 2^p-1 to be prime we must have that p is prime. 2^2976221-1 is prime. It was discovered in 1997. http://www.cs.unb.ca/~alopez-o/math-faq/node28.html#SECTION00421000000000000000 ============ Admittedly under "Largest known prime" they have:- Largest known prime The largest known prime is the Mersenne prime described above. The largest known non-Mersenne prime, is 391581*2^216193-1 , discovered by Brown, Noll, Parady, Smith, Smith, and Zarantonello. Throughout history, the largest known prime has almost always been a Mersenne prime; the period between Brown et al's discovery in August 1989 and Slowinski & Gage's in March 1992 is one of the few exceptions. You can help find more primes. For more information see: The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search home page on http://www.mersenne.org References Brown, Noll, Parady, Smith, Smith, and Zarantonello. Letter to the editor. American Mathematical Monthly, vol. 97, 1990, p. 214. http://www.cs.unb.ca/~alopez-o/math-faq/node29.html =============== The page "What is the current status on Mersenne primes?" only goes up to "M36??" = "2^2976221-1". Cheers, Paul Landon _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 14:56:16 -0400 (EDT) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Mersenne: sci.math FAQ > I have been reading the sci.math FAQ and in amongst > strange things like clock arithmetic and imaginary > numbers I found the entry below for Mersenne Primes. > I'm sure there is more to be said than this, would > somebody volunteer to give the editor (Alex L�pez- > Ortiz [EMAIL PROTECTED] ) something? Hmmmm, is it me, or is this FAQ looking somewhat out of date? I think it might be worth contacting Alex on a more "official" basis about the Mersenne entries, it wouldn't hurt to get a bit more GIMPS weight behind the brief mention in the sci.math FAQ. On the other hand, it perhaps goes to show how much attention is paid to the FAQ anyway, the data does have a rather *aged* hint about it... much water has flowed under the bridge since 2^2976221-1. > The largest known non-Mersenne prime... Hmmm, I think I might be personally offended by this one! The Amdahl Six record hasn't been there for a while... in fact, it's no longer even in the top 20. Chris Nash Lexington KY UNITED STATES ======================================================== Co-discoverer of the largest known *non*-Mersenne prime. _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 08:20:32 +1200 (NZST) From: Bill Rea <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Mersenne: SPARC times Hi all, A while back someone asked about speeds on SPARC. I've got a couple of new systems recently. These are the speeds I'm seeing (the * indicates a new system):- Ultra 5 270Mhz CPU 0.60 secs/iter on 8357543 Ultra 10 333Mhz/2Mb Cache CPU 0.44 secs/iter on 8134127 Ultra 5 360Mhz/256kb Cache CPU 0.49 secs/iter on 7902421 * E450 300Mhz/2Mb Cache CPU 0.43 secs/iter on 8002399 E450 400Mhz/4mb Cache CPU 0.29 secs/iter on 8359489 * This is using MacLucasUNIX compiled with the Sun workshop compilers. A couple of surprizing results. (1) If I used the -xarch=v9 option on those systems that support this option, the resulting binary runs slower on the tests than using -xarch=v8plusa. (2) Differences in speeds on the tests supplied with the software don't translate into differences in speed when working on Mersenne numbers of the size above. Even with speed differences around 10% on the tests showed no discernable differences in practice. I haven't tried a binary compiled with the -xarch=v9 option on a production run, perhaps it will be worth a try. If anyone does this before I do, please post some results. Bill Rea, Information Technology Services, University of Canterbury \_ E-Mail b dot rea at its dot canterbury dot ac dot nz </ New Phone 64-3-364-2331, Fax 64-3-364-2332 /) Zealand Unix Systems Administrator (/' _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 17:06:05 -0400 (EDT) From: Lucas Wiman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: sci.math FAQ > Hmmmm, is it me, or is this FAQ looking somewhat out of date? I think it > might be worth contacting Alex on a more "official" basis about the > Mersenne entries, it wouldn't hurt to get a bit more GIMPS weight behind > the brief mention in the sci.math FAQ. On the other hand, it perhaps goes > to show how much attention is paid to the FAQ anyway, the data does have > a rather *aged* hint about it... much water has flowed under the bridge > since 2^2976221-1. What an odd coincidence! I just posted on sci.math yesterday complaining about this. No responses yet. Maybe if George (or me, as I might be more sympathetic, knowing what it's like to not want to update the FAQ) sent an email, then we could start to run this section of the sci.math FAQ (as long as it doesn't get too out of control). >> The largest known non-Mersenne prime... > Hmmm, I think I might be personally offended by this one! The Amdahl Six > record hasn't been there for a while... in fact, it's no longer even in the > top 20. Yes, I should say so! Perhaps Chris Caldwell could keep this part of the FAQ up to date. - -Lucas _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 22:27:36 GMT From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Steven Whitaker) Subject: Re: Mersenne: complaint On Mon, 13 Sep 1999 23:24:12 -0400, George wrote: >Hi all, > >At 09:14 PM 9/13/99 -0400, Tom Goulet wrote: >>I wish to offer constructive feedback. >>If you must flame me, do it off-list. :) > >Constructive criticism is always welcome, although you will likely >get some flames :) No flames so far, at least in public :) <snip> > >>The GIMPS clients does a lot of self-testing...is that really needed? > >Not any more. In the old days, the one-hour self-test was the only >way prime95 was able to detect faulty machines. Now there is a test done >on each iteration so that faulty machines are discovered eventually. >The self-test/torture-test is now useful for people that want to stress >test a new computer - and yes a surprising number of machines fail >prime95's torture test even when all other programs run perfectly. It has also been said in the past that the self test is to test the dedication of the tester. Anyone who is prepared to wait a few hours for the self-test should have the patience to wait a month for the result. :) >>The 'packet' sizes are very large...I have lost weeks of work due to >>power failures and friends. > >The math algorithms are the cause of the large 'packet' sizes - and >the problem is only going to get worse. It won't be long before a >single exponent takes one to three months to test. > >Smaller packets would require using lots of bandwidth and server storage >to store intermediate files. Also, the end result would only be as reliable >as the buggiest machine that worked on the result. In other words, one >overclocked CPU could pollute dozens of results with smaller work units. > If you want something that is shorter, you could always try factoring smaller Mersennes. http://www.mersenne.org/ecm.htm has the details and you can do it with the existing Mersenne client. But don't try it for exponents between 5000 & 6000 because they're all mine!!! <maniacal laugh> > >>So anyways, my comments can be summed up in that it isn't easy for the newbie >>(even the very nerdy types like myself) to find their way around the gimps >>project and become efficient contributers. >>Now, distributed.net (yes, I hear some moans) has a very slick interface, and >>helpful documentation and navigable websites and easy to understand overall >>structure. > >This is my fault. I believe d.net has many people working on the client >and server. GIMPS is basically run by myself and Scott. My interests are >in the math and optimization aspects of the program. Thus, given a choice >between making the web pages slicker, adding a nice setup program, writing >a hefty help file, or speeding up and making more use of the P-1 factoring >code, then I'll choose the latter simply because I enjoy that more. > >That said, I do take enough pride in my work to make sure bugs are fixed >promptly and the user interface gets a few new features each release. >Actually, many find it very easy to install and run but get confused when >trying to figure out what the program is doing. > If it's any consolation George, I had no trouble getting the client working. That was version 13, I think. (This makes me feel old, but someone will probably say they remember version 1 as if it was yesterday) Many of the problems of new users (this is not directed at Tom) are answered in the readme file. It's not as flash as a searchable help facility but it does its job. >>Hopefully this explains to some of you why the gimps is not growing very >fast. > >Believe it or not, growing GIMPS at the fastest possible rate is not >my personal goal (Scott and many other GIMPS members probably wish it was!) I think the slow growth has more to do with: 1. It takes over a month to get a result, at least on my PC. 2. 99,999 times out of 100,000, this is negative 3. Mathematics doesn't have the romantic appeal of say SETI or code-cracking, to most people. 4. People don't know about it. There's a surge of new recruits every time we get more publicity but it then dies down. >I find it more rewarding when a GIMPS member has always been interested >in primes and number theory or when GIMPS inspires someone to discover >the joy of recreational mathematics. > Certainly it's made me try to learn something about the background. Now all I need is a decent explanation of the number field sieve. :) - -- Cheers Steve Whitaker 31 new factors and counting _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 19:24:15 -0400 From: "Geoffrey Faivre-Malloy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: RE: Mersenne: complaint Hopefully we'll announce Prime95 v19 to winfiles.com and other sites as soon as it's out of beta... > 4. People don't know about it. There's a surge of new recruits every > time we get more publicity but it then dies down. _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 18:51:59 -0400 From: "Chris Nash" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: sci.math FAQ Hi there Lucas > What an odd coincidence! I just posted on sci.math yesterday complaining > about this. No responses yet. I think you're one of the few people who can empathize thoroughly with this... after all, you're probably more inclined to *read* a faq with your appreciation of the effort that goes into *writing* one! Seriously, though, I think we have a lot to be thankful for here - at least your FAQ is one click away from the tagline on every mailing list message (at least, for those of us with Web access). Waiting for a FAQ on a newsgroup or digging one out of the archives is beyond a lot of people's attention span - not to mention newsgroup FAQs are typically over-sized... > Maybe if George (or me, as I might be more sympathetic, knowing what it's > like to not want to update the FAQ) sent an email, then we could start > to run this section of the sci.math FAQ (as long as it doesn't get too > out of control). The web-based FAQ wins again! How much easier things are with hyperlinks... I'm almost led to believe the sci.math faq's age indicates that it's probably not being maintained... so use caution, unless you want to 'volunteer' to maintain that too. As you say, as long as it doesn't get out of control.... at least that part of the FAQ shouldn't be too huge. > Yes, I should say so! Perhaps Chris Caldwell could keep this part of the > FAQ up to date. Probably the easiest thing for sci.math to do is to refer to http://www.utm.edu/research/primes and at least safeguard themselves against obsolescence. It occurs to me that the data in the sci.math faq was written when this lowly P-200 was good prime searching fodder. Now things have changed a lot and I'd expect things to be moving along at quite a rate from now on. If you do get in touch, perhaps they ought to just refer to *your* (*our!*) FAQ in their Mersenne section... but by the looks of things, the sci.math faq probably needs the dust blowing off it in general. You can never force people to read a faq (but I'd hope everyone here has looked at ours), but perhaps getting in touch with them would at least find out if it *is* being maintained and perhaps get them to look over it. After all, if the Mersenne section is two years out of date there could be all sorts of other omissions... Chris _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 02:16:06 EDT From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Mersenne: GIMPS <<I'm one of many who got fed up with distributed.net and cracking rc5des.>> If I ever did those, I think get fed up too. It almost seems pointless, breaking codes that someone knows the solution to, just to prove you can do it. At least with GIMPS you get to make real mathematical discoveries for the first time. <<I had trouble finding the gimps, and the gimps client, and instructions on how to join. I found www.mersenne.org and entropia.com. I still don't understand the relationship between the two, and I would like to.>> I thought that the instructions on mersenne.org and entropia.com made sense. Mersenne.org used to be the only site. It ran the entire project, and Mr. Woltman distributed work and collected results thru E-mail. Entropia.com hosts PrimeNet, which automates that stuff and makes everyone's lives easier. <<The GIMPS clients does a lot of self-testing...is that really needed?>> Oh yeah. We've got to be sure that the program isn't running on a flakey computer. <<Also, I can get the client to segfault at least two different ways.>> "Get"? Hrm. "Doctor, it hurts when I wiggle my ring finger." "So don't wiggle it!" If it doesn't affect your normal operation, don't worry. Prime95 is actually a darn stable program. <<The 'packet' sizes are very large...>> Save-files. Of course. "Packet" has network connotations. Stuff sent over the Internet is very, very small. <<I have lost weeks of work due to power failures and friends.>> This should not happen. Are you messing with the settings? <<I also accidentally ran two or three instances of the client, and it compla= ined about it's work file or something, and delete it. 89% complete doing whate= ver it was doing, and it restarted at 0.>> Hrm - are you running v17? That could explain this. Otherwise, multiple instances of Prime95 can't be launched unless you fiddle with the settings. <<So anyways, my comments can be summed up in that it isn't easy for the newb= ie (even the very nerdy types like myself) to find their way around the gimps project and become efficient contributers.>> T'was for me. And I know precious little 'bout networking. Maybe your computer setup is just... funky. <<Now, distributed.net (yes, I hear some moans) has a very slick interface>> GIMPS does too. <<and helpful documentation>> GIMPS does too. And a helpful, handydandy mailing list! <<and navigable websites>> GIMPS and PrimeNet have VERY navigable websites! << and easy to understand overall structure.>> So does GIMPS. <<Hopefully this explains to some of you why the gimps is not growing very fast.>> Hrm. Look at charts of GIMPS' growth. You call that slow? *grin* I have to update my banners for Entropia.com pretty often. The participants, computers, and GFLOPS just keep climbing up! <<George Woltman - runs mersenne.org, wrote the GIMPS/PrimeNet x86 client Scott Kurowski [STL's correction] - founder of entropia.com, responsible for the GIMPS/PrimeNet server>> Yes. <<From this, I'm assuming you're using the Linux or FreeBSD client - I'm sure the people who work on those ports would be interested in your input. (ie actually tell them how you get it to segfault, maybe they can fix it :)>> Linux is weird. Use Win95 OSR2. :-P In fact, if you're running some weird OS like Linux or Unix, that probably explains all your problems. <<Not a problem with the Win9x/NT client - it just brings the running client to the front. I haven't experienced this problem when I've accidentally run a couple (haven't run three) clients off the same directory, but I'm not saying it couldn't happen. Again, perhaps something for the *NIX porters to look at - perhaps drop a lockfile with a pid and check it on startup?>> Prime95 IS well behaved - sure seems like you running a different OS. <<In d.net, I think the smallest 'packet' is 2^28 numbers to test, whereas in gimps, the 'packet' size is 1(one) number, it's difficult to get much smaller. >> Being a GIMPSter for a very long time, I know I'm biased toward GIMPS and against all the other programs out there. Tom just sounds dnet biased, even if he got fed up with it. :-P <<Just as a side note, these comments are precious because they come from the viewpoint of someone who is very new to GIMPS. New people are just the ones we are trying to attract and I can't help but wonder how many participants we lost becuase they did not have the tenacity of Tom. Just my 2c worth...>> Well, speaking for myself, there are people like me who have had no trouble with GIMPS at all and love the whole arrangement we have set up. S. "Property of Bill Gates and Andy Grove" L. _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 03:21:50 -0400 From: "Rick Pali" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: RE: Mersenne: GIMPS From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Hrm. Look at charts of GIMPS' growth. You call that > slow? *grin* Amen to that! Even though I keep dropping in the standings, I'm pleased as punch that more and more computers are joining. And I commend George for his wanting to devote more time to sharpening the software than to recruiting. This way the current clientele stays very happy and the foundation we work from is *very* stable. It's my experience that the people that stay for more than their place in the standing tend to stay for a *long* time. That's a testament to George's and Scott's work on the software, not any recruitment drive. Rick. - -+--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alienshore.com/ _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 09:44:27 +0200 From: FOSSANO Patrick OCISI <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Mersenne: [Fwd: Proth Numbers] Thank you all for your answers (Chris, Bryan, Conrad and George) Patrick - -------- Original Message -------- De: Patrick Fossano - OCISI <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Objet: Proth Numbers A: _Liste Mersenne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Hi. Does someone know if "k" and "n" should be of a particular type (even/odd, or n=4kp+3q! or what else...) for 1 + k.2^n to be a good prime candidate? Thank you, Patrick _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 10:37:22 +0200 From: Laurent Desnogues <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: SPARC times Bill Rea wrote: > > This is using MacLucasUNIX compiled with the Sun workshop compilers. Which version and which flags did you use? I guess you ran your tests under Solaris 7, right? > (1) If I used the -xarch=v9 > option on those systems that support this option, the resulting > binary runs slower on the tests than using -xarch=v8plusa. That's very strange! I have benchmarked some code using both flags (with -fast preprended) under Solaris 7 (which is required to run code compiled with -xarch=v9) and v9 helped; however the code was purely 64-bit integer. There's also a very interesting flag to test that's not documented in Sun cc doc: -xinline=all. I used it by error but it did a great job with the code I was working on. > (2) Differences in speeds on the tests supplied with the software > don't translate into differences in speed when working on Mersenne > numbers of the size above. Even with speed differences around 10% > on the tests showed no discernable differences in practice. I don't know the tests supplied but the difference might result from the way time is counted. I think the best way to check the speed of a code is to use getrusage for the process only (RUSAGE_SELF) and to only take into account the user time. This way I get very consistent timings for the before mentioned code (BTW, the code is ecdl by Robert Harley, used to crack ECC). Laurent _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 09:40:48 +0100 (BST) From: Chris Jefferson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: GIMPS Hmm.. Just thought I'd throw my two cents in. I recently gave a zip with prime95 to a friend, and asked him if he'd like to install it. two days later he came back to me and said he had *no* idea what to do. He had managed eventually to get the zip unziped and put it in a directory, but cuoldn't get it to start up whenever he started. There are quite alot of people who aren't really sure how to 'unzip into a directory of your choice'. I know that I'd be really annoyed by a full installation package that doubled the size of the download, but I think there are quite a lot of people who would perfer it that way.. Chris Jefferson _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 13:15:11 +0300 From: Jukka Santala <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Mersenne: Possible bug in v19 beta ECM? I'm not quite sure what happened, actually. ECM factoring P16384 with bound 44000000 was way along into the second phase when I went to sleep. When I woke up, I found the factoring back in phase 1. And no, before you flame, the ECM-curves done in worktodo.ini didn't increase (It's 0 now). There's no entries in the log. It's possible the curve was finished, unfortunately I didn't pay attention to the curve's random "number", so I don't know if it's testing the same one or different. -Donwulff _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 14:00:45 +0300 From: Jukka Santala <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Mersenne: Re: Possible bug in v19 beta ECM? Jukka Santala wrote: > When I woke up, I found the factoring back in phase 1. And no, before > you flame, the ECM-curves done in worktodo.ini didn't increase (It's 0 > now). There's no entries in the log. It's possible the curve was I played with ECM-factoring some smaller exponents, and noted that altough worktodo.ini isn't changed, the curve-count displayed by the program is right, and advances as should. So it seems the "finished curves" count is only read when a new ECM assignment is started, and then saved in the intermediary savefiles. This is basically a good thing, but quite confusing, as can be seen ;) I'm wondering what effect changing the ECM-factoring line parameters between runs has, particularily the curves total and curves finished as related to this mail, but also the memory allocation. -Donwulff _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 05:29:39 -0700 From: "Joth Tupper" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: GIMPS Perhaps an unzip.bat file with one symbolic parameter should be added so the command looks like: unzip.bat c:\gimps - ----- Original Message ----- From: Chris Jefferson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 1999 1:40 AM Subject: Re: Mersenne: GIMPS > Hmm.. Just thought I'd throw my two cents in. > > I recently gave a zip with prime95 to a friend, and asked him if he'd like > to install it. two days later he came back to me and said he had *no* idea > what to do. He had managed eventually to get the zip unziped and put it in > a directory, but cuoldn't get it to start up whenever he started. > > There are quite alot of people who aren't really sure how to 'unzip into a > directory of your choice'. I know that I'd be really annoyed by a full > installation package that doubled the size of the download, but I think > there are quite a lot of people who would perfer it that way.. > > Chris Jefferson > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm > Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers > _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 09:32:46 -0400 From: George Woltman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Mersenne: Re: Possible bug in v19 beta ECM? Hi, At 02:00 PM 9/15/99 +0300, Jukka Santala wrote: >I played with ECM-factoring some smaller exponents, and noted that >altough worktodo.ini isn't changed, the curve-count displayed by >the program is right, and advances as should. So it seems the >"finished curves" count is saved in the intermediary savefiles. Your conclusion is correct. The curves completed count in the worktodo.ini is no longer used (except for backward compatibility). The count of curves completed is maintained in the save files. I have updated the readme.txt file and whatsnew.txt files accordingly. Regards, George _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 08:52:44 -0700 From: Kevin Sexton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Mersenne: Possible minor bug in version 19 I have an AMD K6 200Mhz with MMX, version 19 lets me set the processor type to AMD K6, but it changes back to pentium the next time it is started. As far as I know this would only affect the estimation of time to complete exponents. _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 19:42:53 +0100 From: "Brian J. Beesley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: complaint On 14 Sep 99, at 7:22, Henrik Olsen wrote: > Personally I found installing and running it to be an extremely smooth > operation, to the point where it takes less that 2 minutes to install on a > new machine, including configuration, after which I just forget about it. Yes - I found the same thing - applies to both un*x & windoze clients. > At least with version 17.1 you could get the source and play around with > an interface of your own, but that's another thread:) The v18 source is on the Net ... > I don't want gimps to grow too fast, 'course then all the small numbers > will be tested, and I'll have to wait even longer for each result:) I'm going to be _very_ interested in how many people choose to run $100,000 prize candidates using v19. There is an obvious balance between the time it takes to complete a test & the enthusiasm of people to participate, even if there is a substantial cash prize riding on it. Regards Brian Beesley _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 20:52:00 +0100 (BST) From: Chris Jefferson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: complaint > On 14 Sep 99, at 7:22, Henrik Olsen wrote: > > > Personally I found installing and running it to be an extremely smooth > > operation, to the point where it takes less that 2 minutes to install on a > > new machine, including configuration, after which I just forget about it. > > Yes - I found the same thing - applies to both un*x & windoze > clients. Although I don't mean to insult anyone, this is exactly what I mean. I can install the program on a computer in 3 or 4 minutes. The problem is those people who can't... Also just one question. Was is it I sometimes see people write un*x instead of unix, which is I assume what they mean? _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 22:29:51 +0200 From: "Shot" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Mersenne: Iters between screen outputs Hi all, I was wondering why the "Iterations between screen outputs" setting was defaultly set on 100, and I thought it was beacuse each screen output takes precious CPU time. But when I changed it from 100 i/o (usually around 0.430 sec/iter) to 10 i/o, nothing really slowed down - the time was still between 0.430 and 0.431 s/i. So I boldly went where no man has gone before ;) and changed it to 1 i/o... and the times still stayed between 0.429 and 0.431 s/i. The question is, how much of the CPU's power is consumed by screen outputs? If it is really around 0.001 s/i (in 0.430 s/i neighbourhood), I'll leave mine at 10 i/o, so I can see it's alive. ;) Thanks for your time, - -- Shot __ c"? Shot - [EMAIL PROTECTED] hobbies: Star Wars, Pterry, GIMPS, ASCII `-' [EMAIL PROTECTED] join the GIMPS @ http://www.mersenne.org Science Explained (by Kids): Clouds just keep circling the earth around and around. And around. There is not much else to do. _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 18:02:04 -0400 (EDT) From: Lucas Wiman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: GIMPS > <<From this, I'm assuming you're using the Linux or FreeBSD client - I'm sure > the people who work on those ports would be interested in your input. > (ie actually tell them how you get it to segfault, maybe they can fix it :)>> > > Linux is weird. Use Win95 OSR2. :-P In fact, if you're running some weird OS > like Linux or Unix, that probably explains all your problems. Linux - an amazingly stable, powerful, robust OS, based on a year's old standard. Parts of UNIX have been refined for nearly 30 years. Windows - A 32 bit patch to a 16 bit patch to an 8 bit patch to a pirated copy of CPM. Despite the fact that it has been around for nearly 20 years, the need to be backwards compatable, combined with the genious of microbloat causes it to be notoriously unstable, buggy, and obnoxious to use! > Prime95 IS well behaved - sure seems like you running a different OS. Ok, so if the Linux version is unstable, how come the list isn't inundated with complaints about it? If the prime95 version is so infalable, why do we see any questions about it? The reason is that *certain* systems have problems (regardless of OS), it's just that yours haven't. > S. "Property of Bill Gates and Andy Grove" L. Ahh, this explains things. - -Lucas _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 19:05:31 -0400 From: George Woltman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Mersenne: Re: Iters between screen outputs Hi, At 10:29 PM 9/15/99 +0200, Shot wrote: >I was wondering why the "Iterations between screen outputs" setting >was defaultly set on 100, and I thought it was beacuse each screen >output takes precious CPU time. > >But when I changed it from 100 i/o (usually around 0.430 sec/iter) to >10 i/o, nothing really slowed down - the time was still between 0.430 >and 0.431 s/i. The timings do not include the cost of writing to the screen. To see if lowering this value is slowing you down you will have to use a stopwatch rather than relying on the value printed on the screen. BTW, the default was set at 100 because the first version of the program was in Windows 3.1 and the overhead was significant. Regards, George _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 14:51:01 -0700 From: "Jonathan Zylstra" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Mersenne: The new Mac G4 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. - ------=_NextPart_000_0019_01BEFF89.BB2C5600 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I go to my mailbox and what do I find? In the Sept. 20 Newsweek, Apple has about 6 full pages ( complete with 3 = foldouts) describing=20 "a new breakthrough in technology" "This is not just the fastest Max in history. It's the fastest personal = computer in history." This is a mighty big claim, BUT here are the details... The ad claims this: "sustained performance of 1 gigaflop." (which makes the G4 a = 'supercomputer' ) "theoretical performance of 4 gigaflops" "It is a 128 bit processor, and can perform 4 ( sometimes 8 ) 32bit = floating pt. calculations per cycle." "It is 3 times faster then the PIII 600Mhz" It sounds (FP ops/ sec, etc...) kind of like the new AMD chip that was = discussed on the list not too long ago On the comparison table between the PIII and G4, they show this: Test: PIII Clock Cycles G4 Clock Cycles G4 = Performance <- (Adjusted for MHz) 256 Pt. FFT 6.94 4 = 1.74x better than PIII 1.45x faster than PIII They are comparing a G4 500MHz to the PIII 600MHz It also says it has a 1Mb L2 backside cache, 128mb SDRam (1.5 gig! max) = and a 800MHz memory (max) bandwidth. The 'downside' : $3499 for the fastest they have.=20 However , if this is true, these could actually crank out LL tests = pretty darn fast. (And, of course, that is a good thing!) The thing is that I have not heard a word about Apple coming up with a = new computer processor, so this kind of took me by surprise.=20 Anyhow, back to my Newsweek...=20 Jonathan A. Zylstra - ------=_NextPart_000_0019_01BEFF89.BB2C5600 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META content=3D"text/html; charset=3Diso-8859-1" = http-equiv=3DContent-Type> <META content=3D"MSHTML 5.00.2614.3401" name=3DGENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=3D#ffffff> <DIV><FONT size=3D2>I go to my mailbox and what do I find?</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3D2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3D2>In the Sept. 20 Newsweek, Apple has about 6 full = pages (=20 complete with 3 foldouts) describing </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3D2>"a new breakthrough in technology"</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3D2>"This is not just the fastest Max in history. It's = the fastest=20 personal computer in history."</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3D2>This is a mighty big claim, BUT here are the=20 details...</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3D2>The ad claims this:</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3D2>"sustained performance of 1 gigaflop." (which makes = the G4 a=20 'supercomputer' )</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3D2>"theoretical performance of 4 = gigaflops"</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3D2>"It is a 128 bit processor, and can perform 4 ( = sometimes 8 )=20 32bit floating pt. calculations per cycle."</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3D2>"It is 3 times faster then the PIII = 600Mhz"</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3D2><FONT size=3D2>It sounds (FP ops/ sec, etc...) kind = of like the=20 new AMD chip that was discussed on the list not too long = ago</FONT></FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3D2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3D2>On the comparison table between the PIII and G4, = they show=20 this:</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3D2>Test: = =20 PIII Clock Cycles G4 Clock=20 Cycles G4=20 Performance &n= bsp;=20 <- (Adjusted for MHz)</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3D2>256 Pt. FFT =20 6.94 = =20 =20 4 = =20 1.74x better than PIII 1.45x faster = than=20 PIII</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3D2>They are comparing a G4 500MHz to the PIII = 600MHz</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3D2>It also says it has a 1Mb L2 backside cache, 128mb = SDRam (1.5=20 gig! max) and a 800MHz memory (max) bandwidth.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3D2>The 'downside' : $3499 for the fastest they have.=20 </FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3D2>However , if this is true, these could actually = crank out LL=20 tests pretty darn fast. (And, of course, that is a good = thing!)</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3D2>The thing is that I have not heard a word about = Apple coming=20 up with a new computer processor, so this kind of took me by surprise.=20 </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3D2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3D2>Anyhow, back to my Newsweek... </FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3D2>Jonathan A. Zylstra</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV></BODY></HTML> - ------=_NextPart_000_0019_01BEFF89.BB2C5600-- - --- Free computers. Free Internet access. I don't pay -- why should you? Click on www.free-pc.com to get started today! _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ End of Mersenne Digest V1 #626 ******************************
