Nathan Russell wrote:
*snip*
> This frankly makes me wonder how much longer there will be a place in
> GIMPS for slower machines. I'm not saying that's a bad thing - after
> all, 486s and original pentiums were the workforce when GIMPS began,
> and I wouldn't feel comfortable with the amount of opportunity for
> error involved in using one for GIMPS now.
This tends to be a thorn in some people's sides when I have tried to get
them to run GIMPS on their machines. It would seem that some view the
GIMPS project as an 'elite' minded group that requires the use of the more
powerful PC's out there due to it's resource demanding nature. They don't
want to dedicate several months to a project and as the size of the
exponents
grow their usefulness shrinks and eventually they will be deemed no longer
useful for the project.
This view has only been expressed by a few people that I have talked to,
but it maybe an opinion that will grow as the month's pass on. One can see
that the usefullness of the slower machines is limited as we march on
through
Primeland (If for no other reason other than it will take so long to
complete a
task with the slower machines).
This undoubtedly will be a natural evolution of the project, but may
leave a
bitter taste in the mouths of those who are on slower machines. Who knows?
I certainly don't know the impact of this on the project....good or bad..
Jeramy
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