My take is that due to the long test times the "instant gratification" that used to come fairly quickly even on a most speed machine is no longer there. This will turn off a lot of casual testers. In spite of this the total production keeps climbing. The last time I looked PrimeNet was just over 2 TFLOP.
I guess that before long only the hard care testers will be left. Most of them have a number of machines running and many cases several of these are high end machines. Another consideration is that many system/network administrators have gotten ludicrous about what they will allow on their networks. They think that Prime95 just might let in a virus or even worse spill "company secrets". By and large they are totally ignorant of the real issues involved with securing networks. All most of them know about the implications of the various protocols in the TCP/IP suite was what it took get their MCSE if they have even that much training. Been around GIMPS since before PrimeNet. Terry At 01:19 AM 10/28/2001 -0400, you wrote: >(Sorry Steve, I meant to send this to the list) > >On Sat, 27 Oct 2001 21:11:51 -0500, "Steve Harris" ><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > >Henk, I don't have a consistent set of statistics, but I do save the world > >test status page every few months. So I can tell you that on 2-apr-2001 it > >showed 38652 machines on 20983 accounts, and right now it shows 30186 > >machines on 15659 accounts. I'm sure I didn't just happen to catch it at its > >peak; I recall there being over 21000 accounts at one time. > >My first guess is that we're beginning to compete with the various >commercial projects (of which there are several now, and were none 2 >years or so ago). > >It's hard for me to envision that causing a fifth of the participants >to leave, though! > >Nathan >_________________________________________________________________________ >Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm >Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers _Terry S. Arnold 2975 B Street San Diego, CA 92102 USA [EMAIL PROTECTED] (619) 235-8181 (voice) (619) 235-0016 (fax) _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
