On 15 May 2001, at 22:36, Steinar H. Gunderson wrote:
> On Tue, May 15, 2001 at 04:48:19PM +0100, Daran wrote:
> >BTW what happens now when a first-time check, (or for that matter, if a
> >double-check) discovers a new prime. Surely this is checked immediately on
> >the fastest machine available to the project, and not left to the vagaries of
> >random allocation?
>
> It is run on a different architecture, with different software. The
> three first were (as far as I know) tested on Crays,
Through the good offices of David Slowinski.
> while the 4th (M38
> (we think)) was tested on an Alpha machine with mlucas, as far as I
> remember.
Yes. DS couldn't help, for some reason, probably due to Cray having
been bought out by Silicon Graphics.
>
> The idea is to completely eliminate any possibility of a persistent
> program or hardware bug :-)
Plus, Prime95 didn't have the random shift code which allows it to
check its own results until after M37 was discovered; and the random
shift code was rather new when M38(?) was discovered.
Another point - we're coming up to the second anniversary of the
discovery of M38(?) - I think we're overdue to find another one!
Regards
Brian Beesley
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