GIMPS participation

[davieddy]

Is it a fair assessment of the graph on the
Primenet statistics page to say that the number
or user accounts saturated in May 2004?

[MatWur-S530113]

that Graph is not about the number of accounts associatet to GIMPS, but it is about the number of calculations *all* computers connected to GIMPS did at that time. As many users have more than 1 computer I don't think you can recalculate the number of accounts connected to GIMPS at that time. I don't know if there is a statistic about if.

S530113

[davieddy]

Originally Posted by MatWur-S530113

that Graph is not about the number of accounts associatet to GIMPS, but it is about the number of calculations *all* computers connected to GIMPS did at that time. As many users have more than 1 computer I don't think you can recalculate the number of accounts connected to GIMPS at that time. I don't know if there is a statistic about if.

S530113

The graph rises because of the increased computer power per user.
I am suggesting that the number of users has remained approximately constant since May 2004. You can't easily "recalculate" which is
why I asked the question. It will be on record somewhere.

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by davieddy

The graph rises because of the increased computer power per user.
I am suggesting that the number of users has remained approximately constant since May 2004.

That sounds plausible. We get short-term "spikes" whenever a new prime is announced, but now that the project is well-established, I expect -- without some way to make a whole lot of different kinds of hardware (e.g. video game boxes) - attractive for GIMPS use -- that we've settled on a fairly stable percentage of the wired world's population which likes this sort of thing and doesn't mind the slower pace (reletive to the various thrills-a-minute projects out there) of record-prime searching.

[jasong]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

...we've settled on a fairly stable percentage of the wired world's population which likes this sort of thing and doesn't mind the slower pace (reletive to the various thrills-a-minute projects out there) of record-prime searching.

Please give a link to these thrill-a-minute projects you speak of. ;)

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by jasong

Please give a link to these thrill-a-minute projects you speak of. ;)

Anything where a "work unit" requires less than a month's crunching: seti@home, folding@home, any of the DES-cracking-style projects, ... I'm sure there are lots of others, but to be honest, I don't follow them very closely. Have a look here for more-current info:

http://distributedcomputing.info