Primo

[CRGreathouse]

Originally Posted by Batalov

In order to support the product on Windows, he would need to use Windows

That's an incorrect statement.

PARI is build nightly for Windows, and its maintainers don't have any Windows systems.

[Batalov]

Originally Posted by CRGreathouse

and its maintainers don't have any Windows systems.

[citation needed]

[CRGreathouse]

Originally Posted by Batalov

[citation needed]

You can see it (e.g.) on a pari-dev from 5/23/10, where Bill asked for someone with a Windows system to test the wine-built Windows binary.

[Batalov]

Of course I can, it's a 32-bit command-line tool, but I said the product not a product.

Originally Posted by CRGreathouse

and its maintainers don't have any Windows systems.

[citation still needed]

[jasonp]

Just be glad Marcel removed license terms that forbade Primo from being used in the US, after threats he'd be sued for patent infringement based on some of the elliptic arithmetic he discovered.

[Dubslow]

Originally Posted by jasonp

Just be glad Marcel removed license terms that forbade Primo from being used in the US, after threats he'd be sued for patent infringement based on some of the elliptic arithmetic he discovered.

If he discovered it, why on earth would he be sued? Did he perhaps independently discover something that someone else had already patented? (Why on earth can you even patent such a thing? Stupid US law.)

[Batalov]

Dura lex sed lex! (In Russian, "dura" means "fool (female)")

Marcel had received a Cease and Desist letter once, as far as I've read somewhere. That was painful.

I checked "strings primo" and "strings primo.exe" and the product appears to be still in Delphi, only he uses openpascal now and Lazarus. I think he could cross-compile it, but he would need to lose his dialog boxes which he for some reason likes. (Not without a reason, I would add. Show a command-line tool to most lusers and will have lost them right then. To get an audience, one simply needs a GUI these days. I wouldn't care either way, but users like me are less than 1%. "People who should be phased out", to quote Carlin.)

[CRGreathouse]

Originally Posted by Batalov

I think he could cross-compile it, but he would need to lose his dialog boxes which he for some reason likes. (Not without a reason, I would add. Show a command-line tool to most lusers and will have lost them right then. To get an audience, one simply needs a GUI these days. I wouldn't care either way, but users like me are less than 1%. "People who should be phased out", to quote Carlin.)

This always seemed so easy to me: make a command-line program and wrap a GUI around it. The command-line version has portability and can be scripted, the GUI offers convenience. (No issue here, of course, but I've seen this sort of debate before and it's baffled me.)

[Batalov]

I totally agree! (and the GUI could be written in Java for Pete's sake and then never touched.)
Primo code drags around

...(that's from strings primo | more)
Delphi Picture
Delphi Component
pcfDelphiText
pcfDelphiBitmap
pcfDelphiPicture
pcfDelphiMetaFilePict
pcfDelphiObject
pcfDelphiComponent
pcfDelphiText
pcfDelphiBitmap
pcfDelphiPicture
pcfDelphiMetaFilePict
pcfDelphiObject
pcfDelphiComponent
...
TGtkWidgetSet.DeleteObject invalid owner of GdiObject=
TGtkWidgetSet.DeleteObject GdiObject=
TGtkWidgetSet.DeleteObject invalid GdiObject=
...etc etc etc

Argh.

Getting back to Pari, I still think that Karim or Bill may have e.g. a Navtech or a Magellan GPS (what is exactly popular in France, eh?) and then, the damned thing runs on Windows ;-) (soon even some microwaves will have windows CE). TomTom, though, would play for your argument: it's a linux thing (as are {the|some airline} monitors; I've posted my photos ones of their entertainment system booting.) The mingw build is clever at avoiding graphics, yet it still can ploth() into a EMF which it throws into paint or something like. Clever! I've always liked CygWin builds better though /nostalgia/

[Stargate38]

I just sent Marcel an E-mail. Hopefully, he'll make a new Windows version sometime before 2020. He better release the source code by then or I'm going to be real mad, unless we find a faster algorithm to test large numbers >M43112609 (possibly even MM61, MM89, MM107, MM127, MMM127, MMMM127, ...) for primality between now and then!

[debrouxl]

Demanding a Windows version the way you do might just reduce the probability of him making a Windows version.
It's 2012 (soon 2013), installing virtual machines is trivial nowadays, and has been for years.