Prime95 for Ipad request

[MattcAnderson]

Hi Mersenne Forum,

I enjoy running Prime95 on several computers. I'm glad that my machines are not just room heaters when I am not using them. It sure would be great if there was a version of Prime95 for the Ipad. My tablet just sits, plugged in, most of the time. I haven't been able to find any distributed computing projects that will run on an Ipad.

Regards,
Matt

[xilman]

Originally Posted by MattcAnderson

Hi Mersenne Forum,

I enjoy running Prime95 on several computers. I'm glad that my machines are not just room heaters when I am not using them. It sure would be great if there was a version of Prime95 for the Ipad. My tablet just sits, plugged in, most of the time. I haven't been able to find any distributed computing projects that will run on an Ipad.

Regards,
Matt

Now there's a challenge.


I may well see whether ECMNET can be ported to the iPad. If it can, my fee will be 1 months computation.

[jasong]

I have a friend who made prime testing program for an ipod. He said the best one to use was one of the older ones that's only half covered with the screen. Something about the chip being different in the newer ones.

He's been doing badly recently, so I'm not sure if it'd be possible to get the code.

I think a better use of time would be Prime95 code that uses single precision math, specifically for GPUs.

Not that I'm demanding it or anything, since this stuff is volunteer based. I'm just frustrated that nobody's even thought about making single precision code for GPUs.

[Dubslow]

Does the iPad have an x86 processor? If not, there's no hope of anyone porting many thousands of lines of assembly to ARM (which is what the iPad runs).

Also even if you gave it all the power it needed, it would probably still overheat running Prime95 all the time.

[swl551]

Originally Posted by Dubslow

Does the iPad have an x86 processor? If not, there's no hope of anyone porting many thousands of lines of assembly to ARM (which is what the iPad runs).

Also even if you gave it all the power it needed, it would probably still overheat running Prime95 all the time.

Custom designed ARM processor. Intel Atom processors unlikely to crack that market anytime soon.

[LaurV]

There is already an Android toy on the forum (search) which I downloaded and tried on my daughter's Galaxy S II (that is because I still have an antediluvian phone), but the performance is lousy. I implemented myself an XScale version of LL test using karatsuba multiplication, but again, the performance is totally lousy (we use hundreds of this thingies, which we also manufacture for the customer, then we buy back part of them, as it is not our design, and we use them in one line of our products, so one weekend I had nothing to do and I made a multi-byte integer/array multiplication for XScale, based on karatsuba algorithm, I am not yet daring to put my nose into FFT or floating point doubles). For some terminal which is 24/7 connected to a powered-on machine it would make sense, but who the hell buys ipads to keep them plugged 24/7 into the wall?

[sonjohan]

A new form of art: iPad's making LL-tests on the wall.
Changes from just a silly painting.

[fivemack]

Originally Posted by xilman

Now there's a challenge.


I may well see whether ECMNET can be ported to the iPad. If it can, my fee will be 1 months computation.

I was amazed how easily libgmp and gmp-ecm cross-built to ARMv7; I've been doing ECM on my odroid-x for a month or so now. It's not a great ECM platform, it's about ten times slower than Westmere (half the clock, lack of 64x64->128).

[fivemack]

Originally Posted by LaurV

one line of our products

I was amused that the touch-screen for check-in at the last hotel I went to was clearly an iPad1 in a box bolted to the wall; I'm slightly surprised there's still much of a market for custom wall-mount touchscreens given the scale at which Foxconn turns out ipads.

[LaurV]

You can't use ipads and this kind of crap - I mean seriously when I say "crap" - for industrial lines (like, +50 degrees Celsius, continuous vibrations, etc). Technically, our toys are functional identical with iPads, but more robust and more expensive. The same processor is used on a full line of Gigabyte's G-Smart phones (like i-320, etc). Beside of the fact that capacitive touch screens are completely futile when the guy put his wet and oily finger on it, but think to automatic bobbin winders for industrial looms, for example. They are winding a hundred of reels in the same time, with such a speed, that if one (a single one!) thread is broken, and this goes undetected, in just few seconds all the industrial hall is full of small cotton lint flocks, it looks like heavily snowing. No joke! This toy for example, the touch screen you see there on the left has our toy inside. Some of them goes into military things too, but I can't provide links... (edit, forgot to say that I do all the software for those things )