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The First 50M Prime Numbers (1975) [pdf]

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Re: The First 50M Prime Numbers (1975) [pdf]

#4

Post by philiplu »

Back in the 70s, when I was a teen, we had a set of Encyclopedia Britannica. It came with a service where you could send off for various pamphlets for more focused information. I sent away for a paper listing pi to 10k or maybe 100k digits. By the late 70s/early 80s, that was outdated, as I wrote code to find those for myself (though e to many places was far easier).

Re: The First 50M Prime Numbers (1975) [pdf]

#6

Post by anditherobot »

philiplu wrote: post #4

Back in the 70s, when I was a teen, we had a set of Encyclopedia Britannica. It came with a service where you could send off for various pamphlets for more focused information. I sent away for a paper listing pi to 10k or maybe 100k digits. By the late 70s/early 80s, that was outdated, as I wrote code to find those for myself (though e to many places was far easier).

That's a very cool accomplishment.

What language did you use to write the code?

I also have another question, did you witness the transition from punched cards to terminals?

Re: The First 50M Prime Numbers (1975) [pdf]

#7

Post by hackerknew »

I like how the feeling of the author's excitement about the topic is embedded in the text

""" upon looking at these numbers one has the feeling of being in the presence of one of the inexplicable secrets of creation. """

""" I hope that with this and the other pictures I have shown, I have communicated a certain impression of the immense beauty of the prime numbers and of the endless surprises which they have in store for us. """

Re: The First 50M Prime Numbers (1975) [pdf]

#8

Post by worldvoyageur »

Of note that even then, for the seemingly impossibly large prime numbers, they gave dual credit to the researcher and the computer used. So, credit for the largest prime in 1963 went to Gillies and ILIAC 2. When that record was broken in 1972, credit went to Tuckerman and IBM 360.

Re: The First 50M Prime Numbers (1975) [pdf]

#9

Post by philiplu »

anditherobot wrote: post #6
philiplu wrote: post #4

Back in the 70s, when I was a teen, we had a set of Encyclopedia Britannica. It came with a service where you could send off for various pamphlets for more focused information. I sent away for a paper listing pi to 10k or maybe 100k digits. By the late 70s/early 80s, that was outdated, as I wrote code to find those for myself (though e to many places was far easier).

That's a very cool accomplishment. What language did you use to write the code? I also have another question, did you witness the transition from punched cards to terminals?

This would have been assembly code, probably 6809 or 68000 system I had back then. 6809 would have required dumping intermediate data to a disk. I don't recall just when I first got a hard-disk, which would probably have been a massive 10 megabytes in size.

And yes, I saw that transition. I learned to program using Fortran IV and IBM 11/30 assembly in the mid-70s, using punched cards. Wrote a MIXAL assembler and simulator for the minicomputer at the local college around 1976; it was about 7000 punched cards in length, all assembly. Got a Commodore PET in 1978, moved on to SS-50 based 6809 and 68008 systems in the late 70s/early 80s, with a serial terminal.

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