History of PrimeGrid

2005
On 12 June 2005, at approximately 14:00 UTC, Message@Home (now PrimeGrid) opened account creation to 50 users. It was being run on Rytis’ home laptop. :)

Message@Home was developed as a test project for PerlBOINC, an attempt to implement the BOINC server system in the Perl programming language in order to bring BOINC server software to Windows. With the primary focus on PerlBOINC, a project was needed that provided a short WU with a standard consistent result.

The first project was Message7, and it attempted by “brute-force” to recover a message encoded with the md5 algorithm. The message was split into parts of 7 symbols of length, and each part was encoded with md5.

In August 2005, the RSA 640 Factoring Challenge application was added. Similar to Message7, this was an attempt by “brute-force” to factor the 640 digit RSA number. The Message7 application was discontinued.

On 1 September 2005, after a short contest to select a new project name, the PrimeGrid name was chosen from a variation of PrimeGrid@Home submitted by Heffed. He was awarded 999 cobblestones for his submission. :)

By November 2005, another effort factored the RSA 640 Challenge so PrimeGrid moved on to the RSA 768 Factoring Challenge. While the chances of solving the challenge remained infinitesimally small, it allowed for further development of PerlBOINC.

2006
In March 2006, RSA 768 Factoring was abandoned for a new application, primegen. It was an attempt to build a sequential prime number database bringing PrimeGrid for the first time to the “prime finding” arena. The secondary goal was to also use this to help with the RSA Factoring Challenges. However, it was soon revealed that this effort too had an infinitesimally small chance of succeeding. Nevertheless, it “provided a short WU with a standard consistent result” which “allowed for further development of PerlBOINC”. However, the search for a “computing-time worthy” application was started.

In June 2006, dialog started with Riesel Sieve to bring their project to the BOINC community. Rytis provided PerlBOINC support and RS was successful in implementing their sieve as well as a prime finding (LLR) application. With collaboration from RS, PrimeGrid was able to implement the LLR application in partnership with another prime finding project, Twin Prime Search. In November 2006, the TPS LLR application was officially released at PrimeGrid. Simultaneously, the RSA 768 Factoring Challenge was suspended.

2007
Less than two months later, January 2007, the record twin was found by the original manual project. PrimeGrid and TPS then advanced their search for even larger twin primes.

The summer of 2007 was very active as the Cullen and Woodall prime searches were launched. In the Fall, more prime searches were added through partnerships with the Prime Sierpinski Problem and 321 projects. Additionally, two sieves were added: the Prime Sierpinski Problem combined sieve which includes supporting the Seventeen or Bust sieve; and the combined Cullen/Woodall sieve.

In the Fall of 2007, PrimeGrid migrated some of its systems from PerlBOINC to standard BOINC software. However, many of the services still remain based on PerlBOINC.

To date, PrimeGrid has directly discovered 6 mega primes, 3 Fermat Number divisors, and over 4000 titanic primes. Additionally, it has found several Arithmetic Progression records and has advanced the PSP and SoB combined sieve by over a decade.

2008

 * February 29 - Collaboration established with Proth Search


 * March 15 - Challenge Series established. Single day credit record established with over 820K cobblestones


 * March 23 – Dylan Bennett of Canada finds a 321 Mega Prime! (3*2^4235414-1)


 * April 13 – Project Staging Area added to help facilitate new prime searches into BOINC production


 * May 10 - the primegen application is archived


 * July 20 - Single day credit record broken with over 3.4M cobblestones during the Lunar Landing Challenge (previously 820K cobblestones)

2x Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 (500GB) - OS, backups 2x Seagate Cheetah 15K.5 - database 2x Intel Xeon E5410 Processor 2.33GHz
 * August 28 - Meebo chat room added to forum
 * On October 27th, PrimeGrid server is updated to include:
 * Supermicro SuperServer 6015C-M3B motherboard
 * 2x Kingston ValueRAM 4 GB DDR2-667


 * December - Single day credit record broken with over 5.2M cobblestones during the Winter Solstice Challenge (previously 3.4M cobblestones)


 * December 26 - AP26 search launched


 * December 27 - Eric Ueda of the United States finds a Fermat Number divisor: 651*2^476632+1 Divides F(476624)!

2009
more

2010
more

2011
On November 19th, Michael Goetz discovered the world's first GFN 19 prime--75898^524288+1!!!!

2012
Early January the GeneferCUDA program was ported from the PRPNet client to BOINC. It started out as a beta test, but not long after it became an official project open for anyone with suitable hardware to join. In just over a month, the project identified two prime numbers.

2013
more

2014
On Jan.14th, the record Thabit prime was discovered: 3*2^10829346+1.

On Nov.22nd, another record 321 prime was discovered: 3*2^11484018-1.

2015
In the second quarter of 2015, two record That primes were discovered!

3*2^11731850-1, 3*2^11895718-1.

In late 2015, several generalized Fermat projects were launched.

2016
On Oct.31st, 2016, the record SoB number 10223*2^31172165+1 was discovered by Szabolcs Peter!!!

2017
On Aug.21st, the world's first Base 55 Cullen number was discovered! 1341174*55^1341174+1.

On Aug.29th, the world's first GFN 20 prime was discovered by Van Zimmerman! 919444^1048576+1.

On Sep.17th, k=168451 was eliminated from the Prime Sierpinski Problem with the discovery of 168451*2^19375200+1!!!!!!

On Dec.13th, k=273809 was eliminated from the Riesel Problem with the discovery of 273809*2^8932416-1!!!!

2018
On Jan.18th, Scott Brown discovered the world's first base 116 Generalized Cullen prime! 1323365*116^1323365+1.

On Mar.11th, the world's first Base 41 Cullen prime was discovered!!! 1806676*41^1806676+1.

On Mar.21st, a record Woodall prime was discovered!!!!! 17016602*2^17016602-1.

On Apr.3rd, Tom Greer eliminated k=193997 from the Extended Sierpinski Problem with the discovery of 193997*2^11452891+1!!!!!!

On Oct.11th, PRPNet's 27 search found the megaprime 27*2^7046834+1!!

On Oct.31st, Robish Gahan found the world's largest GFN 20 prime!!!!! 1059094^1048576+1.

2019
In January, the DYFL project was started with the goal of finding a world record prime.

On Sep.2nd, Tom Greer found the world's first base 25 generalized Cullen prime! 2805222*25^2805222+1.

On Sep.6th, the Fermat Divisor Search was started in order to find a record Fermat divisor.

On Christmas Eve (Dec.24th), Brian Niegocki eliminated k=99739 from the Extended Sierpinski Problem with the prime 99739*2^14019102+1!!!!

PrimeGrid eliminated 3 k's from the Sierpinski/Riesel Base 5 Problem in 2019, all before July.

PrimeGrid discovered 3 GFN 18 primes in 2019, all after August.

PrimeGird discovered 5 GFN 19 primes in 2019 all over the year.

2020
PrimeGrid eliminated 4 k's from the Sierpinski/Riesel Base 5 Problem in March!!!(and March hasn't ended yet!)

On Jan.22nd, Scott Brown found the record Fermat divisor 13*2^5523860+1 with the Fermat Divisor Search!!!! It divides F(5523858).

In March, previous admins Jim Breslin and Michael Goetz retired from PrimeGrid administration.

=== The following will eventually be consolidated into the timeline at PrimeGrid History: === 2007
 * January 15 - Eric Vautier of France finds a record twin prime through the manual TPS effort (2003663613*2^195000-1 and 2003663613*2^195000+1)


 * May 14 - PrimeGrid achieves the top project ranking by prime count in the Top 5000 list at The Prime Pages (shared with TPS).


 * June 08 - Due to project credit adjustments at the Prime Pages, PrimeGrid relinquishes the top project ranking by prime count. Projects now share credit.


 * June 20 - PrimeGrid regains the top project ranking by prime count in the Top 5000 list at The Prime Pages (shared with TPS).


 * July - Woodall LLR application is added


 * August - Cullen LLR application is added


 * August 04 - Lasse Mejling Andersen of Denmark finds a record Woodall Prime (2013992*2^2013992-1)


 * August 13 - Stephen Kohlman of Canada finds a record Woodall Prime (2367906*2^2367906-1)


 * September 15 – Combined Cullen/Woodall sieve application is added


 * October 13 – PSP sieve application is added


 * November 02 - PrimeGrid relinquishes the top project ranking by prime count.


 * November 18 – Collaboration established with 321search. 321 LLR application is added


 * December 11 – PSP LLR application is added


 * December 21 - Matthew J. Thompson of the United States finds a record Woodall Mega Prime (3752948*2^3752948-1)



2009
 * February 13 - PrimeGrid partners with 12121 Search to search for primes of the form 121*2^n-1 and 27*2^n-1. PrimeGrid added the +1 form and will search all four forms in the 27121 Search.


 * March 06 - Senji Yamashita of Japan finds a Fermat Number divisor 519*2^567235+1 Divides F(567233)


 * March 31 - Eric Embling of the United States finds a Fermat Number divisor 659*2^617815+1 Divides F(617813)


 * April 03 - Andy Brady of the United States finds a 321 Mega Prime (3*2^5082306+1)


 * April 20 - Dennis R. Gesker of the United States finds a Cullen Mega Prime (6328548*2^6328548+1)


 * May 01 - Single day credit record broken with over 7.7M cobblestones during the Showers to Flowers Challenge (previously 5.2M cobblestones)


 * May 11 - First Mac application released - AP26


 * May 12 - Factorial Prime Search launched


 * May 17 - PS3 support added to AP26 application


 * May 26 - Mac support added for sr2sieve


 * June 24 - Solaris support added to AP26 application


 * July - Prime Sierpinski Problem/Seventeen or Bust sieve passes 50P in sieving depth!!!


 * July 04 - AP26 application receives a series of optimizations for Intel 64bit Linux.


 * July 18 Twitter application announcing AP26 updates released


 * July 25 - Anonymous of Japan finds record Cullen Mega Prime (6679881*2^6679881+1)


 * July 25 - SunGard Availability Services of the United States finds record Twin Primes (65516468355*2^333333±1)


 * August 03 - Badges added to PrimeGrid


 * August 07 - SETI.Germany becomes the first team to reach 100M cobblestones


 * August 09 - SG Grid becomes the first user to reach 50M cobblestones


 * August 13 - Mac support added for gcwsieve


 * August 16 - Mac support added for LLR


 * August 16 - Sophie Germain Prime Search launched


 * August 27 - PrimeGrid regains the top project ranking by prime count in the Top 5000 list at The Prime Pages.


 * September - Proth Prime Search passes 1P in sieving depth. A most incredible accomplishment for 4<k<1200; n<5M.


 * September 04 - Facebook application created for all BOINC projects.


 * September 16 - PrimeGrid joins Seventeen or Bust in their search for a solution to the Sierpinski problem. PrimeGrid had already been sieving a combined PSP/SoB sieve file. NOTE: Will await for updated LLR before launching.


 * October 10 - AP26 application receives a series of optimizations for Intel 32bit & 64bit Windows


 * October 20 - ppsieve is released for the PPSE sieve which advances the processing rate 6 times faster.


 * November 05 - Generalized Fermat Prime Search launched


 * November 09 - gcwsieve ported to native BOINC for Windows 64bit.


 * November 08 - Hope appears for the possibility of a GPU application at PrimeGrid. Development and testing begins.


 * November 14 - Single day credit record broken with over 9.5M cobblestones during the Giving Thanks Challenge (previously 7.7M cobblestones)


 * December - CUDA support added to AP26 application


 * December 07 - Lennart Vogel of Sweden finds a record Generalized Woodall Prime (563528*13^563528-1)


 * December 14 - PrimeGrid relinquishes top project ranking by prime count in the Top 5000 list at The Prime Pages.


 * December 20 - Single day credit record broken with over 15.9M cobblestones during the Winter Solstice Challenge (previously 9.5M cobblestones)

2010
 * January - CUDA for Mac support added to AP26 application. ATI GPU application in testing.


 * February 01 - Collaboration with Seventeen or Bust officially begins to help solve the Sierpinski problem


 * March 07 - The Riesel problem is resumed with TRP (Sieve)


 * March 09 - Proth Prime Sieve Cuda testing begins


 * March 19 - extended Sierpinski problem launched


 * March 21 - The Riesel Problem (LLR) launched


 * April 04 - SETI.Germany becomes the first team to reach 200M cobblestones


 * April 12 - Benoãt Perichon of France finds a World Record AP26: 43142746595714191+23681770*23#*n for n=0..25


 * April 24 -David Mumper of the United States finds a 321 Mega Prime: (3*2^6090515-1)


 * May 11 - News forum added to Message Boards


 * May 20 - gcwsieve ported to native BOINC for Windows 32bit


 * June 10 - shanky123 becomes the first user to reach 100M cobblestones


 * June 18 - Single day credit record broken with over 19.6M cobblestones during the Summer Solstice Challenge (previously 15.9M cobblestones)