From: aba@dcs.exeter.ac.uk
Date: Tue, 22 Aug 95 12:50:08 PDT
To: trei@process.com ("Peter Trei")
Subject: Re: NEXT CHALLENGE: so, when does it start?
Message-ID: <2084.9508221946@exe.dcs.exeter.ac.uk>
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> Well, I've got the program, and I'm ready to start sweeping
> (about 35,600 keys/sec on a P5  90 Mhz NT machine - have to see
> how many I can draft for this) - I even compiled for Win 3.11 (less
> than 800 keys/sec on a 486/33 - don't think I'll bother).
> 
> I've got the challenge file from Adam's messages.
> 
> But when do we start? Have we started already? Have we completed?

Soon.  No.  And not yet.

> It's difficult to tell. There was talk of starting at 12:00GMT (about 6 
> AM here on the east coast), but there was no 'start now' message to 
> the list. At Adam's site, I can see that 'project 11fa' has been 
> completed, but the key (000000001234) looks like test data.

Yes confusion abound.  Dead mailer for me, Piete away for a while
(back now).  Rest assured big announce of a deadline when it is fixed,
with plenty of warning.

Perhaps a start time of day which is more convenient would be better,
also for people using WWW, few likely to be around at 6AM, perhaps
later in the day, when the time is decided.

> If I try to allocate keys, I get the 600 SLEEP 3600 message, which
> suggests strongly  that the seach has not started yet.

Yes, correct.  For people with the unix client, this means they can
leave the client running already, and it will sleep in 1hr chunks,
until there is something on the server to do.

> Adam, when you fix a time to start the search, could you:
> 
> 1. Send a message to the list, clearly saying so, and giving the 
> time.

Okay will do.

Adam