Its questions have served as test fields for the implementation of efficient algorithms for factoring composite numbers, but the subject is really one in recreational mathematics.
[1] This followed the factorization of HP49(110) on 8 September 2012[2] and of HP49(104) on 11 January 2011, and prior calculations extending for the larger part of a decade that made extensive use of computational resources.
Details of the history of this search, as well as the sequences leading to home primes for all other numbers through 100, are maintained at Patrick De Geest's worldofnumbers website.
While it is unlikely that the idea was not conceived of numerous times in the past, the first reference in print appears to be an article written in 1990 in a small and now-defunct publication called Recreational and Educational Computation.
The brief article does little other than state the origins of the subject, define terms, give a couple of examples, mention machinery and methods used at the time, and then provide tables.