y-cruncher

Calculation options are selected or entered via the text menu, the results are saved as a file.

Some popular uses of y-cruncher are running hardware benchmarks to measure performance of computer system.

[1][2] Alexander J. Yee started developing in high school a Java library for arbitrary-precision arithmetic called "BigNumber".

[6] After that, Yee decided to completely overhaul the program and rewrite it from scratch in version v0.6.1.

The technical challenge does not (any longer) lie in the calculation itself, but in providing an environment that enables a comparatively efficient execution.

The advantage of the program lies in the fact that (partial) calculations can be carried out on an old Pentium PC, an up-to-date workstation, and theoretically even supercomputers, without measured performance falling off a measurement scale (or complex benchmarks becoming incompatible due to new hardware and interfaces).

Setting new computing records also represents a contemporary feasibility study and can serve as an indicator of computer performance improvement over time when regularly performed and with similar parameters.

Screenshot of y-cruncher after a calculation of Golden ratio
Pi can be calculated with any number of digits – for larger calculations, a lot of RAM is necessary. In this case, 25 billion digits of Pi are calculated in 10.4 minutes