Computer Composition Searches
A computer can be a useful tool to search for compositions, yet even with today's fast processors exhausting many composition searches is too big a task. This page has been created to keep a record of searches people have successfully completed in popular methods. If you have completely exhausted a computer search for compositions, please add an entry to the table below, stating any constraints you applied to the search, when you first ran it, and any other information you think would be of interest.
Exhaustive Composition Searches
| Method | Search Constraints | Results | Time/ Computer/ Program |
Date | Run by | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cambridge Surprise Major | >=5000 changes Tenors together Round blocks Bob = 14, Single = 1234 |
9,997 compositions 255,138 rotations |
9 days P90 PC SMC 1:42:30 |
1995 2005 2010 2010 2016 2022 |
Graham John Mark Davies Simon Humphrey Graham John Graham John Mark Davies |
See Cambridge - The Full Monty *Leaving 7 processor threads idle! i7 12700 can scale up from 2.1 to 4.9GHz; it also has two types of core, one faster than the other. Run times currently vary between this and over 50 minutes, potentially because of mischeduling to slower cores or reduction in clock boost. To be investigated. |
| Cambridge Surprise Major | >=5000 changes Tenors together Snap finishes Bob = 14, Single = 1234 |
15,416 compositions | 13 days PC SMC32 |
1998 | Graham John | See Cambridge - The Full Monty |
| Cambridge Surprise Major | >=5000 changes Tenors together Round blocks Bob = 14, Single = 1256 |
152,915 compositions 3,739,182 rotations |
47 days 2.8GHz i7-860 SMC32 |
2010 | Mark Davies | |
| Bristol Surprise Maximus | 5000-5100 changes Tenors together Round blocks Bob = 14, Single = 1234 |
202,384,361 compositions | 47 hours PC SMC32 |
1998 | Mark Davies | |
| Yorkshire Surprise Maximus | 5000-5100 changes Tenors together Round blocks Bob = 14, Single = 1234, Big Bob=18 |
202,927,179 compositions | 5 days, 23 hours PC SMC32 |
1998 | Mark Davies | |
| Plain Bob Minor | 720 changes Bob = 14, Single = 1234 |
1,440,339,152 compositions | 18:16:25 2.8GHz i7-860 SMC32 |
2010 | Mark Davies |
Composing Program Benchmark
The "Full Monty" search for compositions of Cambridge Surprise Major is a useful benchmark both for measuring the efficiency of composing programs and the computers they run on. As shown in the table above, the first time this was completed was in 1995 using SMC on a Pentium 90, taking 9 days. The current record for this search is twenty-eight minutes and fifteen seconds run by Mark Davies using SMC32 on a Core i7 12700K processor at up to 4.9GHz in 2022. It is now over 20 years since SMC32 was written and as it is a 32-bit single-threaded application, it should be possible to significantly improve on this today by writing a multi-threaded 64-bit search engine for a modern top of the range processor. If you beat it, please update this page.
