Bitcoin Forum

Here is a link to someone who got an Apple II Computer from 'ancient' times to mine Bitcoin! (or a futile attempt at shoveling all the sand in the world from 1 side to the other in difficulty) :)

https://retroconnector.com/mining-bitcoin-on-an-apple-ii-a-highly-impractical-guide/

I found this pretty amusing!

What other links can folk find of 'impractical' devices to mine Bitcoin?

Post them here.

Also, take the poll!

Brad

reserved

Mining bitcoin with Apollo 11 guidance system:

Bitcoin mining on an Apollo Guidance Computer: 10.3 seconds per hash (http://www.righto.com/2019/07/bitcoin-mining-on-apollo-guidance.htm)


http://static.righto.com/images/agc-bitcoin/agc-connected.jpg (http://static.righto.com/images/agc-bitcoin/agc-connected.jpg)

Other link: https://blog.hackster.io/mining-bitcoin-on-the-apollo-guidance-computer-62691628514

Dang, beat me to it! Have to look for something else.

Could always try it on a Digi-Comp I (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digi-Comp_I) or a Digi-Comp II (https://shop.evilmadscientist.com/productsmenu/375)  :D

Here is the 'real' way to mine Bitcoin!

using

PUNCHCARDS! (heh!)

http://www.righto.com/2015/05/bitcoin-mining-on-55-year-old-ibm-1401.html

I wonder how many trees you would have to kill to find a block!

Heck, for that matter how many actual punchcard machines you'd wear out!

Brad

Speaking about dubious mining devices:

 Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day (http://www.righto.com/2014/09/mining-bitcoin-with-pencil-and-paper.html)


http://static.righto.com/images/bitcoin/mine_pencil_1-s800.png (http://static.righto.com/images/bitcoin/mine_pencil_1-s800.png)

EDIT: That's low. If we force every people now living on Earth stopping what they're doing, grant them immortality,  and put them mining bitcoins, it would take more of the age of the universe to mine a single block given the current difficulty.

I don't know how much it counts, but when I "met" Bitcoin I started mining with my GPU right away.
After about a month of mining (about January 2014?) I learned that I am under the minimum amount for withdrawal at Slush pool and even if I'd mine one more year I'd be still under the minimum. I stopped there (silly n00b).

Yep. That's my Apple II. You can even watch it mining live, and see if it comes up with anything interesting:

https://www.twitch.tv/8BTC

Someone on comp.sys.apple2 posted the following below:

"Mining Bitcoin on a 1MHz 8-bit processor will cost you more than the world’s combined economies, and take roughly 256 trillion years."

Kinda a 'long shot' to get a Bitcoin Block huh?

By the by, the above link is 'hilarious' :)

Brad

First merit for Option8!

Let's not forget the NES.
http://retrominer.com

Wow this is an hidden gem!
I love this thread.
Pure geeky fuckery without any real application.
Out of Merits mate, otherwise I would send.

Can you imagine the mathematical chaos in the Mathematics Field alone if ANY of these retro computer projects ever hit a block! The mind boggles at the possibility! Indeed, the odds are so long, you could use such to prove the existence of god!

My problem now that I'm no longer mining anything in the basement I really do have all the equipment needed to set an Apple ][ up in the correct manner, using his GitHub instructions to pop one of these up!

tempting, very tempting as a completely insane thing to do!

lol

Brad

It is probably faster than human computation, but not by much. Add that these 8 bit computers often had 48k of ram at most, and serial links of maybe 9600 bps (tho i bet someone made some Ethernet card for it).

I can think of several more suitable uses for it. I know someone in youtube uses one as terminal emulator.

Sure its cpu is about the same thing on the nes, if you can compute blocks with it, you could theoretically do that there as well. These things are many orders of magnitude slower than current cpus, and cpu mining is considered absolutely useless, so you can imagine the point of computing a block with these.

But for fun, getting the hash rate, as in, how long it takes to compute 1 hash, would be something funny to note. Wait to discover a block? not worth it.

I think a human used to take about 3 days to get 1 hash done, but that was before with much lower difficulty.

Here is something from way back in 2013!

Mining Bitcoin on a Nintendo!

https://hackaday.com/2013/03/25/mining-bitcoins-on-a-nintendo/

So the question becomes, is this unit still working through all the updates since then, including the 'unexpected hard fork' back in the day?

https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-mine-bitcoin-with-your-mac/

The above is also 2013. Blows my mind how many Bitcoin you could mine with 'regular'  ASIC equipment in 2013!

Anyway, just an aside.

Brad

Not new, but I think Samsung had some S5s or S6s phones were mining too. This was maybe a couple of years ago, when the new S7s and S8s came out, so you could recycle old Samsung phones as miners.

The only thing I may do is I have a lot of work wiring and other stuff in my basement. I may just toss up a couple of KNC Titan Scrypt Miners and mine some LTC like back in the day...maybe even put up the old KNC Jupiter BTC miner from 2013....let see...I think that would generate about 3300 watts or some such, along with the regular basement ceiling mounted 'space heater' I seem to know have to put up..now that I'm not mining since 2013. :( I mean they are very crummy space heaters..but at least I'd get SOMETHING back out of the beasties..even if just pennies!

I really liked all those years since 2013 putting electricity in one end and getting massive amounts of BTC/Crypto worth out the other end. People are like, if you are bored now, make a new business. Yeah, right, like I can find another business where I do the above and make what I did home and data hall mining at 10c kWh again. Damn hard for lightning to strike twice!

ti-84 please :)

ti-99 4A there was a programing cartridge with it (if I remeber corectly).   ::)

I mined my first 50 bitcoin on a HP 6735b  (https://support.hp.com/ca-en/document/c01512470)in under 10 seconds.  :)

This hurts. Like looking at page 1 on the WO thread.

All my BTC HODL came from mining. My first machine investment has paid for all my dubious electric/dubious equipment/ and etc since 2013. KNC Jupiter BTC Miner arrived on September 18th, 2013 and made ONE BTC a day. Sometime that day I looked and BTC was $150 that day. I made 53 BTC on that unit and all my BTC empire since came from that ONLY $5,131.80 investment with shipping from Sweden. So at least I have a base price on all this that will be damn hard to go under, no matter what the BTC price of the BTC I have :)

I currently have a boat anchor of a Bitmain S9i that will take 14 years and 10 months to make ONE BTC. or after halving..29 years and 8 months! So as the above title says, the Bitmain s9i now falls under that above title of this thread of "highly impractical other devices" indeed! :(

Brad

Mining on a paperclip computer might be a challenge.

https://www.evilmadscientist.com/2013/paperclip/

Ack! That surely beats me at my October 18th, 2013 KNC Jupiter Bitcoin Miner, with again, so on that day, I looked at $150 usd per Bitcoin! (I sat on my hands and did zip and waited for a miners from BFL ...which never came...but did get a 'fluke' refund from BFL more than 1 year later a week before SEC closed them down. DUMB LUCK rules ..I was such a clueless newbie! so giving up on BFL I finally got the above KNC miner...But again, sitting on hands from April 13,  2013 or 3 days before the Wall Observer thread started on here on April 13th, 2013 and the price of BTC on the 1st post on WO was..Ack! $67.43! I was distraut in thatI 'obviously' peaked at the $150 I mined that 1st day...surely, the price had to go down right? In that I missed the boat from April 13th, 2013?

Ah, my 'clueless' newbie youth....what a noob I was! :) I sure hope the next 7 years is at least this rosey for Bitcoin/Crypto! :)

https://i.imgur.com/Px5bq7M.png (https://i.imgur.com/Px5bq7M.png)

Obligatory Raspi mining rig! I seriously love these little devices. Perfect for running nodes on your favorite project. PS cool forum you've got here!

https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/piminer-bitcoin-mining-machine/

Nice article! The article is from 2013, but it still may be of interest trying to mine some testnet bitcoins, or regrets, just to understand how it works. Definetly an impractical device to mine on today.

As an aside, I've found another way to mine BTC using Apple IIs...I call it 'Attic Mining' :) In other words, I am trying to sell, bit by bit, my attic full of apple 2 stuff on eBay and convert to BTC/Crypto. Now if I'd had done this in 2013 I'd likely have 200 or 300 Bitcoin..so my only hope now that I'm out of both home BTC/crypto mining and data hall mining (the ship has sailed on). This is the ONLY way I can mine anything out of my house that makes sense. Sell stuff in the attic I would otherwise 'die' with and put the proceeds of eBay via Paypal into BTC/Crypto. I figure all the junk of a retro computer and apple 2 types I have well over $5k of crap if I can ever get motivated to do this and piecemeal it out onto eBay. also, if I'm wrong and BTC/crypto goes full 'bennie baby' and worthless...I still have an empty attic and easy rec room and probably increases the worth of my house about $15k. with the now useable attic/rec room. :) win/win!

So, if you are diligent enough and disciplined to do this 'boring' cubicle type work..go for it..it is a lot less risky than home mining in the past buying ASIC equipment on a hope and a prayer..anyway..those days are lost here is an alternative to get some BTC/Crypto dust! :)

Brad

@Searing, if memory serves there was a pre-order issue / scandal with KNC, no? Was it the Jupiter or other model?

I received a Jalapeno so was not affected by BFL, but I did get sucked into the Black Arrow pre-order scam in 2014 I guess it was.

I pre-ordered a KNC Neptune BTC miner...but they kept stalling and stalling...so I swapped for a KNC Titan Scrypt Miner when offered...glad I did in that they did not get the Neptune's out from their announce/buy-in November 2013 until 0ctber 2013 ..so a year for most. They won a court case that proved that KNC was running them all Summer before shipping them..;.indeed back that year KNC had a lot of BTC hash...but when sued ...everyone lost because...KNC suddenly said everyone was a business under Swedish law...so EU consumer protections did not apply to such and a mess 100's of people lost the case. A buddy and I got a default of 2 after the loss on eBay for probably 1/2 of what a new OEM one was going for..still sealed in the box..by some corporation...I think they just told someone sells them on eBay ASAP and he never priced them correctly..we were lucky....also the folk that lost the case paid $5k to lawyers upfront in the USA and it was $5k to like I think it was $7.5K on top of that because losing the case you paid the winner...so that was PER unit...I told people that Sweden was not gonna throw out this loophole of law for 'business use' out the door to save a bunch of hobby miners...it was there for years for a reason to get around EU consumer protection..but no one  listened...also the KNC Neptune you could have gotten a full refund...the KNC titan you could not...I missed that so my tagline here was for the next year 'frigging never to ROI KNC5th grade science project FU KNC or some such. I think they lost the court case in 2015 and soon after KNC at $350 BTC decided that BTC was not going any place...and stuck their big-money backers with the bankruptcy and walked with the BTC...(a lot of them were former bankers) So I've outlasted KNC dumbasses tossed away billions by running out on BTC too early.

ah ..such a clueless newbie I was back in the day, I have no balls at all now to them olden days of 7 years ago, etc, etc :(

Brad

How about this one?  I'm sure most of us older folks are familiar with the Game Boy.  Who could forget the system that made the world fall in love with Tetris?  It's nice to see people are still doing cool stuff for the sake of doing cool stuff.

Youtuber Builds a Bitcoin Miner Out of a 31-year old Nintendo Game Boy
https://news.bitcoin.com/youtuber-builds-a-bitcoin-miner-out-of-a-31-year-old-nintendo-game-boy/

Not nearly as powerful? Well, that wins the understatement award for today. ;)

This is kinda cool...someone added another 'dubious' way to mine BTC with a Commodore 64 Computer!

https://www.hackster.io/news/you-can-now-mine-bitcoin-using-your-vintage-commodore-64-49057d732c47?fbclid=IwAR2tcdNMSIUzN3wc6ODh48c4ABZXposW4WmsrIb7-C_FRc9q6QYUKeoJTCE

Just posted a couple of days ago.

By the By today is my 8th Year Anniversary of finding out about Bitcoin!

I found out about BTC and signed on to www.bitcointalk.org on this date of 4/13/2013!

Same day! For both anniversaries!

Kinda cool it has an ATH today too boot!

I mined my first BTC on a KNC 550gh Jupiter Miner that I ordered on July 1st, 2013, and got October 18th, 2013. It was full of water...soggy box....and I had

to email tech support in that, it had now switch! Take a paperclip put electrical tape at one end after cutting it in half and short the motherboard connector

of the PSU on pin 8, I think it was. To say I was in 'complete' dismay was an understatement! I paid frigging $5,131.80 with shipping from Sweden and

after this hell of a day doing /SSH and hairdryer use to get the water out and re-attach loose crap inside..flashing the SD on top of waiting all day for DHL

to deliver it..I was a wreck! Shorted the pins, looked at th BTC price at that point at least once that day it was $150.00 even and made about 1 BTC a day!

I then sat in the puddle on the basement floor depressed as hell, in that I could have bought BTC July 1st on this 'dubious' miner at like $79 bucks or some

such...and now at $150 BTC it 'obviously' was gonna crash to $25 again. FML!

Tough day, but boy was I wrong......lol :)

Sometimes being a 'clueless' newbie really, really pays off! :)

Brad

Hello everyone. Does anyone know how to do mining on a Macintosh Plus?
Thanks a lot

I know this thread got necrobumped, but I'd just like to comment on the above post from Vod--it's the first post by him that I've seen that actually references bitcoin, though I'd always assumed he was an old-school owner of bitcoin, whether by mining or purchasing.  

I see videos from one particular user on Youtube who shows how he's mining bitcoin on his Raspberry Pi, and IIRC he uses USB stick miners like the old block eruptor.  Man, the old days must have been something and I wish I'd been into bitcoin back then.  At least you can still mine some altcoins on a PC and then trade them for BTC, but it's not quite the same thing as being able to mine it directly from your computer.  

Edit:
Dang, that is cool!  I love the idea of USB stick mining; I just wish it was still profitable.  Some of the setups I've seen looked awesome and they're much quieter than ASIC miners (lol).

oh boy gonna dig my c64 outta storage.

next one i wanna see mining is a timex-sinclair 1000 (ZX-81 for you Brits iirc)

or better yet a KIM-I


i had like 5 block erupters on a rpi via a hub and usb fans to cool em. worked fine.