fwiw: I trust frank, I bought $1000 worth of home depot ecards for an amazing price. They will be used well while setting up the new office space for BTCFPGA and getting the bASIC processing room ready.

as far as casascius goes, I trust that man with my private keys and that's like trusting a man with your woman

LOL - bad timing...


I have been really trying hard to knock out emails but I just hit another hourly limit.

Domain btcfpga.com has exceeded the max emails per hour (23/20 (114%)) allowed.  Message will be reattempted later


send me another PM right now and I will respond right now
thanks

LOL, no not even close. His name was Tom/tedd williams or something wasnt it?

I dont think he has been around here for awhile.

and for your information I was here before him and I am here now after him.

People ask me this every day (I dont blame you) and this is the answer I have to give,

We have a ball park idea based on our prototyping, but a lot has changed from the prototypes to the production boards including the frequencies of the clocks and a lot of other factors.
We can run simulations just like everyone else but in reality those numbers could be off by 100's of watts - so what is even the point?

We are so close to having actual verifiable data and performance testing numbers on production units I would rather just wait and give you guys the real numbers.

Honestly though - these boards were designed by a team of real engineers who are at the top of their field and who have been doing stuff like this for decades. Power consumption was a major consideration in both our chip spec and our boards. Just please trust me when I tell you our electrical usage will be very competitive.


Other than that I am not going to speculate or market on pure simulations - its a trap that I cant let BTCFPGA fall into.


in other news:....

I have disabled the ability for people to buy things under a guest account , you now have to register to buy anything.

This is because I am receiving tons of emails from people who want to have orders they previously purchased under guest accounts moved over to newly created accounts and all kinds of user maintenance stuff like this that is just not possible.

I am currently looking for a commercial opencart extension I can purchase that will give me this functionality , so if your still waiting for an email from me based on an issue like this, hold tight I am working on a way to make this happen

thanks for your patience
Tom

I buy all my postage directly through the postal service web site and it does not allow me to buy postage for Russia online (only country)

Also a tip on the foreign shipments, if you can manage to use the small flat rate boxes you only need one small customs label which you can put on yourself and mail out with your regular mail.

Its only when you start getting up to the medium size boxes you have to go to physically drop them off there.

It's going to be a massive undertaking but a lot of fun as well.

arrrrgggggggggg

it gets so annoying when I am trying to answer PM's rapidly and knock them out of the way and the damn thing makes me wait 20 seconds between messages.


THEYMOS HELP ME!

until then can everyone who has sent me a PM please just send an email to tom@btcfpga.com

I am going to work on those right now and will probably get you a faster response

thanks

I have shipped FPGA mining devices to the Russian Federation (what the postal service is calling it now) you just have to have all the paperwork in order your Nomenclature codes and all that.

They have codes for devices like this, so I am sure its completely legal as long as you fill out the paperwork correctly.

One interesting fact:

Russia is the only country I have encountered so far, (and yes I have shipped to countries on nearly every continent) where you cannot buy postage online for that country. It's the only country I have encountered where you have to physically go to the post office to buy the postage.

Got a late start on things today,


Been working on getting the new office space ready, and speaking to that I have had one customer who has volunteered to fly in to upstate NY to help getting the bASICs ready to ship. I am going to need at least 4 more full time workers so if anyone is seriously interested in coming up for 1-2 weeks and helping me load firmware on the bASIC units, package and ship them out please contact me. The more people from the Bitcoin community I can get the better.

anyways on to the days labors:


Going to try and tackle first the PM backlog until I hit that Limit, then I will move onto email until I hit my email servers limit (25 emails an hour)

which I hit twice yesterday.

I know a lot of you are waiting for me to answer questions and handle some user account housekeeping stuff. I'll try to get to most of it right now.

Thanks for your patience.

btw: back to the future is one of my all time favorite movies. Why do you think our new mining units have flux capacitors?

As far as testing on Main-net - I honestly appreciate everyone's opinions and generosity

However my stance on that is the same as it was on 09/19 as you can read here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=110290.msg1204990#msg1204990


There's just simply no need for it. It's not good for the network or my customers, and personally I think it would be really wrong to do. It would just be incredibly unethical for a mining hardware company to use hardware that is pre-ordered (paid for in full) to "test" on main-net, drive up difficulty and at the same time mine from a finite source of coins.

We had these same discussions before commercial FPGA mining devices came out, and it was not then or now hard to tell who is profiting from "testing". It's just bad news and believe me you will not see me taking part of it at all.

I have been mining on BTCguild for almost ever, my user ID is 111 all you have to do is check the hall of fame and you will see where I am at


I love Bitcoin, I have devoted the last 2 years of my life to it. This may sound corny (it already  does in my head) but I really believe in this thing and I am in it for the long haul. Essentially if it's not good for Bitcoin you will not see me doing it.



anyways I answered so many emails today and so many PM's that both my mail server and Bitcointalk are telling me I am sending too many messages, I think by tomorrow I should be fully caught up.

Looks like I need a break - going to dinner with the wife and kids if anyone really needs me your welcome to call 315-514-0269

but for the most part I am done for the day - maybe ill be around for a couple hours this evening, not sure yet.

Thank you to everyone for your support, especially those of you who have been around since the ModMiner Quad days. We could not do this without our customers - you are the absolute best and make us what we are.

bbl
Tom


 

We will most likely be using test-net in a box for testing as Jeff Garzik has recommended.

Yes but please keep in mind that does not mean we have sold 976 units, as described before here:

OK the spreadsheet has been confirmed as correct by three of you - That's good enough for me.

Thank you to:

Kontakt
Morblias
Justin00



Looks like you have a 1 in 102 chance of winning the ModMiner Quad - only five days left - good luck!!!!!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AupRanrgfgJedF9hZXdDd2t2cnotV0FJUDNiendGVnc#gid=0

PM sent.

Well if your not going to pre-order - you would have to wait until all pre-orders are filled before I could sell you one.

Other than that I have no problem with local pickup, and encourage it for bigger orders.

ok looks like we had 102 contestants

thank you to Kontakt for double checking this for me.

Can we have at least one more person double check the spread sheet and PM me and let me know if it is correct now?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AupRanrgfgJedF9hZXdDd2t2cnotV0FJUDNiendGVnc#gid=0


thanks

Pulsed Media

The argument between myself and Inaba was yesterday morning.

We already Got passed that bro. Water under the bridge.

I have compiled a spread sheet with all the contestants:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AupRanrgfgJedF9hZXdDd2t2cnotV0FJUDNiendGVnc#gid=0


Anyone with that link should be able to view it.

it looks like some how we got exactly 100 contestants, I believe this to be accurate but just to be sure would someone be so kind as to double check this and verify it for me?

i would really appreciate it - just PM me your findings and I will update the thread that it was double checked by you.

thanks.

miter_myles I should get to your email today, also anyone else out there who has ordered through Google wallet and is expecting shipment of the bASIC unit or anything else ordered through my web site and your Google Wallet order does not mesh with your order status on my site - please email me today so I can get this corrected in our system.

Google's callback API was not playing nice with our database or our web site and this is why I stopped supporting them and I need to manually fix these orders.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention

I thought I had explained this before, but it's OK - please let me clarify.


When I originally announced the bASIC we were just testing a preliminary prototype and I really had no idea of the response we would get to it or how nicely the product itself would develop.

I was thinking of the volume I was currently handling with the ModMiner Quad - and based those very small and I admit very ignorant numbers on that. Basically I was not planning to expand my operation but considering the volume of sales we have been able to achieve - I am in the process of expanding my operation significantly.

Batches of 30-50 every 5-10 days is about the maximum I could handle by myself and that's why I quoted that. The assembly house that actually produces the boards can handle whatever quantity I need at whatever rate I need them made at, I could literally have 1000 ModMiner Quads made by them in 24 hours (it would not be cheap) but this demonstrates their capacity.  


However everything is changed now including changing some things about the design that make it much easier and faster to get out the door than the ModMiner Quad, and I am upgrading my operation quite a bit to handle the increased demand.

What has changed?

(a) The ModMiner quad goes through a lot of steps that take time
- The PCB boards are fabricated in one place in china
- The FPGA Chips are purchased from another place
- Everything is shipped to me and then
- Everything is shipped to the assembly house
- I purchase some final parts and have them shipped here
- Everything gets nearly assembled and shipped here
- I put them together and test them, package them up myself and ship them out myself
- All while trying to handle support issues, customer service and the logistics of the whole thing

So with the bASIC I decided to streamline a lot of these things, for one I have a very good relationship with the place that assembles the ModMinerQuad and they have taken over a lot more responsibility with this project:
- Their engineers are designing the final production board
- The PCB's will be fabricated by them
- The Boards will be assembled by them to completion


Then final boards will be shipped to me


And here is where I have made another change and upgraded my operation:

I have also leased a 2500 square foot office space / store front which I am in the process of moving into and will be hiring full time employees to help when the bASIC units ship out, their duties will include  opening up boxes from the assembly house - loading firmware - testing for 24 hours - boxing them back up and shipping them out to customers.

I was going to wait and announce this later this week but now seems like a fitting time:

If anyone lives in the Central/Northern NY area (has experience enough and time to do this job efficiently/effectively) and would like to apply for a job please call me any time to arrange an appointment (seriously)

when the bASIC units come in from the assembly house you will get a lot of overtime - we will probably need about 5 people working 8-12 hours a day, 6 days a week.

Also this place will also be open to the public during daytime hours - however it wont be very exciting until that first shipment of assembled boards comes in.


with the ModMiner Quad I did everything myself - but the bASIC has an incredibly higher demand there is no possible way I could handle this kind of volume by myself - but I will be assembling an experienced and hardworking team - hopefully at least partially from this community. If you want to get paid in Bitcoins that will be a big plus!



I know the order numbers are in the 900's already but they are high for a couple of reasons.

For one thing the order numbers started back in May selling the ModMiner quad which had some reasonable success. We also have sold other products on the site from time to time.

The other major factor that makes the order numbers keep jumping is because of failed payments and abandoned orders. People will try a credit card that does not work over and over again, every day people get on the site add products to their shopping cart - register an account and then inexplicably abandon their order. Some people even do this with fake names and obviously fake information - for what purpose I have no idea.


In case anyone is interested - Just looking over the numbers - we have sold approximately 400 bASIC units since 09/03/2012

This is about twice the amount of ModMiner Quads that were shipped between May-August 2012

other interesting facts:

The very first bASIC order is #266, the next one in line after that is #269 and then #273

MRB: there are 25 orders between #273 and your #338


Hope I was able to provide enough information.

If anyone ever has any specific inquires I encourage you to call me anytime

thanks
Tom
BTCFPGA.com