True. And for just about 600 dollars more, plus the higher power cost. Not saying anything bad about Bitmain. It's actually a pretty good comparison.




One other thing, they are not using Bitmine boards, but locally produced ones. The chips, apparently, are not an issue at this point. It is my suspicion that they are still using Technobit's design. I don't know that for certain, but some things Jim said jibe with the description of the board by Marto74. (didn't screw up your name, Martin, no white shirt!) But rather than directly buying them from Bulgaria, they're making them in or around Philly. Should cut the time frame quite a bit once they get up to speed. I've seen at least one report of that board already hashing, so the production issues should be minimal.

LOL. I am an anarchist. But all Empires fall, and this one is committing public suicide at an incredible rate.

I will grant that AMT has not been the most professional of entities. FWIW, they admit it. I think they just don't know how to fix it, and are trying their damnedest to deliver a quality product. I think they'll iron out their customer service issues. When I have interacted with them, they were cordial, stressed out, and came across very good as hardware people. Not so much as businessmen. We all gotta start somewhere. I think what you're seeing is a few people with good intentions and good skills at the back end, and no clue at the front end. It happens. It has happened with much larger companies. I don't know how old you are, but do you remember the Commodore Amiga? Way ahead of it's time. Should have dominated the PC market, even with IBM as a competitor. But they marketed the damn thing as a gimmicky video game instead of the most powerful personal computer on the market. Now they are a memory. It is my hope that AMT does much better, because right now they have very close to the best bang for the buck. Also because they've been cool to me, personally, but that is not enough to recommend a company. I wish it was, because it is true.

My experience was that most were legit despite the legislative atmosphere, but they did NOT comply with the hydra headed, deliberately designed to drive commerce out of the commonwealth legislation. To remain in business, they paid the demanded bribes. Not all that quietly, either. Who was paying and who was on the take was common knowledge. When the revolution comes, PA's legislators will be the first against the wall. One of many reasons I no longer live in that benighted state.

Yes. Several times. This is a neverending cycle. They are associates of Technobit. Who are located in Bulgaria.

Oh, please.

This is Pennsylvania we're talking about. What the law says is irrelevant there, and if you've ever lived there you know it. It's more productive to duck the inspector until they come by for their bribe, if they ever do. When they do, you slip them a c-note for their crack, and they go away for a while. There is no more corrupt, but short sighted, bunch of yahoos on the planet than the Harrisburg Cocaine Users Association Commonwealth Legislature.

We are talking about a place where you can buy a cop for less than $50, but to legally comply with practically anything requires leaving the state. Legit business doesn't register or comply with a lot of regulations, because to do so would mean that there is no business in PA. Look at the history of the steel industry there, as just one example.

That being said, a Delaware corporation would only need to file ownership papers or rental agreements by law anyway. Not stuff that's easily found, unless you're on the ground.

Yeah, seriously. I see this a lot on various threads. If you can afford to buy one of these machines, just one, then you can afford to have a 240v circuit put in. You can DIY it for significantly less than $100 dollars if you have a 200 amp service. Maybe 5-600 if you need to upgrade your panel. This is NOT a big issue.

Hell, for that matter you could just use the dryer plug that's already likely in your house until you mine enough to replace it.

I need to preface this with the unfortunate fact that my knowledge of ASIC design, or any chip design at the silicon level, is woefully inadequate. So if my question comes off as stupid, don't behead me

Does the project currently have people capable of designing an ASIC from beginning to end?

If so, what kind of costs would be likely (Best/Worst case?)

I can think of lots more, but it's kind of offtopic. Depending on the answers I get, I might start a new thread on the subject, or perhaps try to help organize such a project. Given the unreliability and in many cases downright shady actions of most current ASIC companies, I think the market would easily bear such a project.

I figured that out the first day

No, it's that it seems to draw on totally irrelevant data while ignoring exact text. Yet I can run the exact same search in google (from their site) and it will bring up the relevant text as the first result. I actually do this instead of using the internal search more often than not due to frustration. With custom search, it SHOULD do this faster and better than from the main google.com page.

As an example, I just typed in "my little bitcoin" (sans the quote marks) in both google and bitcointalk. This is a thread I started, and that is it's exact title. On google.com it's the first result. Here it's not even on the first four pages. (after which it times out with "you're searching too fast". )

Weird. Then why do I get such different results when searching at google.com vs. using the search function? Is there some sort of filter WITHIN the site that makes it turn up irrelevant results while ignoring exact text? Or is bitcointalk or SMF simply possessed?

edit: Thanks for the links. I admit when I'm wrong, but something is still wonky here.

The search function on Bitcointalk is broken, to say the least. You can search the EXACT TITLE of a thread and if it comes up at all, it's way down the list.

It's a simple matter to put google custom search on here. I would highly recommend it. Even though there have been promises of upgraded software for the forum, the evidence that it will ever happen is slim. Custom search costs nothing and would take the forum admins maybe a few minutes to implement.

As it stands, if I want to find something on the forum, I'm better off searching from Google than trying to use the internal search engine. Then people tell me to use the search function. I do. It don't work.

I stand corrected Now I got more homework to do. See how you are?

My wife is one bar exam short of being a lawyer, and I have to agree. While the law is often arbitrary and capricious, it generally is very strict in regards to what a barred lawyer is allowed to say. Now of course they could be in Vermont, where there is no requirement to be a member of the bar, but I doubt it. That and the rules are similar even sans the bar association

Also, that quoted law is just one of many. Interstate commerce is a tangled web on it's more clear points, and downright arcane for the most part. It is also heavily slanted towards the customer, to the point where outright scammers are often more protected than a legitimate company. Thus, immense amounts of litigation and arbitration where the absence of law and the presence of common sense would lead to lower expense and higher expectations both ways.

AMT lost some points with me posting a customer's name like that, unless they had permission. Which I doubt. They do have permission, verbally, to post mine if they wish. But I am not really a customer. I still think they are a legit company, much in need of more experienced business people. When my tax refund comes I am hoping to have enough to get one of their coincraft based miners, the above notwithstanding.

I have my moments, but I'm not exactly a veteran either. We all gotta start somewhere, and it can be very frustrating getting any hard info on this forum. Besides, I'm kinda liking not being the extremist. It's a new thing for me

unless they've done something really weird (either with the machine or a given coin) scrypt is scrypt to the best of my knowledge. LTC was the first scrypt coin, just like BTC was the first SHA-256 coin. Should work for both.

Noted. I missed it amongst the noise.

I'm more irritated by the giveaway ban, as that has a lot of purpose in promoting a new coin, or just about anything.

I'm seeing a more and more hostile attitude towards alt coins lately, yet that is where the profit is if you aren't already rich. It grates.

Ah, well. Nothing to be done about it, I suppose. This forum is full of interesting things, and even more full of venom.

Is the goal to drive away alt coins altogether, or is this just some sort of passing buthurt?

I mean, seriously. Almost every coin has the devs reserving a space or two early on for updates. It's also common in group buys, for much the same reason. You may be planning to add something as the coin/thread/groupbuy continues.

And the giveaway thing? Make it universal, or just get rid of the altcoin section. Be consistent. (not that the administration ever has been, but hey, you could start here...)

Let's face it: Moderation on bitcointalk is random, arbitrary, and capricious. Why make a pretense to the contrary? Just state your actual intent, don't make it look as if it had something to do with "complaints" or "spam" or some other such nonsense.

TGB works good for short term, but it (at least historically) continues to extrapolate an exponential increase in hashrate over the longer term. I haven't used that calc in several months, so this may be old news.

However, when it was first used to generate a lot of FUD, it showed such. That has already tapered off. What we'll likely see in coming months is a number of spikes where it goes up by a lot, followed by a small climb for a couple of diff periods. Then it will taper off. The problem, of course, is predicting how those spikes and valleys will happen. This is essentially impossible in the long term, and this is not solely a bitcoin problem. We know who the major players are, but there is a lot of interest in building and disseminating hashpower. Ultimately it will come down to the mix of exchange rate and electric costs.

Which seems to me to be a great opportunity, one I'm going to pursue. Off grid power generation is going to become necessary to the mining community sooner rather than later, or else a great many of these machines are indeed NOT going to achieve positive ROI in the not too distant future. Even if you, like me, don't care whether that ROI is bitcoin or fiat or gold or fucking cows. Yet if you could generate your own power, the useful life of the machines becomes indefinite, rather than extremely finite. I've long been interested in small scale power generation anyway. I have some interesting ideas along those lines, and when I get them firmed up a little better I'll start a thread regarding that. Not sure what subforum it should be on, though

On topic, I suspect that this hosting facility of KNCs is going to be a PR disaster for them. I think they would have been smarter to just do it quietly, sell Jupiters, and be up front about any delays. I think such a center would be good for the network as a whole, as it would put a cramp on CEX and force them to be more competitive in their share prices, plus leading just generally to more competition in cloud mining. But they way they appear to be doing this is, frankly, stupid.

It is my understanding that from tapeout to receiving packaged chips averages about five weeks. This means that you (as in your team, not necessarily you personally) were aware on or about December 15th that you would be unable to hit the target.

Note that I am not an engineer, but that seems to be the consensus from the engineers I know as well as a number of sources on the web.

Bruno, Chill.

Seriously. Given that I have interacted with both you and Bobsag3 almost since the day I registered, and that I like both of you, I have tried to stay out of this. But you are going WAY overboard. I knew the facility had been moved. I couldn't find the link, because frankly Bitcointalk's search engine is an ancient relic that should be put out of it's misery, but I was aware of it. And I have NO dog in this fight.

BA announcing a delay at the last fucking second was stupid at best. They had to know at least a few days prior. This has NOT ONE THING to do with Matt Carson. Usually, you make a lot of sense through all the bluster and bombast (which I find entertaining, even if others don't). This time, you really don't. I suspect very much that you got trolled by two alleged victims. Do the same level of diligence on those you are defending, please. Judging by your past history, if I am right, you'll admit it. So I won't swing that bat.

Alex (Bitcoinorama) said you were a good sort in person, and that goes far with me. Your love of classic rock doesn't hurt either. But I seriously think you are pursuing the wrong leads here.

as a total aside I am surprised that Inaba kept his word. Not his usual MO, from what I've observed.

Kevin Biomech.

No offense taken. They were pretty awful. I'm working on doing a better one. Truth is, the whole thing caught me off guard and with terrible timing. Not their fault, but I got the miner a few days before my child was born, and there have been multiple medical issues to deal with. In the next few days I will make a far better video, with cgminer screenshots as well as the setup of the miner.

For what it's worth, I will say that I am not in cahoots with AMT. I got on well with Jim on the phone and by email, but the closest I've ever been to Philly was Pittsburgh. Which is a place I hope to never set foot in again.

I too am still skeptical of their ability to deliver, and I think they need to savagely overhaul their customer service. I am grateful for the miner, and PERSONALLY very happy with it. It's a solid machine. You can see most of it's history on my eligius page http://eligius.st/~wizkid057/newstats/userstats.php/1Eu1iqrQW2P6fSPLpGXLXiZ4828BnXpRJi. It jumps around 80 GH/s on a second to second basis, but it averages just about 80 over the course of a day. Oddly, turning down the voltage made it hash a bit faster, though the moment to moment jumps and dips are wilder.

I've used it on two pools, BTCguild and Eligius. I was going to try Ghash.io, but I couldn't get it to connect for some reason. Pissed me off so I never went back.

All of the above being said, it's essentially a toy by comparison to the Bitmine.ch based miners that are soon to be in production. The two guys I've interacted with seem to be very tech savvy dudes, so I don't actually have much worries on the production end, other than supplier issues. Giorgio at Bitmine.ch has confirmed as recently as yesterday that AMT are indeed their American business partners. Their CS has not been stellar either. In fact, the only ASIC company I can say has been totally upfront is Bitmain, and they are doing very well because of it. But the Antminer is not really much better than the HEX16B's in my AMT Steadfast 80, and at least so far, Bitmain has not announced or indicated that they are moving to a lower process node. I do believe that AMT is legit. I think they are rank amateurs in the world of business, and they have done some things in this thread that made them look rather bad, such as offering discounts for positive posts, etc.

Giving me the miner may have been a bad move for them as well, though having somebody review a machine is not uncommon. I hope it's helped them, and I will deliver a much more comprehensive report. I am somewhat biased. I wasn't going into it, but I like these guys. They do very much need to resolve their front of the house issues. We all knew the machines were going to be delayed, since we new they were based on the Coincraft A1, which was delayed. They should have announced this the minute they knew. It's a hard thing to do, since you want to be positive in all things about your business, but it would have allayed a lot of suspicion.

Fortunately, the thread has calmed down a lot. This community treated them poorly, and they responded poorly. I have a thick skin, but I do understand how awful it feels to be blasted before you've even had a chance to perform, and I can understand the desire to hide. But business is not a discipline that allows an emotional response from vendors.

Jim, if you're reading this, I highly suggest you invest in a heavy punching bag and a good CS rep