Point taken. I suppose I should have said they are attempting to be VAR's

I'm trying to be neutral here. They've been nice to me, and I have personal reasons why I'd like them to succeed, but they also have some serious problems to overcome. I think they are trying, and I think they will likely succeed. Give 'em some space to breathe.

If I'm to be totally objective, they were a week late shipping to me. But they gave me the damn thing, so I can't bitch about that. If I had paid for it, I'd be a bit upset, but still, a week is not so bad. I don't think they are trying to do any harm, and I think they are trying very hard to be a good company. I also think they lack experience in customer service that they thought technical skill would overcome. It rarely works that way, which they are quickly discovering. But all new businessmen run into walls. It's the nature of the beast. This is off of memory, so it could be off a bit, but I seem to recall that 80 percent of all new businesses fail in their first year. I can just about guarantee that 100 percent of those failures didn't intend to fail.

These guys have reacted in a less than stellar fashion to a lot of people on these fora pulling out the pitchforks before they had any reason to. I've been a forum rat/ BBSer since (computerwise) the dawn of time. This is one of the most contentious and often downright vicious places I've ever been. It's also home to some incredibly smart people, which makes the noise worth it. I know for certain that the AMT boys did not expect the level of hostility that they got.

This does not excuse them reacting in kind, but it does make it more understandable. They have said, both publicly and to me in private, that they are trying to hire people who are more professional on the CS side of things. I think they will do so. I think they need to do so actually ahead of just about everything else, because a lot of the hostility would be put to rest by somebody regularly communicating, and being straight up about any delays or issues that come down the pipe.

One thing that has been noted ad nauseam that they should have addressed has been ASIC availability, both Bitfury and Coincraft. They should have talked about it. I think they'll handle it, but if you don't SEE it, you get antsy. I understand this. I'm not sure they did. I'm sure they do now, they just ain't sure how to handle it. PR is often maligned, but it's vital to a business.

I'd still like to know. I have several computers that could be dedicated to it. They are old. It's for fun

Possibly a dumb question, but I don't know the answer, so here goes.

The client appears to be capable of CPU mining within itself, like the old bitcoin client was.

If this is true, how do you set it up for solo mining, and can it be set up for pool mining?

Also, if this doesn't turn out to be a dumb question, you might want to put the instructions on the original post. Then again, maybe not. CPU mining isn't that popular these days

Making a possibly dumb assumption here, you don't own the property.

If that's the case, you can still put in a pole and bring in a new drop, if you can get permission to do so, and this would be a separate power bill altogether. Such an install can be removed fairly easily, so shouldn't offend a landlord.

If that's not the why of it, then just ignore this

I agree with your first paragraph. Said so to the AMT boys, too. It was a reactionary post, like a lot of their responses on here. They said to me, privately, that the thread gets them all fired up (in a bad way). Customer service is not their strong point, which they have acknowledged. They told me they are trying to hire CS professionals to handle things much better going forward.

I've known a lot of engineers and tech weenies over the course of my life, and while I despise stereotypes, they don't come out of nowhere. Guys like that tend to take things personally, when they should just shrug their shoulders and ignore it, while soldiering on. The AMT guys know this, but aren't real good at restraining their tempers.

My feeling, having dealt with them at arm's length, is that they will get their shit together. They know where their problems lie, and are trying to fix them. One of those problems is dealing with an often hostile audience. They aren't unique in this, but they got jumped on the first few posts here. I think it blindsided them.

If you narrow that to purely bitcoin mining, I still think it's untrue, but you at least have good data.

There are many other coins that can be mined with ASICs, and then traded, or they might become something in their own right. This is not a one dimensional game.

This is the mark of an honest operator!

Unfortunately, it makes people want to use your pool!

Glad you are doing so well. It's nice to see the good guys win. Hopefully a few others of your integrity are also running pools.

This is not specific to AMT. I lived in PA from July 2005 to June of 2013, and can say a lot of things about that illegitimate miscegenated pustule on the body politic known as the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. But that would take up more words than the Internet is capable of, none of 'em good. Note that this has little to nothing to do with the people of PA, except that they need to grow some balls and start a revolution. The State is omnipresent, incompetent, rapacious, repugnant, and generally horrible.

Registering a corporation in Pennsylvania, if you are not already independently wealthy and in possession of at least a few members of the legislature (yes I mean bribes) is suicide. If a company wishes to succeed, they aren't going to register in PA. Delaware is close by, not inimical to the very concept of business, and it works out. I don't know that AMT went that route, but I would hope so.

I spent the majority of my life in the Pacific Northwest, and I am now of the opinion that all those pictures of "starving peasants" standing in line for a loaf of bread in the Soviet Union were propaganda pictures filmed in the Commonwealth. I haven't been to the East side of PA, cannot comment on Philly, but Western PA is the pit of despair, and proud of it. It's a great place to be FROM. I'm not a huge fan of Idaho, it has some very odd problems of it's own, but by comparison to PA, it's paradise.

Demented minds run off the same rails Said that about two pages back.

Anyway, I think that with the bitfury boards they are using the Technobit HEX16B. I'm not certain of that, but I think it's the case. For the Coincraft based miners, I was under the impression that it was a custom board using the Coincraft A1 for the hashing. But yes, AMT are VAR's, not base level manufacturers.

Thanks for the advice, and the link. Got a few questions. I've never played the exchange game. I've gpu mined bitcoin on an old laptop via Bitparking, which made me jack shit but was fun, and cpu mined a couple of alts. My experience is limited.

So, why TEK in particular? Several others, Unobtanium for one, seemed more profitable (at least per coin), so I wondered there.

Also, for solo mining is it desirable to set up a private pool or just let CGminer do the job?

And one last thing, how difficult is it to set up a public pool? That looks like a project I'd be interested in for the future.

                           

True enough, however it does at least show they are getting those boards and doing the assembly. I will make as thorough a report as I can when I get the thing. Current UPS estimate is monday, end of day.

A screenshot would show personal info that I don't want to put out there at this time. A lot of my software is still in storage from the move. Didn't feel like digging it out just to edit a screenshot.

LOL! It is a nice hat...

I'll check those out again, but I don't recall either of them listing whether the coins were Scrypt or SHA256. This miner won't do Scrypt.

In further news, UPS is now saying I'll have it monday. The delay ain't on AMT. I live in Mountain Home, Idaho. The UPS hub is in Garden City, which is a suburb of Boise. They shipped it to Nampa, which is literally the exact opposite direction. I don't find this surprising at all, unfortunately. I once lived three blocks from the Garden City UPS D.C. and they couldn't find me until I got on the phone and flashed a mirror on the guy's desk. As far as I can gather from around the country, this is no longer typical of UPS (it certainly was in the 90's), but Garden City clearly hasn't changed a bit. I used to joke around that they were affirmative action for the unemployable. Given nearly twenty years, I'm no longer certain it was a joke.

I'm a free market anarchist, so this is a painful admission. Domestically, the United States Post Office is superior to most of it's market competition in both price and service. This wasn't always true, but lately it is.

EDIT: I was wrong, it does indeed show whether or not they are scrypt on CoinChoose. Thanks bro!

Yes we can. Y'all keep quoting him!

That being said (and this hurts) I kind of agree with Avenger on this one. Bitcointalk is a world wide community, and English is a difficult language. It's structure is a lot different from most languages, and it's rules are inconsistent.

If I understood what he was saying, I agree. One should buy with fiat as much as possible, as buying "gold" with "gold" is not necessarily going to make you a positive ROI. At least not in the short term.

there are nuances, of course, and at least in your case I know you're aware of that.
... I had more, but the vicodin the doc gave me took it from me

The statement is too general. All drugs are not created equal.

I'd guess Lysergic Acid Diethylamide.

I meant it generically, and specifically since I thought you had an order with them

I would have done the pre order gig with KNC, but I wasn't able to. This gig came from left field, get's me in the game, maybe generates some good will. If nothing else, y'all will get pictures and video.

As an update, it was supposed to arrive today, but UPS in their wisdom sent it exactly the opposite direction from the Boise hub. It should arrive tomorrow.                                                                       

It's all good. Thanks for the info, and I do hope they get you your machine very soon. I honestly think they are just in a bit over their heads rather than trying to do anything underhanded. They have no guarantee that my review will help them, either. I hope the machine is cool, and that they are able to get every one of their customers satisfied. Cuz if those are both true, I will be a paying customer in the future. I wanna see an American ASIC vendor that doesn't stink of BFL.

Don't have photoshop at the moment, so I'll just copy and paste that data as of a few minutes ago.

Salt Lake City, UT, United States    01/03/2014    5:31 A.M.    Arrival Scan
Louisville, KY, United States    01/03/2014    4:01 A.M.    Departure Scan
   01/03/2014    3:12 A.M.    Postal code listed for the receiver is incorrect. UPS is attempting to obtain correct postal code and complete delivery. / The address has been corrected. The delivery has been rescheduled.
   01/03/2014    2:01 A.M.    Arrival Scan
Philadelphia, PA, United States    01/02/2014    11:37 P.M.    Departure Scan
   01/02/2014    4:42 P.M.    Pickup Scan

Left from where they say.

Don't know where you get your info from, as I've been following this thread since day one. The Bulgarian connection is Technobit.

As for the rest, well, it's not unusual for a company to send someone a demo to test, who they think will either be objective or help them sell it. I am trying to be objective. I honestly am not sure why they chose me, but the stated reasons were that I had been skeptical without being a dick. Not exactly in those words. I intend to test the machine thoroughly and expose it to the world, warts and all. I'm fairly certain that it's based on or directly uses the Technobit HEX16B boards, so it ought to be a good unit. I have some concerns about the small case, given that ASIC's are noted for their heat and bitfury chips are noted for being sensitive to it. Beyond that, I don't know that much about it, and I'm going to have a blast finding out. I cannot and will not speak to their shipping queue or where they are  in it. They haven't given me that information. They did indicate that they were hiring additional people to handle customer service and hoped to have their problems sorted very soon.

I will say this, though. Several people have posted that they can't get ahold of them by email or phone. I've done both, several times. Email without issue, and phone without much. The longest delay was over the new year's holiday, and that's not so egregious, is it?

It's definitely NOT a one man operation. It is small. I suspect five, based on remarks they've made to me and in the forum. Big furry deal. Michale Dell started by himself, in a dorm room and his father's garage. You gotta start somewhere. My impression of them so far has been that they are technical people and have little to no experience in customer relations. Which is BY FAR the hardest part of business. Let's face it, all of the ASIC manufacturers have had less than stellar communication. This in itself is frankly something this whole fledgling industry needs to overcome. AMT is not alone in their poor customer skills, and it appears from the tracking data that they do indeed have miners on offer. Let's give 'em the benefit of the doubt, until there is good reason to think that they are something other than overwhelmed.

Don't kill the lucky guy, eh? I really didn't solicit this. I'd be lying if I said I was unhappy about it, but I ain't trying to do any harm.

I'm the guy they decided to give an 80 GH/s unit to for review purposes. I can't comment on the order chain, as I'm not an official customer. I'm in fact still not entirely sure why they picked me, other than Jim and Josh seem to like me.

I am going to be shuttling back and forth all day today, so it is unlikely I'll have time to unbox it when it first arrives. As soon as I have time (probably Saturday evening) I'll unbox it on video, and post the video. I'm going to make a youtube channel where I rant about cryptocurrency, and that will be it's first video. I'll post the link as soon as it's relevant.

After that, I'm going to put it through it's paces and video the whole process. They asked me to do a thorough review, good, bad and ugly included, and that's what I intend to do.

Kind of on topic, do you or anyone reading this know of a list of SHA256 alt coins? I'd like to try solo mining with this beast, but with bitcoin that would take literally years