Is it possible to mine bitcoins on a bulky 1960’s IBM computer?

Ken Shirriff, an electronics engineer and tech blogger, tried to mine a BTC block using a bit antediluvian IBM computer originating from the 1960s. Was it successful?

- Read more HERE

about 500.000.000.000.000 years, or about 40.000 times of the current age of our universe to solve just 1 Bitcoin block

yeah if the diff remain the same, not to mention that those old computers are everything but efficient in electricity terms

Quote

"Metaphorically saying, the 80 seconds that took the machine to solve the algorithm and process one single hash is just ages by present standards.."

Well at least it could solve it, but who would bother mining with a machine that came out several decades ago? I wonder how many bitcoins could it produce if the difficulty is set to 0. Huh

Quote from: dothebeats on May 26, 2015, 03:38:41 PM

Quote

"Metaphorically saying, the 80 seconds that took the machine to solve the algorithm and process one single hash is just ages by present standards.."

Well at least it could solve it, but who would bother mining with a machine that came out several decades ago? I wonder how many bitcoins could it produce if the difficulty is set to 0. Huh

If diff was 0 then every hash would be a block ... afaik

Thank you for the laugh! I'm at work having a crap day and you just made it a little better. Cheesy

I prefer the graphics on the 1960s IBM machines, because they didn't use blurry anti-aliasing like modern video games. They also didn't use monitors, so there was 0% image distortion.

Why not attach some ASICs in the computer and outrun most of the recent computers that have no ASICs attached to them?

Quote from: jaberwock on May 26, 2015, 06:28:30 PM

Why not attach some ASICs in the computer and outrun most of the recent computers that have no ASICs attached to them?

The slots on that computer couldn't even fit to some of the wires on ASICS :v Also, the experiment was focused on mining with that computer alone without any mining hardware attached.

Quote from: bitcoincasino.info on May 26, 2015, 03:03:45 PM

Ken Shirriff, an electronics engineer and tech blogger, tried to mine a BTC block using a bit antediluvian IBM computer originating from the 1960s. Was it successful?

- Read more HERE

one of the most interesting reads i have ever read, they could try to mine bitcoins with nasa computers too and check how fast would hey be

Quote from: iram91445 on May 26, 2015, 06:36:40 PM

one of the most interesting reads i have ever read, they could try to mine bitcoins with nasa computers too and check how fast would hey be

They could've done it, only if they have access to it. Wink

My guess before reading the article was 'yes'. Someone did the exercise of doing a hash by hand so I figured that it could be done on an old mainframe. I figured that some of the intermediates might need to go to tape and it would be awfully slow, but I did not anticipate it being this slow.

Of course it would be intuitively obvious that mining on an old mainframe would very nearly as pointless as mining with a pencil and paper.

An interesting (and not very useful) artifact of some of the old mainframe designs (using core memory) is that they can be unplugged mid-computation then put in a basement for 20 years, then powered back up and continue where they left off. I think the PDP-8 was one of these, though it was, arguably, not a 'mainframe'.

Possible? Yes. Practical? No. Amusing? Most definitely.

I think you can mine bitcoin with every computer system,the point is the time you are going to spend to solve just one block

Quote from: ticoti on May 26, 2015, 06:46:37 PM

I think you can mine bitcoin with every computer system,the point is the time you are going to spend to solve just one block

Exactly! You can mine, it just doesn't make any sense.

Sort of like that 21.co organization that wants to put ASICs in everyone's cellphones to mine bitcoin.

This was a pretty cool experiment
According to Shirriff, the historical computer is fully capable of mining the cryptocurrency, ‘but so slowly it would take more than the lifetime of the universe to successfully mine a block’.
If it ever did strike a block solo mining it still would time out if it had the lifetime of the universe to mine it ha-ha thanks for sharing needed a laugh.

This is the coolest thing I have seen all day. It might not be efficient but man that computer looks awesome. I want one! I just have to figure out where to put it.

interesting idea Roll Eyes

, I wonder if anyone has done this experiment

You know, (only) from the photo it doesn't look much different than a high-end mining facility!

Quote from: galbros on May 26, 2015, 06:53:41 PM

Quote from: ticoti on May 26, 2015, 06:46:37 PM

I think you can mine bitcoin with every computer system,the point is the time you are going to spend to solve just one block

Exactly! You can mine, it just doesn't make any sense.

Sort of like that 21.co organization that wants to put ASICs in everyone's cellphones to mine bitcoin.

which won't change too much, because cellphone can already mine, with their quadcore, and there isn't the problem of electricity

Sorry bud, you ain't getting me to click on your clickbait bullshit link

Just be happy a man of my intelligence decided to reply to this bullshit thread.