An odd number of bitcoins "Generated"?

[aspokia]

I was running a miner last night as a test. I solo mined (using guiminer) and it found 1 hash.... Didnt think much of it because I was testing and such.
Today I started up my client again, and found a "Generated" line in my transactions. But the amount involved happens to be .5~ of a btc.

So... should I have "Generated" 50 btc, and if so how do I claim them?
If I didn't (wasn't supposed to) generate 50 btc, why did I generate .5? And how?

Thanks for helping me not be confused

(also what does it look like when you do generate a block worth 50 btc?)

[1715487050]

1715487050

[1715487050]

1715487050

[1715487050]

1715487050

[deslok]

gui miner defaults to pooled mode if you generated .5btc you were probably connected to a pool unintentionally

[aspokia]

I can post a picture if you want, but I am positive I was running in solo through the client, AND my client SAYS "Generated" in the transaction line. The amount is not shown in the Received tab.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/827807/New%20Bitmap%20Image.bmp

[Maged]

It sounds like you tried Eligius at one point.

[aspokia]

I was on Eligius indeed. But isn't their payout at 1.0 btc? And it didn't even show up in the "Received" tab. Im unsure how it could be from Eligius but not be a received transaction! Please help me understand

[Maged]

I was on Eligius indeed. But isn't their payout at 1.0 btc? And it didn't even show up in the "Received" tab. Im unsure how it could be from Eligius but not be a received transaction! Please help me understand

This is how they pay out. Also, if you don't mine on them for awhile, they'll just pay you regardless of how little you've made.

[Ricochet]

It's entirely possible to generate less than 50 BTC (or split that 50 BTC among more than 1 address during generation), and that's the way that Eligius works apparently.  Way back when my CPU had a shot at mining, I "generated" 0.74 coins using puddinpop's server that worked in very much the same way.

It's not too common though, and most pools will just split the 50 BTC themselves rather than inserting each address into the generation hash.

EDIT:  the block in question that was generated by puddinpop's pool - http://blockexplorer.com/b/99004