I'm placing it in a thread of it's own to save searching through the old thread of 100+ pages. I think that's better for all concerned.
Ok where to start, to keep this clean and simple, I'm going to summarise below what I remember from the top of my head.
Why?
Well it serves a few of purposes.
1) I want to get it down
2) I need to go to a meeting an hour ago.
3) Recordings are hours long and will take me hours.
4) You lot are impatient and I'm going to take a leaf out of KnC's book. I'd rather give you something worthwhile now and work on refinement later.
5) This keeps the actual Q&A clean and separate from my own opinion.
6) I'm actual typing this first paragraph above after i've written what exists below so it's too late now...
7) My hands really hurt!
Before detailing the time spent at the ORSoC offices with all those involved in KnC. I'd like to tell a little true account of my travel to and from which fittingly describes two competing companies; one that get's the product offering, and associated customer service very, very right, and another that fails miserably. If in the course of this I can at least save one person the misfortune of travelling with Ryanair, then it's worthy of my effort.
Admittedly I booked late, both flights literally a day before travel. Ryanair I will always avoid wherever possible whatever the expense; the supposedly 'budget' airline is never overt with their true cost, it literally takes three-four times as long to complete payment and turn down every up-sell imposed upon you than another competitor (kind of like buying a domain from GoDaddy). You are required to check in beforehand which means internet and a printer (or a £40 fine). Whilst checking in be prepared to be lambasted with all the previous up-sells you declined. If you manage to escape that unscathed, you then have the minefield of making sure you physically print your ticket, or your denied boarding, a bag a centimetre over their requirements, your denied boarding, buy anything in duty free? Did the shop kindly place your items in a bag? Does it not fit in your hand luggage? Denied boarding. What kind of experience entails customers shi**ing themselves as to whether they will get what they paid for from you?!
I'm sure you see the applicable relevance here and the underlying metaphor, but upon boarding the plane, Ryanair has the equivalent of a club bouncer rejecting people upon arrival...and they did. I was at the tail end of boarding, and within 20 people ahead of me they denied 5, well 4, they made one couple actually separate and the boyfriend have to purchase a second later flight. Disgusting behaviour enforced by their CEO Micael O'Leary the same ****wit that has been caught overcharging additional unannounced fees, wanting to charge for toilet usage when you are in the air, and a more recent idea to remove seating from planes and have paying customers stand the duration of the flight, cattle class.
Alas, this despicable company was my only choice left, 'budget' only truly applies to the unwillingness of the airline itself to spend, the cost to me was actually 6 times more than the return flight!!!
I paid £250 for a flight in which all reclining functionality of the seats had been purposefully removed, and not once could you close your eyes as every 10 minutes was announced a new means to remove further monies from you be it; drinks, food, products you don't want, need, or care for, requiring constant reassurance to the stewards/esses that won't take no for an answer or acknowledge you. As a final insult to injury the plane lands with a fanfare to reassure you they've raped you as much as possible on landing.
The return in contrast was with Norwegian airlines, booked the day before flight for £39! No up-sell. Check-in prior, no worries if you have no internet, you can do so at the train station whenever you like, with a text to your mobile, before even heading to the airport (not an option for the aforementioned airline), want to choose your seat? Sure go for it at point of check in (additional cost with Ryanair), bag a little over, or purchased anything extra, no problem bring it on board. Full leather reclining recaro seats, wifi on board!!?! Zero charge to you. Drinks, food available at your request, no forced selling. Very polite and extremely presentable staff (In fact they were very good looking, but that in itself is generally luck, but they made every effort to remain relaxed, polite and presentable in addition). In essence, everything one would expect, the perfect customer experience at a very fair fare.
You can see where I'm going with this; I believe BFL had all the best intentions in the beginning, but in all fairness I see more of Ryanair in BFL than i'm comfortable with.
Not saying we should expect the Norwegian Air treatment from KnC, purely because they are neighbours, but so far i'm seeing more of Norwegian Air's traits than the former, and that in itself is welcome!
So without further ado...
Rocked up at ORSoC precisely for 2pm. Easy enough to find, Swedish people are very helpful by nature so if I requested any assistance from anyone, they went above and beyond the call of duty to help. Most of Stockholm is in walking distance, and as such Swedes aside from being less than unfortunate looking as a whole are generally in good keeping physically.
The same can be said for the team at ORSoC the guys are surprisingly well groomed, and fit for geeks, that said there is no doubting their tech know how which we will cover in a sec.
Present from ORSoC were; CTO, Marcus Erlandsson, who is pretty much the brains behind our future mining devices. He's kept out of any of the day to day business aspects on purpose. A perfectionist, who to be honest will never be happy with Saturn or Jupiter (well certainly not the first revision – more on that later). The issue here is he loves to tinker, pure engineer through and through. Actually ****ing hilarious to share banter with, he has plenty of amusing anecdotes and proof of other ORSoC work and that of his own devising. His entire house is 'Bond lair' of automation, and security controlled from software he wrote for his 'droid phone. He sits and configured his house lighting from his hands, serving no purpose other than to wind his wife up when he's in a bar with friends. She's potentially the only spouse happy to see her husband occupied the next few months...
CEO, Johan Rilegård, sharp, but calm character. To his disservice, I didn't fully acknowledge who he was to begin with. He was in and out of the Q&A Room, letting Sam and Andreas field the questions. He very much has a supervisory role over his team. Engineers as you may know take a particular tact to deal with. Marcus is surprisingly approachable as one, but Johan and Sam will be ensuring time is not in anyway wasted by needless perfectionism.
Others that visited may be able to fill you in more with Johan and the workshop next door. I concentrated more on what Sam and Andreas were bringing to the table.
Sam Cole, by his admission will never win a spelling bee, but for those questioning his business acumen, or sincerity so far; the guy to his credit did not refuse, or hesitate upon a single question from anyone. He clearly is well versed in business in IT. For those making assumptions for his intentions pertaining to pre-orders, pricing, or communications thus far; pure hyperbole, any of the other attendees could see these guys are totally serious about this undertaking.
Andreas Kennemar, was present for every moment, aside fielding phone calls to the KnC hotline (a mobile he has with him at all times). For those impatient many (if any are from this forum and reading this) that could not wait and had to call constantly whilst knowing full well we were trying to work through the plethora of questions at the open day. Thanks, really helpful...
That said, Andreas, by his own admission is not as confident with English as the other guys, and being that ORSoC in no uncertain terms have very specific roles to concentrate on is the reason Sam's been the goto guy.
Also worth mentioning is all are in their early to mid-thirties (at a guess), all were bright guys, undeniably. These aren't fly by night reckless wannabes that have seen a potential short-term money spinner in a Bitcoin fad/craze. They want a business, a real multi-revenue long-term business in cyptocurrency. Regardless of whether Bitcoin or whether any of the other currencies come and go, cyptocurrencies are here to stay. Bitcoin has the first mover, OG, most distributed network and for it to survive, it has to stay that way. There is no point in letting greed take over and killing off all the GPU rigs and farms and shutting those people out.
They are Bitcoin.
Almost certainly they will have reaped the most rewards, but the progression to ASIC and setting yourself up as a business is the another iterative step in legitimising Bitcoin and mainstream acceptance.
If Avalon get their shit together and make a real business out of what they are doing, develop a more efficient chip and KnC deliver ton heir promise of 28nm – 175/350 Gh/s – this September – 3 months! Then Bitcoin can only be made healthier, stronger, and more secure by increased competition. KnC/ORSoC are confident they can devise an answer to whatever any competitor throws at them along the way. Marcus is especially competitive.
He found it hilarious we spent more time discussing Swedish women over discussing the last open-day.
If any of you have chosen delivery over pick-up in person, you are mad. The women alone are worth the journey.
What you saw of Mars was it firing 6 Gh/s in the initial video and a pissed off Marcus who didn't want to be filmed on a fifth take as Sam asked questions randomly. Marcus wasn't happy he wanted to show what he could really pump out of it.
The 5.1 Gh/s FPGA stock was pumping out a solid and stable 6gh/s as promised, so Sam filmed it. Sam's not 100% comfortable being filmed either, but Andreas's is English isn't as great as Sam, who is English, hence a slightly tense and awkward first video.
Mars is now comfortably hitting 6.8 Gh/s stable since Marcus has been allowed to do some of the tweaks he wasn't allowed previously. In the interim as the final ASIC design is already being bid over by the chip manufactures to tender the job by September.
Yes the chip is going from FPGA to ASIC in production immediately, After the first prototype is made they are out the door with very little margin for error. Balls are swinging low.
Sam, Andreas and Johan fully understand the time restraints. The under promise, over deliver mantra at the beginning of the KnC main thread I was harping on about with respect to BFL's failings and other optimistic claims companies were throwing around is fully acknowledged and adopted. The issue here is prising the toys away from Marcus at a point at which they meet the given specs and delivering as promised. Hence Marcus built a 6gh/s FPGA from scratch in under six weeks, and then tested for stability before recording.
The chip manufacturer I believe is chosen today. Sam was quite matter of fact about how they aim to hit September, they have worked through every feasible route anticipating points of failure and de-risked as much as possible. ORSoC being who the are have obviously contacts with multiple PCB fabricators, and are splitting orders to ensure delivery. Everything is being done to ensure scalability is present as well. They said they can confidently handle any order size and growth. Any delays will be documented and evidence presented. They will be transparent through any delay. This is where the confusion with BFL exists, why aren't they doing this?
The Saturn and Jupiter Chips unsurprisingly Marcus is not happy with. The final design has been tested and again any risk to stability of the chip minimised. It has to work from the outset, a revision of the mask would cost an additional three months lead. Suffice to say Marcus could do so much more to it and intends to. There will be further revisions to the chip in future as he has a lot left to play with in a 28nm ASIC. This is no where near the most complicated ASIC chip he has designed.
In the interim he fully intends to blow up Mars. Hopefully on video. He's not done there 6.8gh/s is 33%. 6gh/s is 17.6%. He reckons there is much more that bad-boy can take before it becomes unstable. Whether the ASICs under-perform or not, this first revision is being to just work, plain stability. If it means more chips you still get 173/350 Gh/s in September.
This is a Formula One race as they see it. Time is everything.
I've been around some private venture capital since leaving uni and this is not all that different. It's not a bank loan, it's still private money, investors funds are not guaranteed against failure (unless via consumer protection in which you independently raise funds through those channels). YOU are paying for non-recurring engineering costs. Once that is covered they can start to make a profit themselves. They want to set the standard, their 28nm chip is the one to beat and they want competition. Scalability and automation were two keywords I wanted and did hear unprompted.
The issue with making cheaper products and encouraging direct sales to non business is customer service. That is expensive and can potentially as in the case with BFL have to realistically be large and full time to cope, or you drown under it. The concept of selling 5 Gh/s and unconditional lifetime warranty is a huge response, but they have some novel ideas to allow Mom 'n Pop Bitcoin to get involved in Bitcoin at what ever level they would like. It would involve pooling and a potential other cottage industry, but Bitcoin is turning into a professional real currency and KnC what to deal direct with guys n' gals that want to take this venture seriously.
They will have solutions in future for all pockets though. It's about distributing and securing the network with as many parties as possible.
Incidentally server farms and hosting fees are still being negotiated. There are costs associated required w.r.t. amount of management they determine is needed to limit downtime. These have been looked at across the north of Sweden (no problem of it overheating there!), and I think I heard Norway. Pretty sure this bit is recorded so will come across that later.
So what did I take from this? I'm aware of the risks, but there is no way I believe these guys aren't sincerely attempting to develop an ASIC miner to the best of their abilities.
Also, although I have not yet met any other parties involved in the ASIC dev race in person, so cannot speak for their skills they individually bring to the table, but ORSoC are the real deal and exceptionally smart.
Sam and Andreas are definitely well versed and capable in tech and business. Stockholm is one of the best places for this tech project to take place, they have so much of it on their doorstep. They are already ahead of where they have stated they will be at this point. Mars is an ongoing test unit of what can now be expected in future.
Would I tell you to bet the farm on them? Never. Would I personally advise getting into debt over this right now? Nope. I am definitely more confident for attending. I have an order for Jupiter which I can afford.
The big issues for me is timing with respect to ROI and competition, known and unknown and the future price of Bitcoin. I don't doubt KnC will give me a miner for my money, I wish some people with similar visions of Bitcoin would put as much effort in designing products and services that utilise the coin as a currency. There are huge returns there for those that encourage and create opportunity for Bitcoin expenditure.
The guys attending with me were all bright guys as well, they were equally impressed and I can understand why last weeks attendees were content. If i'm honest as long as you understand this for what it is; an educated gamble on both an engineering firm with vast contacts creating a product that rewards your investment, and energy expenditure, whilst participating in a fair alternative to known currency, believing it has a realistic chance of mainstream adoption, at some future point in time, or at least so that the network is able to extend itself geographically within the hands of as many individuals as possible, and exist. There are many unknowns there, but these are certainly interesting times.
Whether i'm confident enough to buy more than one, i'm debating. I would sooner consider working on this project with them. I studied in a relevant discipline and every thing about this, and Bitcoin I feel has legs. London hasn't offered anything inline with what I studied, or Bitcoin. There is ample financial fiat fraud there. The wannabe tech hub of east London talks a good game, but the talent is in Cambridge. I'm surprised no one is on the case there. I'm surprised someone is not all over my Uni's facilities. I'm astounded Germany isn't offering solutions to mining aside the more respected DIYers. Sweden is no surprise to me.
This is not some scam firm supposedly operating out of Lebanon glueing components onto sawn off ATX boards called Cedartec, or an entire rooms worth of Liquid Nitrogen cooling packed into a 2 foot cube, by the name of Cryonics. It is not a successive change of hands with multiple instances of trust with unknowns in the current DIY minefield. It's not genuine competition needing to hire engineering consultants who are motivated by hourly fees and have no direct desire to see this project or Bitcoin itself survive.
This is a real FPGA and ASIC engineering firm with vested interest in seeing this and Bitcoin succeed long term dedicated to working on board the entire time and they have superstar talent.
I mean if this all worked out and Bitcoin became an accepted means of storing wealth securely, transferring wealth anywhere quickly, at minimal cost ad with steady growth overt time, without deflation, or for that matter an cryptocurrency, now is the time to be risking entry whilst it's still very much about to leave the ground floor. I also want to watch Marcus detonate Mars.
Note: The above is based upon my recollection and opinion as it stands currently. The bits that can be held accountable for come next when I go through who said what in order of the list other members contributed to. I haven't heard it all yet. I'll tackle that tomo.
Also in case you care, f**k me is Sweden expensive. Even considering London. To put it in perspective, going by the McDonalds index, a Mc D's meal will cost you in the region of 66-75% more than in London. I know Norway is well over double, but didn't remember Stockholm being THAT pricey. For the record i'd never eat there, but it's a litmus test.
A 500 ml bottle of water is about £2.50 everywhere. Alcohol you can only buy for personal consumption in a weird government controlled shop that opens in line with bank hours and days. So not at the weekend. A 500ml beer (they don't serve pints) in a pub was around £7. Accommodation costs no idea, I know there is some strange system of the government own all the freeholds and there is several tiers of leaseholds and sub-lettings, i've been assured that's also expensive!
Byyeeeee! (Tips appreciated, see below!
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P.s. They did say they hope all those in group shares do honour those contracts, but KnC are not liable for anything but communication with the owner himself.
They want see ideas like that in future, but need to devise away to ensure it's safe for all concerned. They have nothing to do with the current offerings.
