FPGA development board "Icarus" - DisContinued/ important announcement

[Defkin]

...
-Icarus has no dual use, you cannot use for games.
...

Not entirely true. It's an programmable device, so you may upload bitstream with game, like pong You may upload a bitstream with ARM CortexM2 processor and I saw a doom game for that. And many, many more. Imagination is a limitation. Popably it wouldn't be a problem to convert Icarus to Playstation 1 game console. Only licence is on your way, so you will propably not find such a bitstream on internet, but you may do it yourself.
Not to mention that Icarus maybe converted to useful devices such as house alarm, meteo station, controller of a solar panel with sun tracking.... and much much more.

I believe my statement was accurate within the context of the discussion. I can totally relate to pulling the PC off hashing for some battlefield 4 but cannot imagine uploading a new bit-stream on to the fpga so it can double as house alarm etc (plus the platform would be overkill).

I understand where you are coming from though.

 

[xiangfu]

Hi Reed Law

This TP-LINK TL-WR1043ND router with OpenWrt image do support USB hub.

The 'icarus-miner_20120209_all.ipk'[1] packaged with miner.py and
part of python package.

I guess it should be works fine with  new Modular Python Bitcoin Miner.
since the Openwrt support python very well. if it missing .py file. we can
just copy them from python_* packages to the router.

Best Regards
xiangfu

[1]http://downloads.qi-hardware.com/people/xiangfu/icarus/icarus-miner_20120209_all.ipk
[2]
http://downloads.openwrt.org/backfire/10.03.1/ar71xx/packages/python_2.6.4-3_ar71xx.ipk
http://downloads.openwrt.org/backfire/10.03.1/ar71xx/packages/python-mini_2.6.4-3_ar71xx.ipk

Xiangfu, can your router package run the new Modular Python Bitcoin Miner software? I am thinking about getting that router to try out your package. Also, is there any chance it could ever support a USB hub?

[xiangfu]

Hi All

I am working on add Icarus support to cgminer:
  https://github.com/xiangfu/cgminer/blob/xiangfu/icarus.c

Now it compile fine and running. it support auto scan the icarus. no needs -S under Linux any more.
but I got 0 accept.

Please help me take a look at
  https://github.com/xiangfu/cgminer/blob/xiangfu/icarus.c#L205, is this correct?

Thanks
Xiangfu

[Raize]

ngzhang,
Might I recommend that you offer an incentive for those of us maybe willing to purchase more than 1 but less than 30? Like 5 Icarus at $550 each and 10 Icarus at $520 each or something? That way you encourage people to purchase from you directly instead of pooling money to buy one shipment of 30 and then distribute once it comes in.

Or, if you'd rather not do packaging and resale, perhaps you'd be better served to work with someone in the US and Europe that can be trusted to handle bulk purchases from you directly and then they will redistribute them accordingly (thus saving you time/money)?

[ngzhang]

ngzhang,
Might I recommend that you offer an incentive for those of us maybe willing to purchase more than 1 but less than 30? Like 5 Icarus at $550 each and 10 Icarus at $520 each or something? That way you encourage people to purchase from you directly instead of pooling money to buy one shipment of 30 and then distribute once it comes in.

Or, if you'd rather not do packaging and resale, perhaps you'd be better served to work with someone in the US and Europe that can be trusted to handle bulk purchases from you directly and then they will redistribute them accordingly (thus saving you time/money)?

i know. but please let me finish current orders, i scared if any further promotions will lead to over my capacity.
this issue will resolved in march. and i think what you expect will come true and the delivery cycle will shorten to 2-3 days.
trust me, i'm doing my best on this project. 

[allinvain]

Batch 3 boards are coming soon  ?

[ngzhang]

Batch 3 boards are coming soon  ?

 

i hope they will come out this week, but still some uncertainty.

if the chips smoothly through the customs, every thing will be fine.

[Raize]

i know. but please let me finish current orders, i scared if any further promotions will lead to over my capacity.
this issue will resolved in march. and i think what you expect will come true and the delivery cycle will shorten to 2-3 days.
trust me, i'm doing my best on this project. 

No problem. I appreciate what you're doing given the difficult conditions you are working in. I look forward to seeing what happens in March!

[allinvain]

I wonder if the existing fpga board sellers are going to lower their prices now that you can get twice the hashing power for the same price with the Bitforce singles. Inaba just got his BFL single so it looks like they were for real. So it's either $599 for 823 MHs or $560 for 386 MHs. Even though the power consumption is higher with the BFL singles I think most people are going to go with the higher hashrate choice.

[antirack]

Apparently the BitForce single price is going up once the product ships.

[ngzhang]

I wonder if the existing fpga board sellers are going to lower their prices now that you can get twice the hashing power for the same price with the Bitforce singles. Inaba just got his BFL single so it looks like they were for real. So it's either $599 for 823 MHs or $560 for 386 MHs. Even though the power consumption is higher with the BFL singles I think most people are going to go with the higher hashrate choice.

 

is there somebody still not see through that trick?

[allinvain]

Apparently the BitForce single price is going up once the product ships.

lol crap..I wonder to what price. Meh, then I see no point in buying one. If the price is say twice that of an Icarus board with twice (and a bit more) hashing power yet with 4 x the power consumption then why not buy two Icarus boards instead.

[antirack]

In the BFL thread somebody said going up $100 after it's out, and in another thread it says second batch price is as high as $767. Both is guess work, but BFL said via email that the price is definitely going up.

[allinvain]

I wonder if the existing fpga board sellers are going to lower their prices now that you can get twice the hashing power for the same price with the Bitforce singles. Inaba just got his BFL single so it looks like they were for real. So it's either $599 for 823 MHs or $560 for 386 MHs. Even though the power consumption is higher with the BFL singles I think most people are going to go with the higher hashrate choice.

 

is there somebody still not see through that trick?

lol, yeah, well we shall see what happens. Either way I like the fact that your board is more power efficient. If indeed they raise the price after "launch" then your (and the other lx150 based boards) boards still have an advantage in my eyes.

[xiangfu]

the bug fixed yesterday. now cgminer works fine with Icarus. source code:
  https://github.com/xiangfu/cgminer/tree/icarus

steps on how co compile under Linxu:
 $ git clone git://github.com/xiangfu/cgminer.git
 $ cd cgminer
 $ git checkout -b icarus origin/icarus
 $ ./autogen.sh && ./configure --enable-icarus --disable-opencl --disable-adl && make
 $ sudo make install

also it works fine under OpenWrt on TP-LINK 1043ND router. the OpenWrt packages is under:
 http://qi-hw.com/p/openwrt-packages/622aa44

I am working on add Icarus support to cgminer:
....

[Peao]

the bug fixed yesterday. now cgminer works fine with Icarus. source code:
  https://github.com/xiangfu/cgminer/tree/icarus

steps on how co compile under Linxu:
 $ git clone git://github.com/xiangfu/cgminer.git
 $ cd cgminer
 $ git checkout -b icarus origin/icarus
 $ ./autogen.sh && ./configure --enable-icarus --disable-opencl --disable-adl && make
 $ sudo make install

Thank you, xiangfu! Nice work.

This cgminer works with any version of the icarus bitstream?

[xiangfu]

the bug fixed yesterday. now cgminer works fine with Icarus. source code:
  https://github.com/xiangfu/cgminer/tree/icarus

steps on how co compile under Linxu:
 $ git clone git://github.com/xiangfu/cgminer.git
 $ cd cgminer
 $ git checkout -b icarus origin/icarus
 $ ./autogen.sh && ./configure --enable-icarus --disable-opencl --disable-adl && make
 $ sudo make install

Thank you, xiangfu! Nice work.

This cgminer works with any version of the icarus bitsteam?

I am using a V3 bitstream when I wrote those code. it should be works fine with all bitstream. the V3 will return only one nonce. V4 is much better. it will retrun 0 ~ 2^32 nonce. but for now the code will only take care only one nonce.

@ngzhang
what is the format of the V4 nonces? is there some char slip them? or just  8bits nonce by 8bits nonce?

Xiangfu

[ngzhang]

any version of icarus bitsteam after V2 is compatible. at least support now V2~V4 function.
i may add some new features in the bitsteam in the future, but they will be at least compatible with now V2~V4　bitsteams.

[ngzhang]

 

3rd batch production is started. i got 5 of them for test, because there are some BOM change.



a small 1.9G rig. @ 100W

until now, no problem.

[Turbor]

Nice little tower