Please help donate 107 BTC for CGMINER support for x6500 fpga(0 still needed)

[hashking]

I'm offering a 50 BTC bounty for someone to make CGMINER work with the X6500 FPGA.
I'am donating 50 BTC to the devolper of cgminer in order to buy a X6500 board to to send to him so he can make CGMiner work with the X6500.  I'm 57 0 bitcoin short and was wondering if anyone else wanted to donate to get this mining software available for this fpga board.  This would be a nice step forward for this board.   If interested you can donate to

1N8qCkzjpJBP3MAqQTYMGGZA1c99SNhj8R.

[-ck]

What are they worth? If you can get enough BTC from others to buy one and send it to me, I'd do it myself.

[hashking]

What are they worth? If you can get enough BTC from others to buy one and send it to me, I'd do it myself.

They are about $580. I will donate 50 btc if anyone else wants to chip in.

[freshzive]

Is this likely to end up working out? I thought there were issues with the ztex firmware that make this seem improbable?

If not, I'll chip in 10 BTC.

[hashking]

Is this likely to end up working out? I thought there were issues with the ztex firmware that make this seem improbable?

If not, I'll chip in 10 BTC.

He said he can do it.  If you want send the coins to the address above. 

[freshzive]

Is this likely to end up working out? I thought there were issues with the ztex firmware that make this seem improbable?

If not, I'll chip in 10 BTC.

He said he can do it.  If you want send the coins to the address above. 

Sent 10 BTC to the address above. If we can't find others to get us up to the total price of an x6500, I can donate more.

Maybe we should get fizzisist onboard so he can send one of the recent rev to the cgminer dev? I know they've been hard to come by recently.

[TheSeven]

Feel free to contact me if you have questions concerning the protocol.

Basically this is an FT232RL chip in bitbanging mode, connected to two JTAG buses, which have one FPGA on them each.
Pin mapping, MSB(7) to LSB(0): TCK0, TMS0, TDI0, TDO0, TCK1, TMS1, TDI1, TDO1
See Xilinx's UG380 for details on firmware upload and basic communication.
The FPGA firmware can be communicated with using the USER1 JTAG register, the specifics of which are specified here.
Example code for accessing the FPGAs can be found here.
The old ztexmerge bitstreams use a different USER1 register protocol, which is only implemented here.
Temperature reading is done through some digital sensors on the CBUS pins, see the example code above for details.

While I would of course be happy to see support for this board in cgminer, I'm really curious what you guys don't like about MPBM

[-ck]

Be aware that you might need to factor in delivery to Australia in the bounty, since that's where I am. That was quite expensive for a GPU, but shouldn't be so bad for this board. Thanks

[hashking]

Feel free to contact me if you have questions concerning the protocol.

Basically this is an FT232RL chip in bitbanging mode, connected to two JTAG buses, which have one FPGA on them each.
Pin mapping, MSB(7) to LSB(0): TCK0, TMS0, TDI0, TDO0, TCK1, TMS1, TDI1, TDO1
See Xilinx's UG380 for details on firmware upload and basic communication.
The FPGA firmware can be communicated with using the USER1 JTAG register, the specifics of which are specified here.
Example code for accessing the FPGAs can be found here.
The old ztexmerge bitstreams use a different USER1 register protocol, which is only implemented here.
Temperature reading is done through some digital sensors on the CBUS pins, see the example code above for details.

While I would of course be happy to see support for this board in cgminer, I'm really curious what you guys don't like about MPBM

Your software is pretty good.  I just am so used to cgminer from mining with my gpus.  Both programs are equally good.  I just think this would also help the sales of X6500 board as alot of other people are more familiar with CGMINER.

[jamesg]

I've sent 10. 

http://blockchain.info/tx-index/4242331/ac9efed27a7643c5b5f9d80a17ee50d22b007551811e6808d33147e933fd494c

Thanks for your awesome work conman!

[hashking]

Received 2 10 BTC donations.  37 still needed.

[-ck]

I'm really sorry but I'm going to have to backtrack on this as I've realised I don't have the time to dedicate to getting this working. I'd still like to see the x6500 support in cgminer, so you should put it back as a generic bounty as you originally planned and open it up for tenders again.

[fizzisist]

I've been out sick the last few days but finally catching up. I agree that MPBM has been working great for me, but more software options can't hurt. FPGA Mining LLC will pledge 20 BTC towards the bounty to get X6500 support in cgminer.

[bitlane]

Kudos to hashking for getting the ball rolling on this, although I would have expected the hardware development/marketing team to at the very least, match his (hashking's) share of the bounty.

I'd have to say, this definitely sends me some mixed signals in regards to confidence in this FPGA project...... and who feels more of it.

fizzisist, don't take this the wrong way, but, you are being given the opportunity to open up usage of your product to larger farm miners who use CGMiner exclusively, due to it's network/monitoring functionality....not to mention, have a good chunk of the bounty paid by other people....not to mention, future maintenance allowing you to dump your software all together if desired.
While the 20 BTC offer you made is 'nice'....What is stopping YOU from offering a direct-from-manufacturer severely discounted unit for development purposes ?

Am I really off-base on this one ?

[TheSeven]

Kudos to hashking for getting the ball rolling on this, although I would have expected the hardware development/marketing team to at the very least, match his (hashking's) share of the bounty.

I'd have to say, this definitely sends me some mixed signals in regards to confidence in this FPGA project...... and who feels more of it.

fizzisist, don't take this the wrong way, but, you are being given the opportunity to open up usage of your product to larger farm miners who use CGMiner exclusively, due to it's network/monitoring functionality....not to mention, have a good chunk of the bounty paid by other people....not to mention, future maintenance allowing you to dump your software all together if desired.
While the 20 BTC offer you made is 'nice'....What is stopping YOU from offering a direct-from-manufacturer severely discounted unit for development purposes ?

Am I really off-base on this one ?

Yes, you are.

First of all, MPBM is not a product of FPGA Mining LLC, but of me personally. And it does support all kinds of monitoring as well. The X6500 being supported by cgminer would surely not be the end of MPBM development, and MPBM development is not paid by FPGA Mining LLC.
The only real advantage of cgminer is GPU mining support, and possibly also a bit lower CPU usage than MPBM. On the other hand, MPBM has lots of features that cgminer can't offer (yet). It also doesn't support the X6500 exclusively, but it does support all FPGA boards that are currently available on the market (except for the newest ztex firmware, which broke compatibility basically overnight without any prior notice, but this will be fixed soon).

Secondly, it isn't as if we had to place any marketing offers at this point. The contrary is true: We're struggling to keep up with demand.
FPGA Mining LLC is pledging approx. $100 to support cgminer development, while other board manufacturers (ztex and BFL, to my knowledge) don't offer anything at all.
While we basically offer a board below our own production cost, we did intentionally not tie this offer to buying a board for development, to also allow people who have already bought one to take up on this offer. I really can't see what's wrong with that.

[fizzisist]

Kudos to hashking for getting the ball rolling on this, although I would have expected the hardware development/marketing team to at the very least, match his (hashking's) share of the bounty.

I'd have to say, this definitely sends me some mixed signals in regards to confidence in this FPGA project...... and who feels more of it.

fizzisist, don't take this the wrong way, but, you are being given the opportunity to open up usage of your product to larger farm miners who use CGMiner exclusively, due to it's network/monitoring functionality....not to mention, have a good chunk of the bounty paid by other people....not to mention, future maintenance allowing you to dump your software all together if desired.
While the 20 BTC offer you made is 'nice'....What is stopping YOU from offering a direct-from-manufacturer severely discounted unit for development purposes ?

Am I really off-base on this one ?

Yes, you are.

First of all, MPBM is not a product of FPGA Mining LLC, but of me personally. And it does support all kinds of monitoring as well. The X6500 being supported by cgminer would surely not be the end of MPBM development, and MPBM development is not paid by FPGA Mining LLC.
The only real advantage of cgminer is GPU mining support, and possibly also a bit lower CPU usage than MPBM. On the other hand, MPBM has lots of features that cgminer can't offer (yet). It also doesn't support the X6500 exclusively, but it does support all FPGA boards that are currently available on the market (except for the newest ztex firmware, which broke compatibility basically overnight without any prior notice, but this will be fixed soon).

Secondly, it isn't as if we had to place any marketing offers at this point. The contrary is true: We're struggling to keep up with demand.
FPGA Mining LLC is pledging approx. $100 to support cgminer development, while other board manufacturers (ztex and BFL, to my knowledge) don't offer anything at all.
While we basically offer a board below our own production cost, we did intentionally not tie this offer to buying a board for development, to also allow people who have already bought one to take up on this offer. I really can't see what's wrong with that.

Yeah, as a I said before, I don't see what anyone is missing with MPBM, except maybe more documentation to explain the depth of well thought out and useful features that TheSeven has written in to it. I suppose I can see the advantage of using it when you have a mixture of GPUs and FPGAs, though.

I used cgminer briefly before I shut off my GPUs for good last fall, so I've definitely missed some of the recent developments there. Does it have a WebUI like MPBM, allowing you to manage every single configuration option and monitor every stat remotely, even from a smart phone? Does it have better documentation? Have you seen the simple graphs TheSeven has built using an munin plugin for MPBM (one example of this visible at http://cognitivemining.com/)? Has anyone done that with cgminer?

That said, I'm frankly blown away by hashking's pledge, but wish he wasn't shouldering the burden on this bounty so much. Since he wants cgminer support and has been loyal customer, we want to help him get it. 20 BTC is a lot for us with our margins as they are and so much money tied up in our current production run. And, as TheSeven said, offering it as a straight forward bounty instead of a discounted board was intended to be more generous than just a board at cost because one can receive the bounty either without buying a board at all (e.g., remote access) or using a board that one already bought. At least that was the intention. The 20 BTC has been sent to hashking's address.

I hope this sounds fair and reasonable to everyone, especially hashking. Please let me know if you feel otherwise!

[TheHarbinger]

Personally, the appeal for me of having x6500 support on cgminer is the ability to add them to my existing GPU rigs without having to run a second mining program, or set up a independent rig just to run x6500s.

However, it's all a moot point to me since it seems to be impossible to be able to get a x6500.  But that is a whole separate rant.   

[-ck]

First of all, MPBM is not a product of FPGA Mining LLC, but of me personally. And it does support all kinds of monitoring as well. The X6500 being supported by cgminer would surely not be the end of MPBM development, and MPBM development is not paid by FPGA Mining LLC.
The only real advantage of cgminer is GPU mining support, and possibly also a bit lower CPU usage than MPBM. On the other hand, MPBM has lots of features that cgminer can't offer (yet). It also doesn't support the X6500 exclusively, but it does support all FPGA boards that are currently available on the market (except for the newest ztex firmware, which broke compatibility basically overnight without any prior notice, but this will be fixed soon).

It almost looks like you're taking this to heart too much, as though it's a vote against MPBM, which it isn't. I could ask precisely the same question about GPU mining apps as to why people use anything but cgminer, but I don't. People just want options, and one person's idea of what fits is never going to be the same for everyone. Almost certainly, the vast majority will want it to consolidate their software with GPU+FPGA miners, but it could just be they like cgminer and it fits.

[-ck]

I'm really sorry but I'm going to have to backtrack on this as I've realised I don't have the time to dedicate to getting this working. I'd still like to see the x6500 support in cgminer, so you should put it back as a generic bounty as you originally planned and open it up for tenders again.

This still stands by the way. However if you really can't find anyone and manage to put together the bounty, I will still do it, but there may be some delay in getting the support since I'll be busy and intermittently away.

[TheSeven]

First of all, MPBM is not a product of FPGA Mining LLC, but of me personally. And it does support all kinds of monitoring as well. The X6500 being supported by cgminer would surely not be the end of MPBM development, and MPBM development is not paid by FPGA Mining LLC.
The only real advantage of cgminer is GPU mining support, and possibly also a bit lower CPU usage than MPBM. On the other hand, MPBM has lots of features that cgminer can't offer (yet). It also doesn't support the X6500 exclusively, but it does support all FPGA boards that are currently available on the market (except for the newest ztex firmware, which broke compatibility basically overnight without any prior notice, but this will be fixed soon).

It almost looks like you're taking this to heart too much, as though it's a vote against MPBM, which it isn't. I could ask precisely the same question about GPU mining apps as to why people use anything but cgminer, but I don't. People just want options, and one person's idea of what fits is never going to be the same for everyone. Almost certainly, the vast majority will want it to consolidate their software with GPU+FPGA miners, but it could just be they like cgminer and it fits.

I do understand why some people prefer some other software, and I do think alternatives are a good thing.
This particular guy, however, has asked me (or rather the company) several times now to just throw away MPBM and go cgminer-only ("consolidate"), which is of course unacceptable, not just to me, but probably to many other MPBM users. (I already had some long, troll-ish discussion with him in the GPUMAX thread, and I'm just tired of him. He seems to not even have seen some of the stuff he's talking about, and spreads a lot of FUD against both our company and MPBM.)

Anyway, we are willing to support cgminer, the company with a bounty, and me personally with knowledge and assistance where necessary.