I dont know anything about these things (not much anyways, is it ASIC?FPGA? heard a few acranims). Can you lead me to some info on this kind of thing as im very interested but dont understand how it all works etc. I want to know
Thanks
It's an FPGA miner. There are two FPGAs on the board (Spartan 6 LX150-3) and they communicate with the computer over USB. We designed this board and will be selling it very soon.
^^ With similar curiosity - I have two questions only:
1. How much does a complete kit cost (i.e. board, heatsinks, necessary special cables, etc.)?
2. Can I run the mining software on a pool without needing to know VHDL or assembly-level code?
Actually, there's a third question. Assuming that this is an FPGA board, and from the hash rate you quote, it sounds like a fairly decent spec FPGA - how much does the software licence cost in order to load the BTC Miner gate logic onto the FPGA? I don't know much about this level of engineering, but have heard many stories about requiring proprietary software to load your own 'code' onto the FPGA itself, and that this proprietary software costs an absolute fortune.
1. How much does a complete kit cost (i.e. board, heatsinks, necessary special cables, etc.)?
2. Can I run the mining software on a pool without needing to know VHDL or assembly-level code?
Actually, there's a third question. Assuming that this is an FPGA board, and from the hash rate you quote, it sounds like a fairly decent spec FPGA - how much does the software licence cost in order to load the BTC Miner gate logic onto the FPGA? I don't know much about this level of engineering, but have heard many stories about requiring proprietary software to load your own 'code' onto the FPGA itself, and that this proprietary software costs an absolute fortune.
Good questions!
1. The basic board is
2. Running the software is as easy as running phoenix or similar mining software. You just have to download the code and plug it in. Right now, the software isn't as slick as phoenix or especially GUI miner, but that should get better with time.
3. You only need an expensive software license if you want to develop new VHDL/Verilog code. The Xilinx software will synthesize the source code into a "bitstream" that is loaded onto the FPGA. The bitstream is the equivalent of a binary for a computer. As long as someone else will build the bitstream for you (we will), you have no need for the expensive software.
The best place for information is the thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=40058.0