Watch what you say on the alpha-t forums. You will get kicked off if you don't totally kiss their ass or pay homage to them as the Great Leader.
Anyhow, I get kicked off their forums and my order for a Viper is now ON HOLD. I dunno exactly where I went wrong:
1. When I questioned Flutz's announcements on BOTH an Ethernet and a USB connection to the Viper miner? I said both are mutually exclusive ---if you have an ethernet, that means there is an internal controller. If you have a USB connection, that means an external controller is needed be it a netbook, desktop, raspi, beaglebone etc. Why would a miner have both? It is either an ethernet or usb. Did my asking the obvious get me kicked off?
Guys, please be reasonable. The situation is obvious. Product is about to be shipped within 45 days. Yesterday you got the information that there will be no LCD or other unique features that were promised. Hashing speed is changed again. How it is possible that such a changes can be made last minute? What about manufactured already cases? This is not possible.
What is possible in my opinion is followng scenario:
1. Alpha tried but failed to design and produce working chips. Once they have written on the forum discussion "Call us a scam if we don't deliver by April 2014".
2. The situation got hard for them. Lots of smoke and mirror games. Options, features changed on weekly basis.
3. Luckly for Alpha the competition managed to develop and produce working chips.
4. Now Alpha is trying to buy some chips from other company. The prices went down so much that they can still get some bucks from it. As they have no boards, no cases no nothing they announced an excuse that because users pushed them so hard, they have to drop other features and focus just on hashing speed. The truth is that they have to adopt other's company solution as it is. That is why there is no Web UI no LCD no WIFI etc. Their biggest effort right now is to re-brand the chips with their own logo and buy some box to fit the gears in. The good thing is that the customer may still get some kind of equipment and maybe even be happy of it.
Another option, bad one, is that delivery will be much more late or there will be no delivery at all.
Talk about reasonable, if you only list negative things, that is all we see.
They cut some features, why? To save costs for giving us more hashing power. How much more? Originally a 5Mh unit is now MINIMUM of 50! I can lose the LCD screen and WiFi, but the Gui is a bit important and they put that back in.
1. They have demonstrated a working chip design via an fpga. Designing this chip is no longer rocket science. Just a matter of getting them made. The company is Dexcel Designs - a very trustworthy company. Alpha isn't doing all the work.
2. Smoke and mirrors? No, that is an accusation. They are on schedule and increasing hashing power to match. KNC seems to now be off track.
3. Luckily? Hey, if so, as I alluded to, it shows it's not rocket science to make the chips. They have been in design for many months now.
4. You have no evidence here regarding chips, just more blank less accusations. What a load of garbage and conjecture regarding why no LC and Wifi - the Web UI is back! Rebranding, lol.
Great first post.