Totally New. (Although years ago I was one of the first programmers - PL/1, HASP, JCL, FORTRAN4, UNIX, etc. 1970-71 on the IBM 360 (and had experience with the 1401 (vacuum tubes just before they were replaced then!)
After some weeks of exploring now, buying a Raspberry Pi for self training, trying many sites I am here now at Bitminter.com with a Windows XP SP2 machine running the Bitminter client, and an ANKER Hub with one stick going (finally!) After reading the specs of the CP2102 chip and then finding the http:/www,ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm site and downloading the Icarus driver I finally got the one stick to work in the new hub. (Working now at 325 Mhps). As we used to say in the day when the main IBM 360 computer at AO Smith where I worked had only 11 kb of memory in it!! "I pushed a line through".
So, at 350 Mhps I am now at least "In the game", but tiny tiny tiny, and frankly you newer younger people are way smarter programmers than we were. (But then we were cutting the tree line back,
hard work with many coke cans and late nights and "blatties" on the desk tops.
REQUEST HELP: I am having trouble though getting the other four sticks to work in this hub (a "9 hole" w/ fan) when I add them to the hub. (Hub is powered 5 v, 3.5 amps capacity running as USB 2, but it is a 3)
I would like to get in touch with a stick miner who has time for a newbie. When I put them in the hub they show up in the device manager as ports (most of them, with one always seemingly trying to be a "duplicate port" and not working with an exclamation point because it is duplicating another com port I can not find). The bitminter client is not picking up on all these sticks when "probing all" is tried.
I like the idea of a pool with its own minter. I am looking at the Bitcoin for the long haul (very long).
My career was in top level management consulting and I know there are four stages of development:
formulation /
concentration /
momentum /
maturity, and Bitcoin is not really even started yet!
Pools are important and will eventually drive out single operators. They are the new "banks" with the members being volunteer members of the staff who have a stake in pool success and showing they have the positions they deserve by their "productivity". I am aware that in this pool the PC is totally open to the sysop. Fine with me. Eventually there won't be any personal stuff in my miner anyway. But TRUST inside the pool is important.
This is a transformation the world has been waiting for for the last 500 years. This is time to jump in make a strong commitment to the pool, and make it a strong pool. There will be shake outs ahead, Pools with strong teams will win in those shake outs. Sort of like a new banking industry of a sort is growing up. I love the concept of members competing with each other for speed and efficiency.
And if I have the right figures in hand with only 11 million BTC produced to date, and the number of BTC that must be getting "lost" in system crashes, security issues, and negligence, and all the newbie mistakes being made daily, there is a lot of mining "upside" in view. I do not "buy" that the day is almost "over". I see it as barely daybreak of the first day with about 500 years ahead! (Things will change again in AD 2500)
Barriers to entry are stiff, mainly knowledge. I wrote up my initial try and small first success in first post. This is number 2. If there is a stick miner out there who is ahead of me (but not so far ahead I would be wasting his time) I would like to develop a email link up with you. Mission: build as fast as possible upon success, not "jumping" to light speed for "bucks" before "understanding" is there along with the performance. My email is
[email protected], name is "Rick"
Good to be here. I will keep reading meanwhile looking for stick miners.
R