Topic: CoinTerra announces its first ASIC - Hash-Rate greater than 500 GH/s - page 61. (Read 231002 times)

Testing on the public network is actually a really poor test, in fact.  It doesn't test a gamut of difficulties, it doesn't test large block sizes (most pools are only generating 250k blocks right now), it doesn't test large coinbase transaction sizes, it doesn't necessairly tell you that your devices have severe latency problems (isn't obvious on the public network with a short test, but kills you if you want to merge mine with a fast chain).

Several miners have shipped from hardware makers with firmware which had severe problems with larger blocks as a result of inadequate testing.

I'm also of the opinion that testing should generally not be done on the public network, and that any "testing" done on the public network for demonstration or burn-in purposes should be limited to small amounts and ought to be 100% paid to the customers. Anything less creates creates a conflict of interests.

But hey, in a free decentralized system no one can dictate the terms from the top down. So if we want good conduct from hardware makers we're going to have to demand it as a community, or just hope that they'll adopt it on their own to foster goodwill. ::shrugs::

In any case, great to see that CoinTerra has hardware up and hashing.

davepsilon, you have a lot to say for someone with 4 posts.  It's kind of obvious you work for cointerra, and if that is true, this isn't the way to communicate those points.
I appreciate your opinions though.  Your post actually makes me confident that the delay will only be a month.  Thank you.

A few points.
1.)  "here guys" - let's just knock the fourth wall down because this forum is just a place to hang out with your pals.
2.)  I'm not a lawyer, I am not giving legal advice.  I went to the trouble to retrieve my password so I could knock down on some serious whining over one's great foresight to preorder.
3.)  You assume they will ship at that rate of 1.6 TH/s.  I think they'll find some more knobs to turn on that engineering test unit.  Seriously, would you rather they just throw it over the wall when they are done and leave you in the dark until then?
4.)  I think one month is reasonable, which is why I said start of Feb as two months late on a "late December" wouldn't be until March 1.  From the start of development one month is a small enough change as percent of total development time, 10-20%.
5.)  If they ship under powered, it is covered under the terms of sale (http://cointerra.com/consumer-sales-agreement/) ... which is to say if they wanted to be dicks about it you'd have to battle it out over their claim of no warranty for efficiency of cryptocurrency mining and the 2 TH/s listed on the invoice.  I think you'd win, in which case you'd have the privilege to return the product for a full USD refund.  Oh great, I'm sure you'll do that right away instead of just keeping it and making more money than the refund by mining.

As for sole value relying on time - well of course a completed mining rig's value decreases everyday.  It is easy to see the lost potential of a few weeks now that the delivery date is upon us, but my point is that if you placed a pre-order you had to guess at three things - btc to fiat, network difficulty, and development time (could be infinite for a scam).  None of these were completely known, they all had error bars.  If one didn't include error bars in their original calculation (stupid) or didn't get the right terms to insure against error bars they were uncomfortable with (ignorant) then I don't want to hear them whine about it now.  I guess I'm just baffled how when everything so far has worked out very much in the favor of someone who preordered (compared to how it possibly could have gone) they would find reason to complain.  The risk looks like it will pay off pretty well still.

Good thing that 20% slower first batch was still 57% faster than the 350gh/s KnC advertised when they went on sale in June. That would be like CoinTerra announcing their miner actually hashes at 3.1Th!

I don't believe that this 1.62Th is a bad sign for max speed. They'll reach 2Th no problem. I think they're just struggling with power requirements being higher than planned. Even KnC thought they were going to require 1.6 watts per GH before they finished tweaking.

Yup i believe they are still tweaking and will eventually get to 2TH/s mark.

They are still "working" to get to spec before they ship as per their post right?

Looks like we have an ASIC/contract expert here guys.  Unless cointerra plans on making up for the extra .4TH PER ASIC then they are also breaking contract.  When did two months late on a product whose sole value relies on the time released become reasonable?

KNC's first batch mined about 20% lower than the second batch when they figured out the problems.   I think this looks a lot better than the blackhole of information from Hashfast.   And it is 1.62 TH/s higher than BFL's blades that were supposed to ship now.

Only mining at 1.62 TH, WTF!!!

It looks like there is a pretty solid update on their site.   
They have got the miner working and it is hashing.    Just looks like some tweaks to still do.  I think they should ship and tweak in the field like KNC did but maybe limit some of the "tweaks" to firmware and tuning updates (because I do not feel like reinstalling more fans).
http://cointerra.com/engineering-updates-terraminer-iv-hashing-live/

lulz  and so it begins

lurker account pops up with professional level CYA teargassing drivel

I don't know what your expertise is in, but it certainly isn't in ASIC design and I'm guessing it isn't in any branch of engineering.  Delays occur at all phases of a project.

Everyone with a preorder entered into a contract.  The terms of the contract dictate what is late and the penalty for being late.  If you cared so much about it being a few weeks late X number of months ago, you should have insisted on a better contract or not taken the deal.  But you didn't, you accepted the offered terms.  And somehow I doubt your estimates for future bitcoin value and future network difficulty that you made at the time of purchase have hit the nail on the head.  There is a range to all future predictions and anyone with bitcoin experience should know this range is pretty wide - whether it is miner development time, or difficulty, or USD conversion rate.  I would say the development time is still in a range that is pretty reasonable.  If it hits Feb without shipping, that starts to stretch the reasonableness.

You don't need to be validating real non-testnet blockchain headers to validate that your ASIC can perform double SHA256 operations correctly.  In fact, cointerra would probably want to remove as many other dependencies from their chip testing as possible.  They probably are just talking directly to the chip sending random headers to hash to test performance.  This will probably also be the way they will 'burn in' any chips sold to customers.  This avoids requiring any credential management, large testing infrastructure or internet access when they perform this testing.

Even if they did want to start testing with an actual mining application (to test the interface code) - they could more easily do this with testnet-in-a-box just as BFL were doing - then they wouldn't need to get working internet access, or find a pool to connect to.

Connecting the chips to the live bitcoin network will probably be the final stage of testing, and probably only done once they want to prove to their customers that the chip is working as advertised.

Will

the proof would be the test results they posted.
Do I really need to dig those out?

Agreed

Because they have already given us test results on the chips after a testing run a week ago.
You can't do a testing run and get a GH/s value unless your mining Bitcoins.  Don't try telling me they're on a testnet with fake Bitcoins.  

Any bitcoins produced during the testing phase should be sent to the customers.  Those are our Bitcoins.

Ok. I'm listening. I'm also accepting suggestion on how to prove that HF is mining with my machines, since that and i don't have many ideas other than issuing subpoenas to every possible supplier of HF. (public note: i'm not claiming HF to be mining with my machines).

Then prove it or STFU and stop wasting our time.

What disgusts me the most is that one of their employees mentioned in the forum on Dec 31st that they might be shipping by the end of the week!  So basically they were that close, and then a 2 week delay magically sets them back?  That's bullshit.  They're mining with our equipment and I can prove it.  Give us our machines.

only 500? i have 4 early-january-batch miners what i´m waiting...
you lucky bastard...