Is it possible to mine bitcoins on a bulky 1960’s IBM computer?

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legendary

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Quote from: Light on May 27, 2015, 01:53:35 AM

Quote from: EternalWingsofGod on May 26, 2015, 06:13:14 PM

According to Shirriff, the historical computer is fully capable of mining the cryptocurrency, ‘but so slowly it would take more than the lifetime of the universe to successfully mine a block’.

Technically anything (including you and I by hand) that is capable of hashing in a given amount of time would be able to solve a block and earn a reward. It's just that statistically it's so unlikely to occur that you wouldn't even bother with such a thing.

That being said, it is amusing to see a relative relic of technology used to demonstrate how far computing power has actually come in the short space of 50 years.

Somebody posted a tutorial on how to use a raspberry pi to run a full Bitcoin node. I would wager the raspberry would be capable of mining a block before that antique. Probably only half the lifetime of the universe. I wonder how many of those antique computers you would need to match the processing power of a raspberry.

tvbcof

legendary

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I would be highly impressed by (the uselessness of) a mechanical sha256 hashing engine along the lines of Babbage's work. Perhaps if Bitcoin reaches $10,000,000.00 per I'll commission such a thing. 2015 dollars of course.

fryarminer

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Quote from: solitude on May 27, 2015, 01:54:02 AM

Quote from: Amph on May 27, 2015, 01:42:55 AM

which won't change too much, because cellphone can already mine, with their quadcore, and there isn't the problem of electricity

I see you posting in nearly every thread.

Your english sucks

Your opinions are always the same bullshit

Your bullshit signature campaign is the only reason you spam this forum day and night for your extra dollar in BTC

Why don't you get the fuck out of here, your posts are worthless.

Quote from: solitude on May 27, 2015, 01:50:25 AM

Sorry bud, you ain't getting me to click on your clickbait bullshit link

Just be happy a man of my intelligence decided to reply to this bullshit thread.

You having a bad day bro? Btw the link was not bullshit - it was the full article.

fryarminer

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Quote from: commandrix on May 26, 2015, 01:45:53 PM

Possible? Yes. Practical? No. Amusing? Most definitely.

Thinking of it.. What else can be done with a museum ancient computer? You're not gonna use it to write a letter..! You'd use it for these kinds of experiments.

louise123

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Quote from: Amph on May 26, 2015, 10:35:30 AM

about 500.000.000.000.000 years, or about 40.000 times of the current age of our universe to solve just 1 Bitcoin block

yeah if the diff remain the same, not to mention that those old computers are everything but efficient in electricity terms

Well, he could create his own Bitcoin clone and try and mine that Tongue

Then he might be able to mine for "Bitcoin" or whatever it will be.

solitude

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Quote from: Amph on May 27, 2015, 01:42:55 AM

which won't change too much, because cellphone can already mine, with their quadcore, and there isn't the problem of electricity

I see you posting in nearly every thread.

Your english sucks

Your opinions are always the same bullshit

Your bullshit signature campaign is the only reason you spam this forum day and night for your extra dollar in BTC

Why don't you get the fuck out of here, your posts are worthless.

Light

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Activity: 742

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Circa 2010

Quote from: EternalWingsofGod on May 26, 2015, 06:13:14 PM

According to Shirriff, the historical computer is fully capable of mining the cryptocurrency, ‘but so slowly it would take more than the lifetime of the universe to successfully mine a block’.

Technically anything (including you and I by hand) that is capable of hashing in a given amount of time would be able to solve a block and earn a reward. It's just that statistically it's so unlikely to occur that you wouldn't even bother with such a thing.

That being said, it is amusing to see a relative relic of technology used to demonstrate how far computing power has actually come in the short space of 50 years.

solitude

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Sorry bud, you ain't getting me to click on your clickbait bullshit link

Just be happy a man of my intelligence decided to reply to this bullshit thread.

Amph

legendary

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Quote from: galbros on May 26, 2015, 01:53:41 PM

Quote from: ticoti on May 26, 2015, 01:46:37 PM

I think you can mine bitcoin with every computer system,the point is the time you are going to spend to solve just one block

Exactly! You can mine, it just doesn't make any sense.

Sort of like that 21.co organization that wants to put ASICs in everyone's cellphones to mine bitcoin.

which won't change too much, because cellphone can already mine, with their quadcore, and there isn't the problem of electricity

fryarminer

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You know, (only) from the photo it doesn't look much different than a high-end mining facility!

BTCjust

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interesting idea Roll Eyes

, I wonder if anyone has done this experiment

melody82

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This is the coolest thing I have seen all day. It might not be efficient but man that computer looks awesome. I want one! I just have to figure out where to put it.

EternalWingsofGod

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This was a pretty cool experiment
According to Shirriff, the historical computer is fully capable of mining the cryptocurrency, ‘but so slowly it would take more than the lifetime of the universe to successfully mine a block’.
If it ever did strike a block solo mining it still would time out if it had the lifetime of the universe to mine it ha-ha thanks for sharing needed a laugh.

galbros

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Quote from: ticoti on May 26, 2015, 01:46:37 PM

I think you can mine bitcoin with every computer system,the point is the time you are going to spend to solve just one block

Exactly! You can mine, it just doesn't make any sense.

Sort of like that 21.co organization that wants to put ASICs in everyone's cellphones to mine bitcoin.

ticoti

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I think you can mine bitcoin with every computer system,the point is the time you are going to spend to solve just one block

commandrix

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Possible? Yes. Practical? No. Amusing? Most definitely.

tvbcof

legendary

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My guess before reading the article was 'yes'. Someone did the exercise of doing a hash by hand so I figured that it could be done on an old mainframe. I figured that some of the intermediates might need to go to tape and it would be awfully slow, but I did not anticipate it being this slow.

Of course it would be intuitively obvious that mining on an old mainframe would very nearly as pointless as mining with a pencil and paper.

An interesting (and not very useful) artifact of some of the old mainframe designs (using core memory) is that they can be unplugged mid-computation then put in a basement for 20 years, then powered back up and continue where they left off. I think the PDP-8 was one of these, though it was, arguably, not a 'mainframe'.

dothebeats

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Quote from: iram91445 on May 26, 2015, 01:36:40 PM

one of the most interesting reads i have ever read, they could try to mine bitcoins with nasa computers too and check how fast would hey be

They could've done it, only if they have access to it. Wink

iram91445

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Quote from: bitcoincasino.info on May 26, 2015, 10:03:45 AM

Ken Shirriff, an electronics engineer and tech blogger, tried to mine a BTC block using a bit antediluvian IBM computer originating from the 1960s. Was it successful?

- Read more HERE

one of the most interesting reads i have ever read, they could try to mine bitcoins with nasa computers too and check how fast would hey be

dothebeats

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Quote from: jaberwock on May 26, 2015, 01:28:30 PM

Why not attach some ASICs in the computer and outrun most of the recent computers that have no ASICs attached to them?

The slots on that computer couldn't even fit to some of the wires on ASICS :v Also, the experiment was focused on mining with that computer alone without any mining hardware attached.

Topic: Is it possible to mine bitcoins on a bulky 1960’s IBM computer? (Read 1396 times)