Agreed-not interested in an expensive bitcoin FPGA, but if it had an appropriate amount of DDR5 ram with high band width and decent hash rate that would be interesting. I would buy that with no interest in upgrading to the BTC ASIC that came later.
- disagree I'd love it if their offer remained and encompassed both. In fact the entire point of their offer means it does. It would secure their development funds, and reduce the risk in supporting the big ticket item, the monster ASIC. This is the entire purpose of their FPGA offering.
Once it paid itself off it would remain profitable for some time, and then sold second hand to a university. A BTC ASIC would have to be thrown out once it stops being profitable (if it ever gets its ROI)
- Again not entirely true, there are alternative research uses, but that certainly is something any forward thinking company needs to envisage uses for. I actually think it's quite irresponsible for companies this day and age not to hold that in mind. Reuse/refurbish/recycle are elements engineers and designers are expected to integrate into modern design. I'm not saying the companies are responsible for disposal, but they should envisage opportunities for their redundant products. Almost certainly BFL hasn't thought about this, simply they don't care; this is evident in their complete contempt for their customers.
