I'm not talking about BFL, should have made that clear. But what about all other FPGA hardware? ZTEX boards have a good documentation, for example.
I'm not talking about resale either. If FPGA mining is "over", *I* would like to do other stuff with that board.
My question was:
Am I limited by my knowledge about FPGA/HDL? Then there's a "simple" solution: I need to learn about these topics.
Am I limited by the hardware? I.e. how the FPGAs are connected, how much bandwidth is available to tx and rx data from/to the FPGAs etc... e.g. all bitcoin boards lacking external RAM. Is that a problem for only a small subset of problems or is that a problem for most algorithms except hashing?
Topic: What else can our FPGA mining boards be used for? - page 3. (Read 7094 times)
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Sure, but please don't make this yet another BFL-topic 
I think there is a very high probability that by the end of the year we will see the first ASIC miners, combine that with reward cut and using GPUs or FPGAs for mining will be a waste of resources or have a ROI of, what? 10 years? If they can be used for other applications: Fine, I'll buy one or two, mine until the end of the year, get something like 30-50% ROI and then use them for other "fun" stuff, like QMC, if that's possible (and that's what I'm asking)
@ckolivas: Do you feel my question was stupid enough to answer like you did?
Simple example: the BFL device.
Yes they have said they will Open Source their device if BTC tanks.
But does that really mean you will be able to do anything with it?
How far will they go with the information they will provide - will it be enough? Will they do it at all? They are supposedly a company with 10 years of experience in FPGA/ASIC technology, so why would they be giving away this information?
If BTC tanks tomorrow, the BFL is a door stop until (unless) these issues are overcome and someone comes up with a use for it.
And just an FYI - I have 1 BFL (paid for with BTC and received 4.5 days after payment)
Those skilled in FPGA can reprogram them to do a few other things, where you are asking it to do a very high frequency of relatively simple task.
While I've not done it myself, my father is in the telecommunication and general semi-conductor industry, thus worked with FPGA's.
He's used them on more than one occasion in his line of work, I don't understand all of what he does, but he's done a lot in the field of top tier communication hardware, servers, routers etc. Building a bitstream is my latest thing to attempt, and is still a totally new thing to me, but their is some potential to reprogram them, but realistically it would be hard for most to re-purpose them.
I've heard of FPGA's been reprogrammed to work along side relatively normal webservers, to aid in doing repeated tasks, searches and fetching. They've been doing it with GPU's for a little while now, so I don't see why not.
If however you don't have any means to really reprogram them yourself, then yeah it's just a bit of a paper-weight that will done nothing much else.
While I've not done it myself, my father is in the telecommunication and general semi-conductor industry, thus worked with FPGA's.
He's used them on more than one occasion in his line of work, I don't understand all of what he does, but he's done a lot in the field of top tier communication hardware, servers, routers etc. Building a bitstream is my latest thing to attempt, and is still a totally new thing to me, but their is some potential to reprogram them, but realistically it would be hard for most to re-purpose them.
I've heard of FPGA's been reprogrammed to work along side relatively normal webservers, to aid in doing repeated tasks, searches and fetching. They've been doing it with GPU's for a little while now, so I don't see why not.
If however you don't have any means to really reprogram them yourself, then yeah it's just a bit of a paper-weight that will done nothing much else.
@ckolivas: Do you feel my question was stupid enough to answer like you did?
It was a random troll and you should have recognised it as one. On the other hand, there is a half-serious warning in it. I DO think they are realistically useless for anything else because the real market for such a board in the hand of a hobbyist is zero in my humble opinion. Just because there are other uses for these boards does not mean you're likely to find anything useful to do with them yourself.
U could write your own password hasher (cracker for them).
Maybe someone invents BIONC for FPGAS?
Maybe someone invents BIONC for FPGAS?
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Sure, but please don't make this yet another BFL-topic I think there is a very high probability that by the end of the year we will see the first ASIC miners, combine that with reward cut and using GPUs or FPGAs for mining will be a waste of resources or have a ROI of, what? 10 years? If they can be used for other applications: Fine, I'll buy one or two, mine until the end of the year, get something like 30-50% ROI and then use them for other "fun" stuff, like QMC, if that's possible (and that's what I'm asking)
@ckolivas: Do you feel my question was stupid enough to answer like you did?
Doorstop, bookend, paperweight, coffee table ornament... the options are limitless.
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...that's what I'm wondering for quite some time now (as the time FPGAs can be used for mining seems to be quite limited now with ASICs showing up).
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BTT:
Im new to FPGAS too and I'm also wondering what we can do if that "so called miracle overhyped" ASIC hits the ground.
For Ztex boards there's already a whole wiki (by Ztex) aviable.
...that's what I'm wondering for quite some time now (as the time FPGAs can be used for mining seems to be quite limited now with ASICs showing up).
What I usually read is something like "these boards cannot be used for anything else because they are stripped down to the minimum".
But ztex for example also mentions "Monte Carlo methods" and "Bioinformatic calculations".
I'm studying physics so I'm interested especially in MC, or quantum MC. I don't know much about FPGAs (yet!), but I would love to learn a HDL and write a QMC algorithm.
So... What dou you (FPGA-)guys think? Are the "bitcoin mining boards" really limited to bitcoin mining or can they be used for other stuff?
What I usually read is something like "these boards cannot be used for anything else because they are stripped down to the minimum".
But ztex for example also mentions "Monte Carlo methods" and "Bioinformatic calculations".
I'm studying physics so I'm interested especially in MC, or quantum MC. I don't know much about FPGAs (yet!), but I would love to learn a HDL and write a QMC algorithm.
So... What dou you (FPGA-)guys think? Are the "bitcoin mining boards" really limited to bitcoin mining or can they be used for other stuff?
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