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Bitcoin Hardware Hacking Apple Build Idle

'Mining Bitcoin On a 1983 Apple II: a Highly Impractical Guide' (retroconnector.com) 42

Posted by EditorDavid from the old-money dept.
option8 ((Slashdot reader #16,509) writes: TL;DR: Mining Bitcoin on a 1MHz 8-bit processor will cost you more than the world's combined economies, and take roughly 256 trillion years.
"But it could happen tomorrow. It's a lottery, after all," explains the blog post (describing this mad scientist as a hardware hacker and "self-taught maker", determined to mine bitcoin "in what must be the slowest possible way. I call it 8BITCOIN....")

There's also a Twitch.TV stream, with some appropriate 8-bit music, and the blog post ends by including his own bitcoin address, "If you feel like you absolutely must throw some money at me and this project."

"Upon doing some research, I found that, not only were other 8-bit platforms being put to the task, but other, even more obscure and outdated hardware. An IBM 1401 from the 1960s, a rebuilt Apollo Guidance Computer, and even one deranged individual who demonstrated the hashing algorithm by hand. It turns out, those examples all come from the same deranged individual, Ken Shirriff."
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'Mining Bitcoin On a 1983 Apple II: a Highly Impractical Guide' More

'Mining Bitcoin On a 1983 Apple II: a Highly Impractical Guide'

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  • Enough already with the stupid stuff (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Saturday August 17, 2019 @10:34AM (#59097002)

    What's next?
    News about a moron mining Ethereum on an Apple Laserprinter from 1988?
    Monero on a TI89?
    Dogecoin on an apple watch?

    What's wrong with you people?

    • Mining is the modern day "can it run Doom"?

    • Hush! Stop giving him ideas!!!

      • Ken Shirriff already has plenty of ideas. He is a very prolific hacker, and you are likely running some of his code right now.

        I knew Ken when he was a PhD student at UC Berkeley. He worked on RAID, the Sprite network filesystem, log-structured filesystems, distributed processing, symmetric multiprocessing, shared library technology, etc. He has also contributed to computer graphics, cryptography (including cracking DVD encryption), and embedded systems.

        He has contributed code to several Arduino and Raspb

    • Re:Enough already with the stupid stuff (Score:5, Insightful)

      by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Saturday August 17, 2019 @11:03AM (#59097068) Journal

      What's wrong with you people?

      We're happy nerds reading about incredibly nerdy stuff on a website billing itself as "news for nerds". I'd say there's a lot more wrong with someone who comes on here to complain about nerdy stuff.

      If you don't like nerd stuff, try following the Kardashians. Slashdot is clearly not the place for you.

      • Why oes everybody pick on the Ksrdashians? People who follow Kim and crew are makeup and fashion nerds.

        • Because they do stupid stuff like this. [fbcdn.net]

        • Why oes everybody pick on the Ksrdashians? People who follow Kim and crew are makeup and fashion nerds.

          They're not nerds in the traditional sense and certainly not in the sense meant by "news for nerds". By that meaning, the Kardashians are about the most stereotypically polar opposite thing you can get. Nothing wrong with that, per-se, I don't presume to claim that my hobbies are somehow better, but I was picking it for being well known and very far away.

      • Sadly, mod points aren't issued anymore, or I would certainly elevate your elevated remark.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hawk ( 1151 )

          Where did you get that idea?

          I was *tempted* to moderate your comment, but since there's no "unh-unh!", nor the long needed "just plain wrong", I passed on it . . . :)

          hawk

      • "We're happy nerds reading about incredibly nerdy stuff on a website billing itself as "news for nerds". I'd say there's a lot more wrong with someone who comes on here to complain about nerdy stuff."

        You forgot the last part: STUFF THAT MATTERS!

        • I love computers. I really do. Some of the stuff I've seen done on the old 8 bit micros are truly impressive. Stuff like making the graphics system do what nobody thought possible. Or a true multi-tasking OS with a modern looking GUI. Texture mapped 3d engines. This, however, is bullshit. "Who knew a computer can do calculations? Amazing! And it's even more exciting when it's slower than molasses on a January morning in Alaska! Zounds! And it could take so long that it won't come up with an answer until

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by CaptainDork ( 3678879 )

      What's wrong with you?

      The goddam article is right up our alley for those of us who want news for nerds, stuff that matters.

      Instead of exhibiting AC behaviour, why don't you grow a pair and:

      Mining Ethereum on an Apple Laserprinter from 1988?
      Monero on a TI89?
      Dogecoin on an apple watch?

      Jealousy does not become you.

      • "Mining Ethereum on an Apple Laserprinter from 1988? Monero on a TI89? Dogecoin on an apple watch?" You just inadvertently pointed out why crypto-currency is bullshit and it's going to crash soon. It's never good to have a bunch of incompatible things on the market meant to do the same thing, This was a big reason for the 1983 video game crash- because of all of the zillions of incompatible systems on the market which caused confusion. "Hey, how come this Intellivison cartridge won't work on my Colecov

    • You're a very unhappy person. Some people have hobbies that bring them knowledge and enjoyment. You should try it sometime.

    • What's next? News about a moron mining Ethereum on an Apple Laserprinter from 1988? Monero on a TI89? Dogecoin on an apple watch?

      An orange moron crashing the world economy?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by xonen ( 774419 )

      There was a story a while ago about mining on the Apollo computer.. That's about as far back as integrated circuits go.

      https://hardware.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org]

      So logically, the next step would be to mine on a computer made from discrete components, or even better: vacuum tubes, relays or the Babbage machine.

      Extra kudo's for mining on an abacus. Using a robot arm to do so would be acceptable proof-of-concept.

    • Bitcoin mining on any platform is ridiculous... as a species we have become so blase about energy that we have placed value in how quickly we can squander it.. In 100 years our descendants will look back and shake their heads at the sheer profligacy of it.

      • Or, our descendants will look back and think: "how did they imagine calculating something so trivial would work for that?"

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Agripa ( 139780 )

        Bitcoin mining on any platform is ridiculous... as a species we have become so blase about energy that we have placed value in how quickly we can squander it.. In 100 years our descendants will look back and shake their heads at the sheer profligacy of it.

        I would say the same thing about our subsidizing lawyers.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • You and your practicality (Score:5, Funny)

    by burtosis ( 1124179 ) on Saturday August 17, 2019 @10:39AM (#59097010)
    I'm mining Bitcoin by using rooms full of monkeys typing randomly on keyboards.

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday August 17, 2019 @03:25PM (#59097486)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Gee-Wiz, I'm mining scam^Wbitcoin on an old Casio digital watch from 1981! Look at meeeee! How about they put these computers to some really interesting uses, trying to squeeze as much power out of them as they can like the demo scene back in the day to do amazing stuff, instead of this lame crap they are doing now.

  • cost you more than the world's combined economies, and take roughly 256 trillion years

    First, it's either the cost, or the time. If you use many Apple ][ worth the world's combined economies, it won't take 256 10^18 years. Then, the machine itself is slow and has not much memory, but at the time developers were programming in Assembly and, sorry, were competent! That doesn't make a factor 10^18 difference, but maybe 10, at least.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by option8 ( 16509 )

      The cost quoted is in the energy consumed, not to purchase the hardware. Sorry I wasn't clear.

      But I suppose you're right. Perhaps it's better stated as 256 trillion computer-years.

  • You know, I love these guys, but they are crazy as hell and wasting their tech-lives. Still, admiration and respect for the sacrifice! And notice there is not one female. This kind of thing puts a finger on a fundamental difference between men and women: the degree of creative aggression each gender has.
  • Nice. Though the true tantalizing casino cocktail could be found here as well. Check it out, pall live online syndicate casino aus [syndicate.casino]

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