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Bitcoin mining on an Apollo Guidance Computer

217 points by sashk 7y ago

beamatronic 7y ago
In my opinion this person seems like one of those 10x people. Amazing job.
- kens 7y ago
  10x kind of implies that they are doing something actually useful. :-)
  - nobodyshere 7y ago
    From whose point of view? A mythical “10x” working at a Californian small startup making IoT juice machines isn't necessarily doing anything more useful.
    - vvdcect 7y ago
      I think he's the guy from the blog and he's making a joke
  - bduerst 7y ago
    Answering the "What if...?" questions may not be productive but is definitely still useful.
  - TremendousJudge 7y ago
    "...But when wood first yields to metal, one more thing is made: and that is the sculptor."
- cr0sh 7y ago
  Gotta agree with you there - IIRC, he's also working on an Alto, plus a Symbolics LISP machine - and I think, IIRC, he helped to get the IBM 1401 transistor mainframe at the Mountain View Computer History Museum working, too. Just looked that last one up - yep. http://www.righto.com/2018/09/the-printer-that-wouldnt-print-fixing.html http://www.righto.com/2018/09/the-printer-that-wouldnt-print... The other two: http://www.righto.com/2018/03/a-1970s-disk-drive-that-wouldnt-seek.html http://www.righto.com/2018/03/a-1970s-disk-drive-that-wouldn... But I seem to be wrong on the Lisp machine? I couldn't find anything on it, but I could have sworn somebody has been working on getting one into operating condition for a while now (it's been a slow process)... Anybody know?
  - kens 7y ago
    Just to keep things straight... The Lisp machine isn't me and I don't know anyone working on one. As for the IBM 1401, I can't take credit for getting it working; I joined the team later and help keep it running. Currently I'm working on an IBM 360/50 microcode emulator and reverse-engineering an early FPGA chip.
  - rjsw 7y ago
    There is one Lisp Machine renovation project that I know of [1]. Haven't been any updates for a while, the dates against the blog posts are wrong too. [1] https://www.orinrin.land/lispm/ https://www.orinrin.land/lispm/
LandoCalrissian 7y ago
CuriousMarc's series on the AGC restoration has been really cool to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KSahAoOLdU&list=PL-_93BVApb59FWrLZfdlisi_x7-Ut_-w7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KSahAoOLdU&list=PL-_93BVApb...
CharlesDodgson 7y ago
This link warms my heart.
cgh 7y ago
From the notes at the end of the article: "The AGC that we're restoring belongs to a private owner who picked it up at a scrap yard in the 1970s after NASA scrapped it. For simplicity, I refer to the AGC we're restoring as "our AGC"." How much other fantastic equipment of historical significance have we lost, I wonder?
- cr0sh 7y ago
  Not quite as rare, and certainly nothing like this, but several years ago I picked up an Altair from a local electronics junk yard. Crazy thing was, I must have walked by where it was stored hundreds of times over the years since I first started to go to this place back in 1991 (Apache Reclamation and Electronics, here in Phoenix). Apparently it was kept in a trailer that was outside. I never saw the Altair in there, but it was stuffed full of junk and hard to "wander" around inside (the few times I went in, I was lucky not to be bit or stung by any number of things, to be honest). So one day I was out in the yard wandering around; I turned around - and saw it sitting on a chair (I must have walked right past it). I walked over to it, thinking "No way - just, no way" - but yes, there it was. Very dirty, missing it's top cover, but otherwise all there with a ton of peripheral cards slotted in place. I went over to one of the owners of the place; he was up on a forklift - I pointed over at it, and said "I'll give you $100 for that thing over there". Yeah, I knew what it was worth, but this same guy had sold me 100 meters of multimodal fiber cable for the cost of copper, back when that stuff ran you 25 dollars a foot - so I thought "maybe he has no clue what it is". He looked, turned to me and said "Nope - can't do that. Some guy a week ago pulled it out of that trailer there and told me it was an antique. Can't go any lower than $250.00". I dropped my smile, hemmed and hawed, grumbled a bit - you know, put on a show. Then I looked up, and said "Danny (that's his name) - you drive a hard bargain, but that's a deal." 15 minutes later I had it in the back of my pickup and was driving home as quick as I could before anyone changed their minds. A sale's a sale! I went back the next week, dug around some more, and came up with a ton of S-100 bus cards - and got those for nothing as well. Every now and then I go back and look for other cards, but other than a stash of NOS S-100 edge connectors - I couldn't find anything else. I later went online on to an Altair message group, posted what I had, and was told mine was rather unique, as mine had flat handle toggles, and the later versions all used round handled toggles. I was offered close to a grand for it in as-is sight unseen condition, but I turned it down. My ultimate goal is to restore it to operating condition. I have not plugged it in (beer can capacitor would probably explode and catch fire if I did). It needs a ton of TLC. It has a full amount of RAM, and the 8080 card was replaced with a Z-80 card (common upgrade of the time); there's enough RAM to run CP/M if I wanted to. Various serial and parallel I/O cards, plus a fixed-sector floppy drive card (good luck finding a drive, let alone media, for anything short of a fortune). I later had others donate to me other cards and parts (including an interesting unpopulated 6502 processor card - but I don't know if the pinout is the same as what the Altair used, or if it's meant for some other S-100 bus computer - despite the S-100 bus supposedly being a standard, there were a few variations of it - as it goes). I figure if I can get it working to some extent, and get the test program from the manual toggled in and working, I'll consider that a success. But what I'd like to do is take it further, getting my VT-100 terminal hooked up to it, and using some kind of method to boot either BASIC or CP/M from a flash drive or something (I know this can be done). Sadly, I contacted the case manufacturer about getting a top cover, and had no luck. The company (I don't recall their name), used to make that case as an enclosure that tons of companies used for their equipment. They made it for decades, long after the Altair ceased to be a thing, long after MITS went under. I told them what I needed, and they told me they no longer made that enclosure since a couple of years prior, and no longer had the engineering drawings, either. So - if I want that part fixed, I'll either have to custom make something myself, try to find the part other ways (maybe visit and talk to people at a vintage computer fest?), or pray I run across one somewhere. Another possibility, though it wouldn't be cheap, would be to have a machine shop make me a one-off of a top that'd fit. Honestly, something tells me the first option might be the best, and in spirit with the machine itself. I doubt it would hurt it's value any.
jonny_eh 7y ago
It'd be cool if this was hooked up to the internet, with a camera pointed at it, and people could rent it for an hour at a time to play with.
ngcazz 7y ago
> Trying to mine Bitcoin on this 1960s computer seemed both pointless and anachronistic, so I had to give it a shot. Brilliant.
segfaultbuserr 7y ago
The author, Ken Shirriff, is an important personality in the retrocomputing scene, who has involved in the restoration of multiple vintage computers. As a programming exercise and entertainment (mainly, it's just about the implementation of SHA-256), he has attempted to mine Bitcoin on various platforms, including pencil-and-paper (7.75e-6 H/s) [0], IBM 1401 (0.012 H/s) [1], and Xerox Alto (1.5 H/s) [2]. And now it's the Apollo Guidance Computer (0.097 H/s)! I think it's particularly hilarious, as the slogan says, Bitcoin to the Moon! [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3dqhixzGVo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3dqhixzGVo [1] https://www.righto.com/2015/05/bitcoin-mining-on-55-year-old-ibm-1401.html https://www.righto.com/2015/05/bitcoin-mining-on-55-year-old... [2] https://www.righto.com/2017/07/bitcoin-mining-on-vintage-xerox-alto.html https://www.righto.com/2017/07/bitcoin-mining-on-vintage-xer... Edit: fixed all incorrect H/s numbers, thanks for spotting that.
- nsilvestri 7y ago
  It's not 10.3 H/s, it's .1 H/s.
- __lm__ 7y ago
  Wasn’t the speed of the IBM 1401 only one hash every 80 seconds (1/80 H/s)?
  - azernik 7y ago
    Unless there's been some editing that's exactly what OP says - 1/80 = 0.0125, which here is rounded down to 0.012
    - __lm__ 7y ago
      It was edited, before it was 80 H/s.
- derrasterpunkt 7y ago
  The AGC is 10 s/H, not 10 H/s.
- 7y ago
cr0sh 7y ago
I found this story interesting, but unsurprising knowing the author. I'm amazed he got that thing to work - but if there were anyone who could do it, it's him. Unfortunately, I didn't find an answer to something I suspect, but I don't know for certain? Maybe someone here could shed light on it? He mentions that the AGC was the first computer to use integrated circuits, in the form of 5600 NOR gates, built into custom "logic modules", each set then wired together using a backplane or something like that. But take a look at those ICs - are they thru-hole, or SMT? I seem to recall seeing pictures of the AGC - of other parts of it - and that it used a form of SMT in its construction; does anyone know if this is true? If so, would that also make it the first time SMT was used in a computer? Or were there other prior examples. It seems also curious that if it was SMT being used - that such a thing was chosen for this critical piece of hardware, mounted on a rocket undergoing tremendous strain and vibration. I would think in that case DIP would be the better solution, ideally with extended pins for wire-wrap, then everything embedded in conformal coating after test - but while the DIP vs SMT question is up in the air, I've never seen any pictures that suggest wire wrapping was used, and nothing that showed anything like conformal coating. So - can anyone shed any light on this?
- kens 7y ago
  To answer some of your questions. The AGC was a very early integrated circuit computer, but probably not the first. The ICs were surface-mount flat packs onto boards in the modules. They were welded, not soldered. The modules plugged into the backplane connectors, which were wire-wrapped. The modules and backplane were encapsulated in plastic (epoxy or polyurethane) for flight. (This AGC was for ground testing, so it was not encapsulated.) The non-logic circuitry was built with cordwood construction, i.e. the components were inserted into holes in the module. Point-to-point wires were welded onto the components on either side. These were also encapsulated in plastic. I don't know if DIP integrated circuits would have been more reliable, but the DIP wasn't invented until 1964, too late for the AGC. The Saturn V rocket contained a Launch Vehicle Digital Computer (LVDC), which was completely different and built by IBM. It also used surface-mount modules, but IBM's hybrid modules, not integrated circuits. So the AGC wasn't the only surface mount computer at the time. (Does anyone have a good history of surface mount?) > if there were anyone who could do it, it's him Honestly, Mike Stewart is the AGC super-expert who made the restoration possible. He knows way, way more about the AGC than I do.
timonoko 7y ago
Rope memory is so fascinating and economical. Just wires and only one metal rings for each word, which can be hundreds of bits longs. My question is: is it possible to construct a finite state machine only with rope memory and mechanical relays and maybe capacitors. You can perhaps raise reading voltages so high, that the signal is detectable with relay coil. This would be the first real steam-punk, post-apocalyptic computer that people with early iron age technology can construct themselves.
- throwaway2048 7y ago
  Arguably, a finite state machine is not a computer, its logically equivalent to clockwork, which has been around for thousands of years. Although I do like the sound of your idea...
  - wongarsu 7y ago
    Computers are really just finite state machines with really fancy input and output. We like to pretend they are Turing machines, but that breaks down when you run out of RAM: a Turing machine has infinite memory, a computer has a large finite amount of memory. I suppose computers really are fancy clockwork. So are humans.
    - ForHackernews 7y ago
      I think it's at least an open question whether humans are fancy clockwork or not. (Unless all you're doing is denying Cartesian dualism, in which case, I agree but so does everyone) We don't really understand how the brain works, but it does seem that neuronal integration is an analog and probabilistic process, quite different from deterministic responses in computers (or clockwork). Some people have even speculated about quantum mechanical effects, though those hypotheses are very controversial and I don't put much stock in them personally. It's overly reductive to compare the brain to a computer, and the analogy tends to obscure more than it illuminates. https://mindmatters.ai/2018/08/the-brain-is-not-a-meat-computer/ https://mindmatters.ai/2018/08/the-brain-is-not-a-meat-compu... https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-informati...
dnprock 7y ago
Super cool. I got mining to work on my forked bitcoin. I've got 5-8 GH/s using a usb miner. It was a lot of work. It's also a good way to learn about cryptocurrency. My effort is trivial compared to this.
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bdcravens 7y ago
This has to be the best description of how Bitcoin mining works that I have ever read (easy to understand and none of the usual ideology you find in usual Bitcoin writing)
- lordleft 7y ago
  Agreed - I'll use this as a primer to how mining works going forward!
- Someone 7y ago
  IMO, the original Bitcoin paper (https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf) is similarly easy to understand, and also doesn’t contain ideology.
Piezoid 7y ago
> For instance, the AGC (like many 1960s computers) didn't have a stack, so you had to keep track of the return address for each subroutine call. > I managed to get everything to fit in one bank by reusing these 16 words for multiple purposes, but I spent a lot of time debugging problems when a variable clobbered a location still in use. It could be fun to make a slightly higher level ad-hoc assembly language for solving these problems. For example SSA with basic blocks.
DenisM 7y ago
The irony is strong here - the most productive computer computer in the world, the one that's taken us to the moon, has been tasked with the most un-productive activity, that is burning energy for the sake of maintaining a ledger of fictional possessions.
- kinghajj 7y ago
  They're not fictional possessions--millions of people have them, in the real world. They can be transacted, and exchanged for real-world goods and services.
  - astrodust 7y ago
    It's not 2014 any more.
    - kinghajj 7y ago
      No, it's 2019: XBT is around $11.8k, more financial instruments like futures, trusts, and ETFs are coming online, and LN adoption keeps growing (Bitstamp just launched their first LN node!)
      - astrodust 7y ago
        I'm sure Tether and 100:1 margin trading has nothing to do with the price spike.
        fredfoobar 7y ago
        Yup, I'm sure of it too. I don't get these guys who keep claiming this Tether fakenews.
        astrodust 7y ago
        Nothing another dozen indictments and the resulting discovery can't prove yet again.
pepijndevos 7y ago
I can highly recommend the curiousmarc AGC restoration series on youtube, which also feature Ken.
atribecalledqst 7y ago
Always happy to see another writeup from Ken Sherriff. I think he has an account here, so if you're reading this, thanks. The estimate of the amount of electricity Bitcoin consumes (from a footnote) is distressing -- on the order of a small country... This is one of the big reasons why I personally will never buy into a cryptocurrency (and especially bitcoin) -- too much wasted energy. If I want to engage in speculative trading, I'll do it in the stock market.
- kens 7y ago
  Glad you liked the article! P.s. it's Shirriff not Sherriff.
- pazimzadeh 7y ago
  Ethereum is replacing proof-of-work with proof-of-stake in 2020, which should help with this. But what are you comparing the cost of running Bitcoin to, the entire world's banking infrastructure? Does this take into account all of money that has slipped through the cracks over the years? i.e. https://www.thenation.com/article/pentagon-audit-budget-fraud/ https://www.thenation.com/article/pentagon-audit-budget-frau... > "there were no ledger entries or receipts to back up how that $6.5 trillion supposedly was spent" > "In all, at least a mind-boggling $21 trillion of Pentagon financial transactions between 1998 and 2015 could not be traced, documented, or explained"
  - gibybo 7y ago
    >Ethereum is replacing proof-of-work with proof-of-stake in 2020, which should help with this. I seem to remember that proof-of-stake has been coming 'next year' for about 3 years now.
    - pazimzadeh 7y ago
      I don't really mind if they take one more year to do it if it is seamless. Seems like all existing ETH will eventually become ETH2. Is it notable that proof-of-stake moves power from the means of production to the owners?
canada_dry 7y ago
> the AGC results in a hash rate of 10.3 seconds per Bitcoin hash VS a relatively slow USB hash device that performs at 130 billion hashes per second. > it would take the AGC 4×10^23 seconds on average to find a block. Since the universe is only 4.3×10^17 seconds old, it would take the AGC about a billion times the age of the universe to successfully mine a block. Pretty mind boggling stuff.
- jrockway 7y ago
  I also did this calculation and got a different result. According to Google, one block requires 2,440,643 * 2^32 hashes. Multiply that by 10 seconds per hash, and you get 3.32176901e9 years. The Universe has been around for longer than that, about 13e9 years.
sbassi 7y ago
I wonder if this can be done in a C64 and what would be the hashrate.
gist 7y ago
You know what most amazes me about a guy like Ken Shiriff? The fact that he is smart enough to do this but he uses his brains to just scratch a curiosity itch. It seems not only time consuming but in practical terms (other than mentally) obviously worthless. (Not that there isn't a worth to the acheivement after all people spend all sorts of time on hobby pursuits of little apparent value). I have to therefore say (will leave out the 'honestly') that if I was 'that smart' I'd use my brains to do something that would put money in my pocket.
AmericanFTM 7y ago
Could he post responses on the internet to people wondering more about this weird piece of history and how he came across with that thing. If you can surf the web then it is useful!
deleted 7y ago
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217 points by sashk 7y ago

beamatronic 7y ago

In my opinion this person seems like one of those 10x people. Amazing job.

kens 7y ago
10x kind of implies that they are doing something actually useful. :-)
- nobodyshere 7y ago
  From whose point of view? A mythical “10x” working at a Californian small startup making IoT juice machines isn't necessarily doing anything more useful.
  - vvdcect 7y ago
    I think he's the guy from the blog and he's making a joke
- bduerst 7y ago
  Answering the "What if...?" questions may not be productive but is definitely still useful.
- TremendousJudge 7y ago
  "...But when wood first yields to metal, one more thing is made: and that is the sculptor."
cr0sh 7y ago
Gotta agree with you there - IIRC, he's also working on an Alto, plus a Symbolics LISP machine - and I think, IIRC, he helped to get the IBM 1401 transistor mainframe at the Mountain View Computer History Museum working, too. Just looked that last one up - yep. http://www.righto.com/2018/09/the-printer-that-wouldnt-print-fixing.html http://www.righto.com/2018/09/the-printer-that-wouldnt-print... The other two: http://www.righto.com/2018/03/a-1970s-disk-drive-that-wouldnt-seek.html http://www.righto.com/2018/03/a-1970s-disk-drive-that-wouldn... But I seem to be wrong on the Lisp machine? I couldn't find anything on it, but I could have sworn somebody has been working on getting one into operating condition for a while now (it's been a slow process)... Anybody know?
- kens 7y ago
  Just to keep things straight... The Lisp machine isn't me and I don't know anyone working on one. As for the IBM 1401, I can't take credit for getting it working; I joined the team later and help keep it running. Currently I'm working on an IBM 360/50 microcode emulator and reverse-engineering an early FPGA chip.
- rjsw 7y ago
  There is one Lisp Machine renovation project that I know of [1]. Haven't been any updates for a while, the dates against the blog posts are wrong too. [1] https://www.orinrin.land/lispm/ https://www.orinrin.land/lispm/

LandoCalrissian 7y ago

CuriousMarc's series on the AGC restoration has been really cool to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KSahAoOLdU&list=PL-_93BVApb59FWrLZfdlisi_x7-Ut_-w7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KSahAoOLdU&list=PL-_93BVApb...

CharlesDodgson 7y ago

This link warms my heart.

cgh 7y ago

From the notes at the end of the article: "The AGC that we're restoring belongs to a private owner who picked it up at a scrap yard in the 1970s after NASA scrapped it. For simplicity, I refer to the AGC we're restoring as "our AGC"." How much other fantastic equipment of historical significance have we lost, I wonder?

cr0sh 7y ago
Not quite as rare, and certainly nothing like this, but several years ago I picked up an Altair from a local electronics junk yard. Crazy thing was, I must have walked by where it was stored hundreds of times over the years since I first started to go to this place back in 1991 (Apache Reclamation and Electronics, here in Phoenix). Apparently it was kept in a trailer that was outside. I never saw the Altair in there, but it was stuffed full of junk and hard to "wander" around inside (the few times I went in, I was lucky not to be bit or stung by any number of things, to be honest). So one day I was out in the yard wandering around; I turned around - and saw it sitting on a chair (I must have walked right past it). I walked over to it, thinking "No way - just, no way" - but yes, there it was. Very dirty, missing it's top cover, but otherwise all there with a ton of peripheral cards slotted in place. I went over to one of the owners of the place; he was up on a forklift - I pointed over at it, and said "I'll give you $100 for that thing over there". Yeah, I knew what it was worth, but this same guy had sold me 100 meters of multimodal fiber cable for the cost of copper, back when that stuff ran you 25 dollars a foot - so I thought "maybe he has no clue what it is". He looked, turned to me and said "Nope - can't do that. Some guy a week ago pulled it out of that trailer there and told me it was an antique. Can't go any lower than $250.00". I dropped my smile, hemmed and hawed, grumbled a bit - you know, put on a show. Then I looked up, and said "Danny (that's his name) - you drive a hard bargain, but that's a deal." 15 minutes later I had it in the back of my pickup and was driving home as quick as I could before anyone changed their minds. A sale's a sale! I went back the next week, dug around some more, and came up with a ton of S-100 bus cards - and got those for nothing as well. Every now and then I go back and look for other cards, but other than a stash of NOS S-100 edge connectors - I couldn't find anything else. I later went online on to an Altair message group, posted what I had, and was told mine was rather unique, as mine had flat handle toggles, and the later versions all used round handled toggles. I was offered close to a grand for it in as-is sight unseen condition, but I turned it down. My ultimate goal is to restore it to operating condition. I have not plugged it in (beer can capacitor would probably explode and catch fire if I did). It needs a ton of TLC. It has a full amount of RAM, and the 8080 card was replaced with a Z-80 card (common upgrade of the time); there's enough RAM to run CP/M if I wanted to. Various serial and parallel I/O cards, plus a fixed-sector floppy drive card (good luck finding a drive, let alone media, for anything short of a fortune). I later had others donate to me other cards and parts (including an interesting unpopulated 6502 processor card - but I don't know if the pinout is the same as what the Altair used, or if it's meant for some other S-100 bus computer - despite the S-100 bus supposedly being a standard, there were a few variations of it - as it goes). I figure if I can get it working to some extent, and get the test program from the manual toggled in and working, I'll consider that a success. But what I'd like to do is take it further, getting my VT-100 terminal hooked up to it, and using some kind of method to boot either BASIC or CP/M from a flash drive or something (I know this can be done). Sadly, I contacted the case manufacturer about getting a top cover, and had no luck. The company (I don't recall their name), used to make that case as an enclosure that tons of companies used for their equipment. They made it for decades, long after the Altair ceased to be a thing, long after MITS went under. I told them what I needed, and they told me they no longer made that enclosure since a couple of years prior, and no longer had the engineering drawings, either. So - if I want that part fixed, I'll either have to custom make something myself, try to find the part other ways (maybe visit and talk to people at a vintage computer fest?), or pray I run across one somewhere. Another possibility, though it wouldn't be cheap, would be to have a machine shop make me a one-off of a top that'd fit. Honestly, something tells me the first option might be the best, and in spirit with the machine itself. I doubt it would hurt it's value any.

jonny_eh 7y ago

It'd be cool if this was hooked up to the internet, with a camera pointed at it, and people could rent it for an hour at a time to play with.

ngcazz 7y ago

> Trying to mine Bitcoin on this 1960s computer seemed both pointless and anachronistic, so I had to give it a shot. Brilliant.

segfaultbuserr 7y ago

The author, Ken Shirriff, is an important personality in the retrocomputing scene, who has involved in the restoration of multiple vintage computers. As a programming exercise and entertainment (mainly, it's just about the implementation of SHA-256), he has attempted to mine Bitcoin on various platforms, including pencil-and-paper (7.75e-6 H/s) [0], IBM 1401 (0.012 H/s) [1], and Xerox Alto (1.5 H/s) [2]. And now it's the Apollo Guidance Computer (0.097 H/s)! I think it's particularly hilarious, as the slogan says, Bitcoin to the Moon! [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3dqhixzGVo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3dqhixzGVo [1] https://www.righto.com/2015/05/bitcoin-mining-on-55-year-old-ibm-1401.html https://www.righto.com/2015/05/bitcoin-mining-on-55-year-old... [2] https://www.righto.com/2017/07/bitcoin-mining-on-vintage-xerox-alto.html https://www.righto.com/2017/07/bitcoin-mining-on-vintage-xer... Edit: fixed all incorrect H/s numbers, thanks for spotting that.

nsilvestri 7y ago
It's not 10.3 H/s, it's .1 H/s.
__lm__ 7y ago
Wasn’t the speed of the IBM 1401 only one hash every 80 seconds (1/80 H/s)?
- azernik 7y ago
  Unless there's been some editing that's exactly what OP says - 1/80 = 0.0125, which here is rounded down to 0.012
  - __lm__ 7y ago
    It was edited, before it was 80 H/s.
derrasterpunkt 7y ago
The AGC is 10 s/H, not 10 H/s.
7y ago

cr0sh 7y ago

I found this story interesting, but unsurprising knowing the author. I'm amazed he got that thing to work - but if there were anyone who could do it, it's him. Unfortunately, I didn't find an answer to something I suspect, but I don't know for certain? Maybe someone here could shed light on it? He mentions that the AGC was the first computer to use integrated circuits, in the form of 5600 NOR gates, built into custom "logic modules", each set then wired together using a backplane or something like that. But take a look at those ICs - are they thru-hole, or SMT? I seem to recall seeing pictures of the AGC - of other parts of it - and that it used a form of SMT in its construction; does anyone know if this is true? If so, would that also make it the first time SMT was used in a computer? Or were there other prior examples. It seems also curious that if it was SMT being used - that such a thing was chosen for this critical piece of hardware, mounted on a rocket undergoing tremendous strain and vibration. I would think in that case DIP would be the better solution, ideally with extended pins for wire-wrap, then everything embedded in conformal coating after test - but while the DIP vs SMT question is up in the air, I've never seen any pictures that suggest wire wrapping was used, and nothing that showed anything like conformal coating. So - can anyone shed any light on this?

kens 7y ago
To answer some of your questions. The AGC was a very early integrated circuit computer, but probably not the first. The ICs were surface-mount flat packs onto boards in the modules. They were welded, not soldered. The modules plugged into the backplane connectors, which were wire-wrapped. The modules and backplane were encapsulated in plastic (epoxy or polyurethane) for flight. (This AGC was for ground testing, so it was not encapsulated.) The non-logic circuitry was built with cordwood construction, i.e. the components were inserted into holes in the module. Point-to-point wires were welded onto the components on either side. These were also encapsulated in plastic. I don't know if DIP integrated circuits would have been more reliable, but the DIP wasn't invented until 1964, too late for the AGC. The Saturn V rocket contained a Launch Vehicle Digital Computer (LVDC), which was completely different and built by IBM. It also used surface-mount modules, but IBM's hybrid modules, not integrated circuits. So the AGC wasn't the only surface mount computer at the time. (Does anyone have a good history of surface mount?) > if there were anyone who could do it, it's him Honestly, Mike Stewart is the AGC super-expert who made the restoration possible. He knows way, way more about the AGC than I do.

timonoko 7y ago

Rope memory is so fascinating and economical. Just wires and only one metal rings for each word, which can be hundreds of bits longs. My question is: is it possible to construct a finite state machine only with rope memory and mechanical relays and maybe capacitors. You can perhaps raise reading voltages so high, that the signal is detectable with relay coil. This would be the first real steam-punk, post-apocalyptic computer that people with early iron age technology can construct themselves.

throwaway2048 7y ago
Arguably, a finite state machine is not a computer, its logically equivalent to clockwork, which has been around for thousands of years. Although I do like the sound of your idea...
- wongarsu 7y ago
  Computers are really just finite state machines with really fancy input and output. We like to pretend they are Turing machines, but that breaks down when you run out of RAM: a Turing machine has infinite memory, a computer has a large finite amount of memory. I suppose computers really are fancy clockwork. So are humans.
  - ForHackernews 7y ago
    I think it's at least an open question whether humans are fancy clockwork or not. (Unless all you're doing is denying Cartesian dualism, in which case, I agree but so does everyone) We don't really understand how the brain works, but it does seem that neuronal integration is an analog and probabilistic process, quite different from deterministic responses in computers (or clockwork). Some people have even speculated about quantum mechanical effects, though those hypotheses are very controversial and I don't put much stock in them personally. It's overly reductive to compare the brain to a computer, and the analogy tends to obscure more than it illuminates. https://mindmatters.ai/2018/08/the-brain-is-not-a-meat-computer/ https://mindmatters.ai/2018/08/the-brain-is-not-a-meat-compu... https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-informati...

dnprock 7y ago

Super cool. I got mining to work on my forked bitcoin. I've got 5-8 GH/s using a usb miner. It was a lot of work. It's also a good way to learn about cryptocurrency. My effort is trivial compared to this.

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bdcravens 7y ago

This has to be the best description of how Bitcoin mining works that I have ever read (easy to understand and none of the usual ideology you find in usual Bitcoin writing)

lordleft 7y ago
Agreed - I'll use this as a primer to how mining works going forward!
Someone 7y ago
IMO, the original Bitcoin paper (https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf) is similarly easy to understand, and also doesn’t contain ideology.

Piezoid 7y ago

> For instance, the AGC (like many 1960s computers) didn't have a stack, so you had to keep track of the return address for each subroutine call. > I managed to get everything to fit in one bank by reusing these 16 words for multiple purposes, but I spent a lot of time debugging problems when a variable clobbered a location still in use. It could be fun to make a slightly higher level ad-hoc assembly language for solving these problems. For example SSA with basic blocks.

DenisM 7y ago

The irony is strong here - the most productive computer computer in the world, the one that's taken us to the moon, has been tasked with the most un-productive activity, that is burning energy for the sake of maintaining a ledger of fictional possessions.

kinghajj 7y ago
They're not fictional possessions--millions of people have them, in the real world. They can be transacted, and exchanged for real-world goods and services.
- astrodust 7y ago
  It's not 2014 any more.
  - kinghajj 7y ago
    No, it's 2019: XBT is around $11.8k, more financial instruments like futures, trusts, and ETFs are coming online, and LN adoption keeps growing (Bitstamp just launched their first LN node!)
    - astrodust 7y ago
      I'm sure Tether and 100:1 margin trading has nothing to do with the price spike.
      - fredfoobar 7y ago
        Yup, I'm sure of it too. I don't get these guys who keep claiming this Tether fakenews.
        astrodust 7y ago
        Nothing another dozen indictments and the resulting discovery can't prove yet again.

pepijndevos 7y ago

I can highly recommend the curiousmarc AGC restoration series on youtube, which also feature Ken.

atribecalledqst 7y ago

Always happy to see another writeup from Ken Sherriff. I think he has an account here, so if you're reading this, thanks. The estimate of the amount of electricity Bitcoin consumes (from a footnote) is distressing -- on the order of a small country... This is one of the big reasons why I personally will never buy into a cryptocurrency (and especially bitcoin) -- too much wasted energy. If I want to engage in speculative trading, I'll do it in the stock market.

kens 7y ago
Glad you liked the article! P.s. it's Shirriff not Sherriff.
pazimzadeh 7y ago
Ethereum is replacing proof-of-work with proof-of-stake in 2020, which should help with this. But what are you comparing the cost of running Bitcoin to, the entire world's banking infrastructure? Does this take into account all of money that has slipped through the cracks over the years? i.e. https://www.thenation.com/article/pentagon-audit-budget-fraud/ https://www.thenation.com/article/pentagon-audit-budget-frau... > "there were no ledger entries or receipts to back up how that $6.5 trillion supposedly was spent" > "In all, at least a mind-boggling $21 trillion of Pentagon financial transactions between 1998 and 2015 could not be traced, documented, or explained"
- gibybo 7y ago
  >Ethereum is replacing proof-of-work with proof-of-stake in 2020, which should help with this. I seem to remember that proof-of-stake has been coming 'next year' for about 3 years now.
  - pazimzadeh 7y ago
    I don't really mind if they take one more year to do it if it is seamless. Seems like all existing ETH will eventually become ETH2. Is it notable that proof-of-stake moves power from the means of production to the owners?

canada_dry 7y ago

> the AGC results in a hash rate of 10.3 seconds per Bitcoin hash VS a relatively slow USB hash device that performs at 130 billion hashes per second. > it would take the AGC 4×10^23 seconds on average to find a block. Since the universe is only 4.3×10^17 seconds old, it would take the AGC about a billion times the age of the universe to successfully mine a block. Pretty mind boggling stuff.

jrockway 7y ago
I also did this calculation and got a different result. According to Google, one block requires 2,440,643 * 2^32 hashes. Multiply that by 10 seconds per hash, and you get 3.32176901e9 years. The Universe has been around for longer than that, about 13e9 years.

sbassi 7y ago

I wonder if this can be done in a C64 and what would be the hashrate.

gist 7y ago

You know what most amazes me about a guy like Ken Shiriff? The fact that he is smart enough to do this but he uses his brains to just scratch a curiosity itch. It seems not only time consuming but in practical terms (other than mentally) obviously worthless. (Not that there isn't a worth to the acheivement after all people spend all sorts of time on hobby pursuits of little apparent value). I have to therefore say (will leave out the 'honestly') that if I was 'that smart' I'd use my brains to do something that would put money in my pocket.

AmericanFTM 7y ago

Could he post responses on the internet to people wondering more about this weird piece of history and how he came across with that thing. If you can surf the web then it is useful!

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