Monday, April 26th 2021
Commodore 64 Modded To Mine Bitcoin
We saw the modified Nintendo Game Boy last month which could crank out Bitcoins at a blistering 0.8 hashes per second or ~125 trillion times slower than a modern Bitcoin ASIC miner. If you are searching for something a bit more modest than the Game Boy take a look at the Commodore 64 which has been modded to achieve a Bitcoin mining rate of 0.3 hashes per second. The Commodore 64 was released by IBM in 1982 featuring the MOS Technology 6510 processor clocked at 1.023 MHz and paired with 64 KB RAM and 20 KB ROM.
While the Commodore currently falls behind the Game Boy there is hope on the horizon with the creator of the program claiming a 10x performance improvement to over 3 hashes per second is possible by re-writing the code in machine language. The commodore 64 can be further upgraded with the SuperCPU upgrade which boosts mining speeds to over 60 hashes per second completely destroying the Game Boy but still falling just short of the latest ASIC miners at ~18,000,000,000,000 hashes per second. Obviously, this demonstration was not meant as a practical application but it is interesting to see how cryptocurrency mining can be implemented on older hardware and the amazing rate of technological advancement we have seen over the last 40 years.
Demonstration Video
Sources:
8-Bit Show And Tell, C64 Bitcoin miner
While the Commodore currently falls behind the Game Boy there is hope on the horizon with the creator of the program claiming a 10x performance improvement to over 3 hashes per second is possible by re-writing the code in machine language. The commodore 64 can be further upgraded with the SuperCPU upgrade which boosts mining speeds to over 60 hashes per second completely destroying the Game Boy but still falling just short of the latest ASIC miners at ~18,000,000,000,000 hashes per second. Obviously, this demonstration was not meant as a practical application but it is interesting to see how cryptocurrency mining can be implemented on older hardware and the amazing rate of technological advancement we have seen over the last 40 years.
50 Comments on Commodore 64 Modded To Mine Bitcoin
Cause the Commodore is keeping up with you!
Bonus points earned @Uskompuf
Are you sure about that?
Perhaps fix it to say that the C64 was released by Commodore?
I taught myself BASIC and Machine Language on the C64 and I can tell you that the C64 was capable of being 100s of times faster in Machine Language than the default built in BASIC.
Even though I've owned PCs that are millions of times faster since then the C64 will always hold a special place in my heart for being the most fun to tinker around with. It was my first experience online over dial up on Bulliten Board Systems.
For mining it is pitiful though as should be expected. It was just done as a novelty.
1. Disappointed. Long live 6502!
2. Program would execute much faster if written native
@64K - now I know why you chose your username!
There was something very nice about 8bit and 64K memory. There was an upper bound - a perimeter - or a short rope - as to how far you could go - what you could actually program within the constraints of the processor and the memory map. Everything was within reach - including disassembling the code to work out what it was doing. I remember buying a book of BBC Basic which had been disassembled and the code explained. Fantastic learning tool.
You need to fix that...
That’s a matter of preference, I guess.
THEN we'll have 3080s available for the gaming masses.
But if they want a real challenge, try implementing mining on a relay computer. Just imagine sound when mining a single hash.
It's sad when so much effort and resources is put into creating pointless virtual tokens, with no inherent value, just to keep speculating as long as there are more fools.
Those who were fearing humanity were going to use computers to build a "Skynet" to destroy itself were apparently underestimating its biggest asset; greed. Hopefully this nonsense will end before the bubble creates a major impact on the real economy.
Now for REALLY old-school mining. Oldowan hammerstone.