BANNED miner USB protocol?

[jasongullickson]

This may be the wrong place to ask about this, but I've seen a few BANNED hardware projects from Adafruit so I thought I'd give it a shot :)

I want to use BANNED mining hardware for other hashing purposes. I did some poking around on the net but I can't seem to find any info about the protocol/API for this hardware (perhaps there's no standard?).

If you're aware of any sort of info on this any pointers are appreciated. If not, perhaps a recommendation for sniffing/reverse-engineering USB in general that I could use to figure this out by watching the thing in action?

Thanks!


- Jason

[adafruit_support_mike]

We don't make BANNED miners so I can't give you any specifics, but they're generally made from FPGAs.

If you aren't familiar with those, they're basically programmable hardware. The chip contains a huge number of basic logic gates and an array of programmable connections between them. By feeding a connection map into the chip, you literally design a hardware system.

FPGAs have the advantage that they don't need to run code in order to do their job. They occupy more or less the same ecological niche as ASICs (application-specific ICs) like the ones that run calculators, timers, or more complicated tasks like BANNED mining. Since the application logic has been reduced to the hardware layer, rather than being abstracted in code, FPGAs can run blisteringly fast. They also don't have to deal with all the "I need 10 bits but this is an 8-bit processor" issues associated with microprocessors.

Look at the miner's chip markings and see if you can find a datasheet for it. That will give you the most information about how to repurpose it.

[jasongullickson]

Thanks for the reply Mike,

The miner I have on-hand is an ASIC, but what I'm really looking for is how to talk to the unit over USB. Somehow the mining software on the host machine (in my case, cminer) talk to the ASIC over USB, sending it work and receiving results. I'm wondering if I can use the device to hash things other than BANNED blockchain stuff, so I'm trying to figure out what that conversation over USB is (perhaps a simple serial conversation, etc.).

Do you know of something that I could put in-line between the host computer and the miner to monitor the conversation, akin to using a packet sniffer on a network link?

Thanks!


- Jaosn

[adafruit_support_mike]

The Beagle USB analyzer might be able to give you more information: https://www.adafruit.com/products/708

Check the documentation carefully though: the one we sell can handle Low-Speed and Full-Speed, but can't do High-Speed. There's another unit that can handle High-Speed, but you'll need to get that from the makers (linked on the product page).