:: 17-Dec-1999 05:22 (Friday) ::

Beta 9 of the Mac Client lives.

ftp://ftp.distributed.net/pub/dcti/beta/dnetc449-macos-ppc-beta.sit

This isn’t a traditional “beta” so much as a pre-release. If you find
any major bugs, we’d of course love to hear about them, but we by and
large think we have the bug situation under control.

Major release-blockers we know about are two in number: the client has
no CSC AltiVec core (hurry up sampo!) and it doesn’t properly detect
modem connections unless you restart it after dial-up. We may go ahead
and release anyway if only one of these bugs has been fixed as of early
next week.

If you find a bug beyond these or what’s currently in Bugzilla, please
add it and/or notify me of its existence.

(Bugzilla, for your reference, is at http://www.distributed.net/bugs/ .)

The people responsible for the Mac port of the distributed.net client
are Michael Feiri (mfeiri) and Don Bruder (Dakidd). They deserve your
eternal gratitude. Send it. Direct all flames / complaints / inquiries
at yours truly instead, as the coders’ mailboxes are full already.

:: 12-Dec-1999 23:38 (Sunday) ::

I don’t like posting a .plan update when I don’t have any news to
report, but I sort of forced myself to after breaking a personal rule
and making a release-date announcement a week ago. I’ll be careful in
the future not to do that.

We’re up to beta eight, internally. Nearly all of the bugs you’ve
reported to us have been fixed. There are a few outstanding major ones
that are blocking a release, though: the AltiVec CSC core still doesn’t
pass -test, an infinite loop kicks in when the client is paused, and the
lurk mode doesn’t properly detect when the TCP stack is open.

As soon as one of these bugs is fixed I’ll release a stopgap public
pre-release (not really a ‘beta’, because we know what bugs are
remaining at this point). If a few more days pass and none of the above
are fixed, I may throw out b7 as that stopgap measure (b8 is unstable).

Rest assured that there is -massive- progress occuring behind the
scenes. One of the reasons this is taking so long, actually, is that two
coders both working like mad at the client are occasionally colliding in
midair.

RC5 core news is good. We’ve had reports of 5.8 Mk/s on 450 MHz Sawtooth
boxen. The next public beta will, finally, have the AltiVec RC5 core
in it.

In the mid-term future, we’re looking at an FBA for the massive G4 farms
out there – that “Velocity Engine” is just waiting to be put to use.
We’re also considering implementing a “Send Command…” dialogue a la
Anarchie’s FTP command dialogue…

http://sine.com/dcti/send-command.jpg

Our long-term goal is to have a GUI “controller” application that
communicates with the FBA engine. The CLI would become optional, for
die-hard users who like a commandline. We’re aiming for 100% carbon
compatibility.

But that’s long term. In the meanwhile, please understand that the Mac
effort is not dead – it’s just progressing so fast that its wheels are
wobbling.

:: 03-Dec-1999 00:32 (Friday) ::

I’d like to encourage all the people sending me Mac port bug reports
to use bugzilla instead. It lives to serve you. Feed it.

http://www.distributed.net/bugs/

In port news, AltiVec RC5 support is definitely in the next beta
release. The coders are trying to get one out tonight, but tomorrow’s
more likely.

:: 28-Nov-1999 18:50 (Sunday) ::

Dan Oetting has developed an AltiVec RC5 core. Tester Joseph McLean, who
has a Sawtooth machine, reported:

“Well now, it’s working FINE and dandy on my G4/400. 4.5 Mkeys a second!
I scored 1.3 before! I’m sitting here watching a 2^32 block get cracked
right before my eyes…”

:: 27-Nov-1999 19:24 (Saturday) ::

Beta Two of the Mac OS dnetc has arrived. This version sports improved
yielding code (it runs faster in the background) and a Halt command in
the File menu.

http://nodezero.distributed.net/~vetere/dnetc-macos-beta.sit

That URL wil be kosher for all remaining betas.

:: 27-Nov-1999 00:56 (Saturday) ::

A couple corrections regarding the Mac client:

Large, large amounts of that client were written by Michael Feiri, who
independently constructed it from our publicized source tarball. Also,
it does not after all contain the bitslicing G4 core. That’ll be out in
the very, very near future.

So thank Feiri for his work – he’s a major force behind this release.

:: 26-Nov-1999 23:18 (Friday) ::

http://nodezero.distributed.net/~vetere/dnetc-macos-b1.sit

From the readme:

This is build two of beta one of the distributed.net Mac OS client,
version 2.8. These documents were hasilty thrown together to accompany
the binary, hot off the compiler, because we recognize the need to get a
Mac client out there now.

The client is fully functional. It passes all tests. It has a bitslicing
CSC AltiVec core. It is not, as of yet, very nice, nor does it exhibit
optimal performance. We’re fixing these bugs. To start it, select ‘Run’
from the Commands menu.

distributed.net has notgiven up on GUI development for the Mac client.
This release has a CLI due to time constraints – we figured you all
would rather have a CLI that works than nothing at all.

Don’t even bother reporting bugs. We’ve got an internal formal beta team
madly scrambling to weed out and fix the bugs. You willget a GUI. Soon.
It will look good. I personally promise. Flood my mailbox if you don’t.

Everyone should thank Nate Begeman (nbegeman@umich.edu) for his hard,
fast work in optimizing the AltiVec core and spitting this beta out. All
praise should be sent to him, and all complaints to me.

:: 24-Nov-1999 03:20 (Wednesday) ::

The following is a development bitslicing AltiVec G4 core.

Benchmarking CSC … 100.00% done
Completed in 0.00:00:16.30 [2,251,498.52 keys/sec]

:: 24-Nov-1999 01:24 (Wednesday) ::

Well, there she be – the new design for the web site.

A total content rewrite and reorganization is coming. Stay tuned. But
this is the look. I’m still weeding out some bugs in the new display,
and the other languages will be switched over as the sidebars are
constructed in native tongues…

Send flames, criticism, and commentary to vetere@distributed.net .

:: 18-Nov-1999 17:09 (Thursday) ::

We’re dropping individual project mascots (butterfly, polar bear,
kangaroo) and standardizing on the Bovine as our corporate symbol.

Hail the cow.

(Yes, we’re keeping the planet as our logo. We lub planets and cows.)