Date: Sat, 24 May 1997 21:31:22 +0300 (EEST) From: Narvi <narvi@haldjas.folklore.ee> To: Don Yuniskis <dgy@rtd.com> Cc: FreeBSD hackers <freebsd-hackers@freefall.FreeBSD.org> Subject: Re: diskless hardware *design* suggestions Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.96.970524200231.7317A-100000@haldjas.folklore.ee> In-Reply-To: <199705241622.JAA14984@seagull.rtd.com>
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On Sat, 24 May 1997, Don Yuniskis wrote: > Greetings! > I'm hacking together an SC400 (486/66 PC on a chip) based design > and would like that design to serve double duty as the core of an > FBSD-based diskless system (e.g., a small X-terminal). Hey, you get to write the BIOS! :-) Unless, of course you opt to use one distributed by AMD with the evaluation board. > Unfortunately, none of the x86 MCU's are particularly > tolerant of external bus masters. And, sharing memory tends to > clutter these designs quickly. So, DMA is the only *painless* > way to interface to the core. > As such, are there any good suggestions for NIC's that would > fit well in this architecture? Preferably fast ethernet? Very > high integration is desirable to keep the size of the box down to > a minimum (i.e. PC/104 form factor). I am not sure if Fast ethernet is very usable with a 486/66 and no bus mastering. But take a look at the SMC FEAST controller (91C100), it has 32/16 bit bus support and is not meant specificly for PCI (actually, VL is even mentioned). For 10 Mbit ethernet SMC also makes single-chip thingies with direct ISA interface (91c94 - 91c96). They have 4.5KB RAM on-board (dynamically allocated, in which upto 18 packets may be stored at a time). There even seems to be enough information for writing a driver. Sander > Thx! > --don >
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