From owner-freebsd-hackers Sat May 24 20:53:30 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id UAA06167 for hackers-outgoing; Sat, 24 May 1997 20:53:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au [129.127.96.120]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA06157 for ; Sat, 24 May 1997 20:53:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from msmith@localhost) by genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (8.8.5/8.7.3) id NAA11327; Sun, 25 May 1997 13:23:18 +0930 (CST) From: Michael Smith Message-Id: <199705250353.NAA11327@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Subject: Re: diskless hardware *design* suggestions In-Reply-To: <199705241622.JAA14984@seagull.rtd.com> from Don Yuniskis at "May 24, 97 09:22:29 am" To: dgy@rtd.com (Don Yuniskis) Date: Sun, 25 May 1997 13:23:18 +0930 (CST) Cc: freebsd-hackers@freefall.FreeBSD.org X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL28 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Don Yuniskis stands accused of saying: > 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, neat. What VGA CRTC were you planning on using? > 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. DMA is not common with NICs. Shared memory (usually controlled by the NIC) and programmed I/O are the norm. > 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). There aren't a great number of fast ethernet chipsets, and even fewer designed for tight ISA-style integration. There is, however, a plethora of 10Mbps chipsets that might suit; consider the Crystal CS89x0, SMC 91cxx, NatSemi 83c90x etc. Depending on the actual situation, you may find that the AMD PC-Net or Intel 825xx parts are suitable too. would strongly suggest chasing the SMC and NatSemi websites for details on any potential 100Mbps parts. > --don -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control. (ph) +61-8-8267-3493 [[ ]] Unix hardware collector. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[