At 09:30 AM 1/30/98 -0500, you wrote:
>At 10:59 AM 1/30/98 +1300, Andrew Mayo  wrote:
>>Well, essentially we're just using http as the protocol, which is just
>>simple ASCII, but of course an embedded Web server is expected to
>>support a range of communications protocols, and although simple RS-232
>>is one of them, and trivial to implement, what if you want to connect
>>this embedded Web server onto a LAN?. I think you need more smarts than
>>a PIC to handle the communications. If the PIC device needs a terminal
>>server to get data, it ain't much of an embedded device.
>
>Would the Motorola MC68160 with a MC68360 make the nut here?  This is what
>the TAPR group is using as the ethernet interface for their spread spectrum
>radio.  I have no idea what these chips cost, and the 68360 seems to be a
>microprocessor itself, but if there was a two chip solution to this it
>would make a very small embedded webserver.
>
>I saw the article in the latest issue of Circuit Cellar, Inc, on this, but
>I couldn't find any indication of how the communications were being
>handled.  There was also a reference in that issue to a previous issue that
>I don't have that discussed putting a tcp/ip stack in a PIC.  That article
>might have had information on interfacing it.
>
>John Hansen
>

The Motorola MC683xx series of chips are Communication Processors. They
basically consist of an MC68ECxxx core and a few communications
periphericals (such as serial ports, PCM highway controllers, and one model
has an ethernet interface), which, incidentally are not implemented in
hardware but are actually running on an internal RISC processor. The user
does not have access to the RISC processor's code memory (except by paying
motorola to burn your code in instead of theirs). As I understand it, they
are intended for just such embedded communications applications. At least
some of the chips in this series would have enough power to run a full
TCP/IP stack. Just remember, they are not like pics, they have a standard
68000 instruction set and require external ram and rom. I am not familiar
with the 68160, but I have written code for the 68302, the baseline model
of the 683xx series and I would be willing to answer questions via email if
anyone was considering starting a project based upon this chip.

Sean

+--------------------------------+
| Sean Breheny                   |
| Amateur Radio Callsign: KA3YXM |
| Electrical Engineering Student |
+--------------------------------+
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