On Tue, 2006-01-24 at 23:53 +0100, Tomas Larsson wrote:
> > However, things change in the 1000Mbps switches, there are 
> > some that no longer support 10Mbps. It's rare now, but it's 
> > coming. Considering how cut throat the profit margin is on 
> > consumer network hardware I wouldn't be surprised that in a 
> > few years you'll be hard pressed to find one that did still 
> > support 10Mbps. Removing 10Mbps may only save them a few 
> > cents, but when you're dealing in huge volumes that can be a 
> > good amount of money. We'll see.
> 
> 
> If so, they Do Not conform to the standard.
> The standard for 1000Mbit devices state that they must be compatible to
> legacy 802.3, ie 10Mbit.

It wouldn't surprise me, the consumer network hardware market is at a
point where pennies count. I just bought a 802.11g router for $4.99,
brand new. Aside from being a regular router, it does WDS, WPA, can act
as an ethernet bridge (i.e. it acts as a wireless client) and a bunch of
other stuff that was unheard of only a few years ago. That's where
things have gotten. I don't believe it actually costs only $4.99 to make
(the store is taking a loss), but that shows how insane the market has
become.

> If not don't buy the crap because they don't conform.
> 
> The isa-controllers such as 8019, and similar seems to have achieved som
> sort of rebirth, since they are the easiest solution for small embedded
> designs today, I would imagin that a 16/32bit PCI chip would be very
> difficult to incorporate in a smal PIC and similar, but 8/16 bit ISA is very
> easy.
> However, when uChip launches their eth-chip things might happen.

The MChip part IS out, digikey carries it. I've now done two projects
with it. It's wonderful how much easier MChip has made going ethernet
for the embedded market. I just wish they brought the chip out earlier.
The best part to me is they offer a DIP version, perfect for students
and hobbyists. TTYL

-----------------------------
Herbert's PIC Stuff:
http://repatch.dyndns.org:8383/pic_stuff/

-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist