On Thu, 24 May 2001 23:09:40 +1200 (NZST), Arnim Littek wrote:
>On Thu, 24 May 2001, Willow Schlanger wrote:
>> There will be _no_ OS on one end (the "slave" PC) but on the other end
>> there will be an OS that lets me directly program the thing.
>
>You'll buy a certain amount of leverage if you use TCP/IP across the
>link. A lot less farting around at the master end. It does mean you
>need a small OS with a TCP/IP stack at the other end. Then you start
>using existing tools, which makes life a whole lot easier, and still a
>damn sight faster than bit bashing a parallel port...
Even if the remote OS is DOS and you use packet drivers. That way, you
don't have to know the internals of the NE2000, and you have "a small
OS with a TCP/IP stack at the other end." It's kind of the best of
both worlds. AND, your setup is a little more flexible than being
hard-coded for the NE2000. You can use different NIC's: in fact, any
NIC with packet drivers.
With UDP packets in such a situation, you should get 90%+ of what you
could have gotten with your own custom-developed driver/protocol
solution, and a whole lot more. For example, you'll have the ability
to route this data, which means that the computers don't have to be
next to each other (but you still want a lot of bandwidth, so that kind
of rules out the Internet). There are all kinds of benefits to this.
Tim Massey
