Date: Fri, 05 Jul 1996 17:08:18 -0400 From: "Jacob M. Parnas" <jparnas@jparnas.cybercom.net> To: Henry Spencer <henry@zoo.toronto.edu> Cc: Gary Palmer <gpalmer@freebsd.org>, hardware@freebsd.org, bsdi-users@bsdi.com Subject: Re: muliport boards - building a PPP dialup server Message-ID: <199607052108.RAA03128@jparnas.cybercom.net> In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 29 Jun 1996 14:30:28 EDT. <Pine.3.89.9606291403.B10167-0100000@zoo.toronto.edu>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
In message <Pine.3.89.9606291403.B10167-0100000@zoo.toronto.edu>you write: >> I thought the question was on what to expect from UARTS for high speed >> applications. I think Henry suggested using a local ethernet to connect to >> a ISP ethernet <-> ethernet<->ethernet WAN ISDN connection or high >> speed modem <-> home ethernet. > >Just to clarify... My suggestion is that you do not want a high-speed >application which looks like a UART to the software, at all, ever. You >want high-speed applications to come in via Ethernet, so your software >is dealing with a packet at a time rather than a character at a time. >It's worth the overhead of having to set up a 0.5m-long Ethernet, which >is fairly trivial nowadays. > >Yes, there are people who build high-speed interfaces that look like >UARTs, and they can be cheaper than the ones that sit on the other side >of an Ethernet. You get what you pay for. > > Henry Spencer > henry@zoo.toronto.edu Once again, the problem is the cost and the end result. There's no reason that one needs to handle a packet at a time. And a card like the Sportster ISDN 128 K terminal server does not load the computer much. I believe it handles a lot of PPP stuff internally, but I'm not sure. But regardless, I haven't heard of why that solution wouldn't work well. What do you get in the $1000+ system you propose that you don't get in the solution I proposed? I don't see it. Maybe if you had a complicated net at home the router might help, but for normal cases calling from home with one or two computers I don't see the loss. Jacob
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199607052108.RAA03128>