Simplest NIC on the market

IanSeyler · Post by **IanSeyler** » Sun Jul 18, 2010 12:48 pm

What is the simplest PCI NIC chipset on the market today (from a driver development standpoint)?

We would like to get network support in our OS as soon as possible. The OS is written in x86-64 assembly so the driver would need to be written in Assembly as well. We are trying to build a cluster of PC's running our OS to test parallel number crunching.

We want to work with Ethernet frames only (No TCP/IP) and only need a driver that can send a packet and receive a packet. Ethernet seems like the best bet to connect PC's together as it is more common (and cheaper) than Infiniband. Are there any other simple PC to PC interconnects out there?

Thanks,
-Ian

Combuster · Post by **Combuster** » Sun Jul 18, 2010 1:02 pm

ReturnInfinity wrote:Are there any other simple PC to PC interconnects out there?

Serial port. Can't get much simpler than that

StephanvanSchaik · Post by **StephanvanSchaik** » Sun Jul 18, 2010 1:05 pm

Hi,

As far as I know two solutions would be either RTL8139 (and/or perhaps the RTL8169) or the NE2000. Since those have some great articles in the Wiki and even public driver specifications/manuals. Other than that I can actually say that it is easy to write drivers for most NICs such as the RT2570, since NICs themselves are pretty straightforward (especially when comparing them to other hardware).

Regards,
Stephan J.R. van Schaik.

IanSeyler · Post by **IanSeyler** » Sun Jul 18, 2010 1:28 pm

Combuster wrote:Serial port. Can't get much simpler than that

Looking for something that can link more than 2 PC's together. I think Ethernet is only real and cheap option. So what hardware is the simplest to code for?

The "Master Controller" would be probably be running Linux. The controller will dispatch jobs to the nodes and collect the results.

-Ian

IanSeyler · Post by **IanSeyler** » Sun Jul 18, 2010 1:29 pm

Thanks for the info Stephan. I'll look into those.

-Ian

Combuster · Post by **Combuster** » Sun Jul 18, 2010 2:18 pm

ReturnInfinity wrote:
Combuster wrote:Serial port. Can't get much simpler than that
Looking for something that can link more than 2 PC's together.

Two serial ports?

StephanvanSchaik · Post by **StephanvanSchaik** » Sun Jul 18, 2010 2:45 pm

Combuster wrote:
ReturnInfinity wrote:
Combuster wrote:Serial port. Can't get much simpler than that
Looking for something that can link more than 2 PC's together.
Two serial ports?

Now you make me laugh.

Regards,
Stephan J.R. van Schaik.

Firestryke31 · Post by **Firestryke31** » Sun Jul 18, 2010 4:33 pm

StephanVanSchaik wrote:
Combuster wrote:
ReturnInfinity wrote:Looking for something that can link more than 2 PC's together.
Two serial ports?
Now you make me laugh.

Regards,
Stephan J.R. van Schaik.

Speakers and Microphones? Then even you can participate in communications! You'd have to develop some kind of auditory communications protocol, perhaps linking different sounds to form a symbol of some kind, maybe called a "word." Then string multiple "words" together to communicate data in a structure called a "sentence" or something like that. Good luck finding something existing that's similar to that a human could understand, though.

JackScott · Post by **JackScott** » Sun Jul 18, 2010 4:35 pm

Why not two serial ports? It's a plausible suggestion. With two serial ports on each machine, it would be trivial to implement a ring-topology network. You have yet to specify a parameter that would rule this suggestion out.

My vote is on the RTL8139. They are absolutely everywhere, cheap as chips, and well documented.

Owen · Post by **Owen** » Sun Jul 18, 2010 5:11 pm

Probably one of the simplest NICs to use is the ENC28J60.

I don't think that's the answer you were after, though...

IanSeyler · Post by **IanSeyler** » Mon Jul 19, 2010 10:59 am

RTC8139 it is then! Thanks everyone.

Owen, would you need a PIC (like the arduino) to interface between a PC and this network adapter? Or could you plug it directly into a serial port?

I wouldn't mind doing a "roll-your-own" network interface.

-Ian

Owen · Post by **Owen** » Mon Jul 19, 2010 12:21 pm

ReturnInfinity wrote:RTC8139 it is then! Thanks everyone.

Owen, would you need a PIC (like the arduino) to interface between a PC and this network adapter? Or could you plug it directly into a serial port?

I wouldn't mind doing a "roll-your-own" network interface.

-Ian

You could hack it up to a parallel port pretty easily and bit bang it, but it wouldn't be fast! It wouldn't connect to a serial port - SPI is a synchronous protocol, while the UART is asynchronous (as "Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter") should tell you.

Now, it would be fun to get one of the PIC32s with built in USB and 10/100 Ethernet MAC and build ones own USB to Ethernet adaptor, or even serial to Ethernet adaptor... Could do it in two chips (Need to add an Ethernet PHY - the ENC28J60 has one integrated) [or three for the serial case - voltage translation]

There are prebuilt Serial to Ethernet devices, with built in IP stacks - look up the Lantronix X-Port. I believe they do Wi-Fi ones too.

OSDev.org

Simplest NIC on the market

Simplest NIC on the market

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