RE: Ethernet Boards

["Robert Welsh" <bob-ukha@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> What are your plans for this Ethernet board? Are you looking
> for some thing to roll your own code and hardware or just
> something you can bolt onto?

Hi Ian,

Right now I'm in the very formative stages of a plan - and as far as the
"Ethernet board" is concerned I'm looking at something I can bolt
onto. Now,
if I'm right, the Ethernut board gives me more than that - it's a complete
microcontroller/RAM board with Ethernet access. If I was to use something
like the Modtronix board that Ant and co used then I'm going to require
another board to marry to it. So, in some ways, as I'm starting out from a
blank canvas the Ethernut board gives me a cleaner all in one solution (or
at least starting point, if not solution). T

This is ground zero for me and firmware/hardware development - not done any
of this stuff since I left Uni (a long time ago now) - but that's part of
the attraction. In a previous discussion with Dave McLaughlin I've chatted
about AVR vs PIC and, to be honest, right now I'm pretty impartial about
the
whole thing. The PIC has a cheaper entry price - but then again, I note
that
Ethernut board is ATMEL based.

> I am doing the former with an Atmel chip (the same as the
> Ethernut one) except I am using a different compiler than the
> Ethernut project. A different compiler has a lot of bearing
> on what you can do if rolling your own.

(OK - so I'm right on the Ethernut+Atmel thing....)

This is a cash-strapped hobby project (vision?) at the moment, so Open
Source is my friend.....

> I guess budget has a bearing here too so include that ;-)

:-D

The Ethernut board dev kit is 174euro (~120quid) so it doesn't seem to high
an entry price to toying with.
Thereafter boards are 145-109euro (100-75quid) depending on volume. Doesn't
strike me as being as particular expensive hardware platform given the
functionality of the board - but others might know different.

Thoughts welcome !

Cheers,
Rob