On Sep 15 2004, at 21:04, Paul Jakma was caught saying:

On Wed, 15 Sep 2004, Jeff Garzik wrote:

quoted

Put simply, the "ultimate TOE card" would be a card with network ports, a 
generic CPU (arm, mips, whatever.), some RAM, and some flash.  This card's 
"firmware" is the Linux kernel, configured to run as a _totally indepenent 
network node_, with IP address(es) all its own.

Then, your host system OS will communicate with the Linux kernel running 
on the card across the PCI bus, using IP packets (64K fixed MTU).

quoted

My dream is that some vendor will come along and implement such a 
design, and sell it in enough volume that it's US$100 or less. 
There are a few cards on the market already where implementing this 
design _may_ be possible, but they are all fairly expensive.

The intel IXP's are like the above, XScale+extra-bits host-on-a-PCI 
card running Linux. Or is that what you were referring to with 
"<cards exist> but they are all fairly expensive."?

Unfortunately all the SW that lets one make use of the interesting
features of the IXPs (microEngines, crypto, etc) is a pile of
propietary code.

~Deepak


-- 
Deepak Saxena - dsaxena at plexity dot net - http://www.plexity.net/

"Unlike me, many of you have accepted the situation of your imprisonment
and will die here like rotten cabbages." - Number 6