fair@clock.org (Erik Fair) writes:
> For the PC laptoys, they were all handed a PCMCIA card of some sort 
> with a very high speed serial port on it (apparently the default 
> serial port hardware on laptoys sucks), and a driver for same. There 
> is also some talk of a USB version of the modem (though I asked, I 
> was unable to get a cable from Metricom to test that on the USB Macs 
> I have at home).

I keep on looking in on metricom's web pages hoping they'll announce
an ethernet-based rf-modem so I can run it into a port designed from
the ground-up for high data rate packets.

Does any mass-market machine DMA serial-port data into memory or do
they all just require the kernel to waste lots of cpu cycles to do it
itself?

I know on the lower-power portable x86's there is a 2:1 power penalty
for running the cpu.  (My sony 505 uses twice as much power when
running a forever-loop compared to sitting idle.)

-wolfgang
-- 
       Wolfgang Rupprecht <wolfgang+gnus@dailyplanet.wsrcc.com>
		    http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/
DGPS signals via the Internet  http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/gps/dgps-ip.html