Re: [ECOS] 802.11

["Lewin A.R.W. Edwards" <larwe at larwe dot com>]

>It might be easier, but not cheaper. You would still have to port a driver
>of some sort to eCos, right?

Yes, but my understanding is that from the host end it looks like an 
ethernet card, so there is little/nothing 802.11b specific on the host and 
I think it would be easier to write the driver. I understand that all or 
most of the 802.11b cards are supported by Linux and (license permitting) 
it might be possible to port those drivers to eCos, or at least use them 
for information that might be tough to extract from the card manufacturers.

>We were looking at BlueTooth, but now it seems that 802.11 would be more
>accepted and provide better functionality.

My knowledge is far from complete, but these protocols originally seem to 
cater for different markets; 802.11(b) being a wireless extension of your 
wired LAN, and Bluetooth being intended as a low-bandwidth, short-range 
protocol intended for applications that might otherwise be implemented with 
IR, but which want to take advantage of the non-line-of-sight nature of RF.

Like I say, I don't know much about it (networking in general is not my 
field). Our decision to go PCMCIA was motivated by a number of factors, one 
of them being that as long as we have working PCMCIA hardware in there, we 
don't have to write the 802.11b drivers until we officially start marketing 
the feature. So we can "ship now, write later".

Another good benefit is that if we want to make 802.11b optional, we don't 
have to make any proprietary modules. There are space benefits too. Plus we 
can use the entire working RF frontend and antenna supplied by the PCMCIA 
card manufacturer; substantial design time saved. And we can support other 
WLAN protocols if necessary (there are at least two major competitors, and 
no clear leader, so it's a good place to hedge bets...)

=== Lewin A.R.W. Edwards (Embedded Engineer)
Work: http://www.digi-frame.com/
Personal: http://www.zws.com/ and http://www.larwe.com/

"Und setzet ihr nicht das Leben ein,
Nie wird euch das Leben gewonnen sein."