Inexpensive and small RTOS and TCP stack for Coldfire

We paid about $US200 for the Lantronix XPort dev kit and $US50 for the
device itself. You don't even really need the dev kit, its easy enough to
add what little circuitry you do need. Good little device if all you need is
a serial to ethernet interface.



"Richard" <rh86@azglobal.com> wrote in message
news:3FDD3B27.19ED05EF@azglobal.com...
> Casey wrote:
> > It will sit between an IP network and a legacy
> > serial interface, converting from one to the other.
> > I have a couple of interrupt drivers to write that
> > have to respond in the 10-20 usec range.
>
> Have you looked at the several canned solutions on the market for
> serial-to-TCP?  A la XPort from Lantronix, Digi's version, or even
> SitePlayer?  The first two are self-contained in an RJ-45 jack, are
> programmable to translate your serial interface into TCP, dev kits are
> in the $1000 range, and per-unit are <$50 Qty1.  SitePlayer's even
> cheaper (8051-based, I believe), but may not be as configurable.

The NetBurner modules are ~ $99.00 each at quantity > 100
This includes the S/W license. Could you use such a module?


Paul
(I work for NetBurner)



On Sun, 14 Dec 2003 12:49:51 -0600, Casey <cclremovethispart@cox.net> wrote:

>
>Okay, I've got the classic dilemna here.  As of Friday, we have to 
>build something quickly that works well and costs little.  I have 
>to put together a software solution for a small quantity (300) 
>product using a Coldfire 5282.  
>
>It will sit between an IP network and a legacy serial interface, 
>converting from one to the other.  I have a couple of interrupt 
>drivers to write that have to respond in the 10-20 usec range.  For 
>cost reasons, the software footprint is restrained to the internal 
>5282 memory only (512k flash, 64k ram).
>
>Netburner looks good, but $24.5k is way too steep for this 
>inexpensive product.  ThreadX and NetX are the same price. 
>RTXC Quadros is either free for a limited version, $17.5 or $31k.  
>Obviously the free version is attractive, but not sure it will do 
>what we need.  I'm looking at Sciopta right now.
>
>Enough rambling.  Any opinions or ideas are welcome.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Casey
>
>

pbreed said...
> 
> The NetBurner modules are ~ $99.00 each at quantity > 100
> This includes the S/W license. Could you use such a module?

Unfortunately, no.  I did look at your modules as a possible 
solution, but unfortunately we have some hardware and cost 
requirements that won't allow that approach.  Your module licensing 
scheme is a good one and I hope it works for others.

> Paul
> (I work for NetBurner)

Thanks for the suggestion and the disclosure.



Casey

Casey wrote:

> Jan Dubiec said...
> 
>>On Sun, 14 Dec 2003 12:49:51 -0600, Casey <cclremovethispart@cox.net> wrote:
>>[.....]
>>
>>>It will sit between an IP network and a legacy serial interface, 
>>>converting from one to the other.  I have a couple of interrupt 
>>>drivers to write that have to respond in the 10-20 usec range.  For 
>>>cost reasons, the software footprint is restrained to the internal 
>>>5282 memory only (512k flash, 64k ram).
>>
>>Have you considered Nut/OS (www.ethernut.de)? It is simple, has small
>>memory footprint, its sources are pretty well commented and it's free
>>(BSD like licence). It is based on cooperative multitasking model but
>>IMO it shouldn't be a problem in your application. It runs on AVR's
>>although you should be able to port it to Coldfire in 4-5 days.
> 
> 
> Thanks for the suggestion.  I'll take a look.
> 

I missed this thread, so may be I'm a bit late.

Porting in 4-5 days may be possible, but Nut/OS is very much
8-bit oriented, producing a lot of overhead for 16/32 bit CPUs.

We've started porting Nut/OS to the ARM platform, which will
include removing the 8-bit dependancies, but this may take
weeks or months to become perfect. Anyway, there's an
increasing interest in a  Coldfire port. You may contact Erik
at lins dot de.

Regards,
Harald


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