Re: Hardware .vs. software?

["chefren" <chefren@pi.net>]

On  5 May 98 at 10:54, Philip Ronzone wrote:

>   > A simple form of what Andy Grove called Native Signal
>   > Processing that comes into use on a few unexpected points
>   > in our last designs. In a small new design it gives us an
>   > unexpected 10% price reduction on hardware. For $2.50 we
>   > buy a CPU that's twice as fast and only need stupid driver
>   > IC's instead of the $10 for two costly highly integrated
>   > circuits that others use...
> 
> By extending that logic, we can drop all UARTs as well, right?

False... 

> Knowing the baud rate, just sample the line every X microseconds.

I'm sorry to say: "You don't get it"...

The trick is to get the data as fast as possible into the 
CPU. Without letting the CPU wait for it or slowing it 
down. So a good UART has a databus interface as wide as 
the CPU databus and busmastering.

 
>   > Maybe we should start some parallel contests for the
>   > shortest BE/LE swapping routines for the most used CPU's
>   > and get the "problem" out of this world that way?
> 
> Or, we could have a hardware contest ... :-)

OK both, and we should measure in development and 
production $$$'s too!

+++chefren