new direction?

I was just thinking ?

rather than producing just one node type with a X processor, possibly we could view to problem as a stack simular to that of an network stack in that,

for example the functions (Set pos, Get pos) for a servo could be implimented on a 8 bit processor. but not much else could be implmiented or advanced processing.

but for say, well the control of these motors would require another better processor say 16 bit.

etc...

so these differn't processor could communicate on the same line(ethernet). and program via the ethernet.

what i'm saying is, we should shape the hardware powerfullness to it's appilcation.

another possiblity, is having 'none programmable' devices, so for example the servo only has getpos and setpos functions and none user defined ones. and the processing is automatically lumped with the larger nodes implicitiy

// personally i like this method, because i feel we could churn out a loud of devices using ethernet enabled pics. and we only have to make one processing node. but it also limits the possiblites of concurrent programming.

so what we would be looking at is a centralized processing with (2 to power 8)*4 devices it can control.

another crazy thing we could do, is that the 8 bit objects are defaultly 'locked' but can be unlocked by the user to allow programming.

so we would be looking at something like

http://www.modtronix.com/product_info.php?cPath=1_36&products_id=73

for the simple nodes

btw i'm just throwing around ideas, before we commit to a spec.

//nb there is source out there made by the manufactues of pics which deals with TCP/IP already.

http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=1489