10Mbit Ethernet isn't really that far outside the capabilities of today's microcontrollers. In fact, a lot of these uCs regularly push out 10Mbit SPI aka 10MHz.
Its still impressive of course, for the level of effort to properly create Ethernet frames. But there's a reason why various Ethernet protocols are creeping up upon CANbus. People are realizing that these cheap $1 to $5 uCs actually have the compute power for 10Mbit Ethernet, and can talk full-on socket programming.
I don't know when this realization started exactly, but more-and-more "low power Ethernet" options appear on the market, hoping to dethrone CANbus.
Technically all of these protocols are bit-banging once you get low enough in the stack -- it's just that the PIO is particularly well tuned for arbitrary protocol implementation.
FWIW, I believe there is a real bit-banged ethernet stack on Atmel.
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Bit-banging Ethernet, now that is something I'd never thought to see.
10Mbit Ethernet isn't really that far outside the capabilities of today's microcontrollers. In fact, a lot of these uCs regularly push out 10Mbit SPI aka 10MHz.
Its still impressive of course, for the level of effort to properly create Ethernet frames. But there's a reason why various Ethernet protocols are creeping up upon CANbus. People are realizing that these cheap $1 to $5 uCs actually have the compute power for 10Mbit Ethernet, and can talk full-on socket programming.
I don't know when this realization started exactly, but more-and-more "low power Ethernet" options appear on the market, hoping to dethrone CANbus.
Technically all of these protocols are bit-banging once you get low enough in the stack -- it's just that the PIO is particularly well tuned for arbitrary protocol implementation.
FWIW, I believe there is a real bit-banged ethernet stack on Atmel.
https://hackaday.com/2014/08/29/bit-banging-ethernet-on-an-a...
That's honestly more impressive than the UDP stuff