Re: MACA, DUAL, FEC, etc.

[Phil Karn <karn@qualcomm.com>]

>- I've tested the error correcting code and it isn't fast enough even
>  for 56kbps let alone higher, and if you have a multiple ports CPU
>  loading gets worse. This sort of thing will have to go in the modem
>  or TNC for high speeds, but can stay on the host CPU for low speeds.

Which ECC code? N9FZX's Reed-Solomon package? My convolutional
decoders can both handle symbol rates fastter than that, although to be
fair Paul said he had a lot of speed tricks he was planning to apply.

And what makes you think that the Z-80 CPU in the typical TNC will do
FEC any faster than the 486DX2 on a typical PC...? I've said it before
and I'll say it again -- we hams simply can't beat a mass-market PC
for price-performance on general purpose tasks and we shouldn't even
try.  We should restrict our limited hardware development resources to
those things we *can't* buy in the mass computer market.

Phil