RTL8019AS

Aug 07, 2007 4 Replies
M

Hello,



I have been working on getting my RTL8019AS based board to remember what MAC address I was giving it before I realized that the



8019AS does not have internal PROM and I would be forced to use an external EEPROM just to store the MAC. I have been reading the RTL8019AS data sheet along with the corresponding 'software developer's guide' and I am a little confused on how to program the EEPROM (9346). I know I want to program bytes 04H-09H on the 9346 with my 6 octets, and the data sheet says I can program the chip through my ISA bus, and the 8019AS. I kind of think its silly having a board that you can set almost anything with jumpers but requires an external EEPROM to store the MAC address (I have to read these datasheets closer!). Any help anyone can give would be much appreciated.

Thanks, Matt



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J

It's been a few years since I've mucked with the part, but I seem to recall that you can program the chip MAC registers without an EEPROM installed. One issue is that the EEPROM has the base I/O address in it so you'll have to know what the default base address is.

Having the MAC registers in EEPROM is not such a bad idea. It allows a company to preprogram serialized EEPROMS then install them at build time with no logistical issues.

I think you have to bit-bang the EEPROM pins through the 8019AS registers to actually do the programming.

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M

Ick. Time to start reading the chips data sheet and figuring out the data structure :) Thanks for the reply Jim.

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D

Where did you get the "software developer's guide" ???

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M

It was sent to me via email from RealTek support. The actual guide is titled: "RTL8019AS-LF Software Developer's Guide" It gives a couple good psudo code examples but most of it can be found on the datasheet.

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