Thanks Brad: On Thu, 2007-05-17 at 08:30 -0400, Bart Trojanowski wrote: > * William Case <billlinux [ at ] rogers [ dot ] com> [070516 23:29]: > > Hi; > > > > I am trying to learn how my Network Interface Card works from the ground > > up: > > > > Can anybody recommend a good read or detailed web site? > <snip> > > Hardware: How do the following work? > > 1) The reception or sending of the electronic signal > > 2) How is the signal created or read. > > googled for Ethernet electrical specification, and got this: > > http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/usail/external/ethernet/ethernet-guide.html > http://www.techfest.com/networking/lan/ethernet.htm > Just to underline an irony or beginner's stupidity. I had looked at those two sites, quickly decided they weren't relevant and moved on. Because of your advice I returned read more carefully and discovered they were, in fact, what I wanted. > > 3) On a diagram or picture, where is the card's cpu, registers and other > > electronics such as clocks etc. > > 4) Where are the headers encoded/decoded? How? > > 99.9% of the time the protocol headers are constructed on the host. You > want to read about TCP/IP stacks. > > The other 0.1% of the time you have an expensive NIC with stack offloading > -- your NIC actually does some of the TCP/IP stack's job. > There are still some bits and pieces I need explained, but now that I have found two fairly comprehensive start places, I am sure i can chase the rest down. Thanks again for your trouble. -- Regards Bill