"Rodney Myrvaagnes" wrote in message
...
The cheapest notebooks all have ethernet NICs in them. A PCI NIC is
under $15 retail nowadays.

You obviously do not get the point. A NIC for in a PC is a dumb device and
needs network drivers on the PC to operate. That is called the TCP/IP stack.
You cannot simply hook up a cheap NIC to a tiny microcontroller in an
instrument and expect it to run a TCP/IP stack. It simply does not have the
memory and the processing power for that. And indeed, it is also a matter of
numbers. PCI NIC are produced in much larger quantities than marine
instruments.

Meindert