I feel like hardware TCP/IP stacks would probably massively improve performance by removing all details of the communications from the OS and processor. In saber OSes, this would just mean that one of the higher levels of abstraction would essentially deal directly with the hardware instead of a few more layers of abstraction.
Does this make sense? These communications seem so central to modern computing that they deserve specialized hardware support.
Many network cards offload some of the low-level protocols, typically ethernet and IP checksums, but some do deeper inspection and prepare packets conveniently for the driver if the OS supports it.
Does this make sense? These communications seem so central to modern computing that they deserve specialized hardware support.