Freescale introduces a $49 MCF5225x coldfire module

[tone007]

This solution would still cost more than the A500 you're hooking it up to.  Stick with serial.  Something worthwhile, I think, would be a Slingshot type board that holds a Zorro card horizontally. Can't get much cheaper than a printed board or two with one or two ICs.  Not that Zorro Ethernet boards are flooding the market, but there are alot of other cards floating around that could be useful.

[tone007]

This solution would still cost more than the A500 you're hooking it up to. Stick with serial. Something worthwhile, I think, would be a Slingshot type board that holds a Zorro card horizontally. Can't get much cheaper than a printed board or two with one or two ICs. Not that Zorro Ethernet boards are flooding the market, but there are alot of other cards floating around that could be useful.

[tone007]

And I'll stick by my assertion that PCI is dead.

There's a difference between "not cutting edge" and "dead."  They're still making and sellling PCI cards, they're still making and selling motherboards with PCI slots, and you're still wrong.