how to obtain a MAC-address?

Hi,
I bought a LAN-Chip (the LAN91C111 from SMSC) in order to realize an interface to a FPGA. I wrote a driver for this chip and have now the following prob.

I do need a unique MAC-address for the chip, because it must be accessible via internet.

First thought was, that the manufacturer of the chip could provide an address (because of the lower 3 bytes of the MAC-address [OUI] are in the PHY registers of the chip by default). Negative. They told me, that they must not resell their OUI. I should get an Individual Address Block from the IEEE (650,-$).

So, what to do now? All I need is an unique address, and I don't want to spend so much money to this. Has anybody an idea?

Regards,
Ruediger

just use one from a NIC you already own. just dont use that NIC on the same network

aaahh, many thanks. that's it.
it also would work if I place my device in the internet... but I'm not sure about its legality.

Its very illegal hehe, as the first octets are the vendors ID the thing is they would never know as you have that NIC that you are using the MAC from so it is not in use and will not conflict with anyother MAC. So as far as using it on the net it will look like the NIC you bought not a homemade deal just dissable any kind of snmp.

right. And because of I wrote not only the driver, but also the TCP/IP stack and the application layer I can ensure that there is no SNMP on my embedded webserver.
That should be ok for prototyping. Hey, many thanks juniperr!