Embedded network systems use serial communication protocols and simplified media access control schemes in order to exchange information among several interconnected nodes. Within this paper a generalization of the classical media access control (MAC) protocols used in small embedded serial networks of microcontrollers is investigated and an implementation platform for testing the proposed MAC schemes is described. Thus, the classic master-slave and token-bus protocols turn out to be just two particular cases of the proposed generalized media access control (GMAC) algorithms: a centralized and a distributed one, respectively. By applying these generalized algorithms in practice, significant increase in data throughput is obtained, as it resulted from the simulation tests and then by practical implementation on a typical embedded network of microcontrollers.