On Mon, 10 Feb 2025 at 23:48, Rick Bensene via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > There was a company called Xircom that made parallel port modems. These were > full modems that were small enough that they plugged into a laptop serial > port, and got their power from the laptop via the external mouse/keyboard > port.
Er, is it possible that you are mixing up modems with Ethernet adaptors? Xircom was well known for parallel-port Ethernet adaptors, such as seen here: https://www.ardent-tool.com/Xircom/Xircom_Pocket_Adapters.html I supported several and they worked very well, even with Linux. With an ECP/EPP+ port they could be quite fast. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_port#EPP_and_ECP > After laptops started having PCMCIA ports, Xircom made some modem cards in > PCMCIA form-factor, and they had a little dongle that plugged into them that > provided the RJ11 jack to plug the phone line into. Sure, many companies did. Xircom was far from alone. Most had dongles. Indeed one of the only type II cards that _didn't_ were 3Com XJACK cards. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XJACK > I think these could go up to 14.4Kb, maybe more. (!) Far more. I am not sure I ever saw one that slow. 28.8 was normal, 33.6 briefly, and the one I used longest was 56K. For me the nifty device was their RealPort range which needed a type III slot: https://docs.rs-online.com/04a6/0900766b8002b85f.pdf They also did very clever "Realport 2" cards which could be mirrored, one inserted upside down, so you could insert 2 of them into a pair of type 2 slots in one physical type 3 slot *with one running upside down,* for 2 x full-sized connectors. https://www.ebay.com/itm/312549616539 Xircom was also one of vanishingly few companies to offer working USB drivers _for Windows NT 4_ -- an OS that did not support USB. https://forums.scotsnewsletter.com/index.php?/topic/7054-usb-on-nt4/ -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 227612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
