OK, a few things about Winmodems - experience in an ISP tech support call
center in the UK speaking here ! :
a) As has been stated WinModems have their intelligence moved from
the Hardware to the Drivers which emualte the hardware
b) While it is not impossible to make an external WinModem there is
no need as an external modem will be reliant on the UART in the computer
which is the most usual component to emulate in software - allowing
simplified upgrades (the Data Pump is the other most common 'replaced'
chip).
c) If you have a 386SX and an external 56K Modem you will NOT get a
better connect than 9600bps due to the fact that the computer will only have
an old INS 8250 UART. - even if the modem had a UART (which would be a
redundancy) you will only get the throughput of the *slowest* part of the
system.
d) It would be possible (probably if and when hell freezes over) to
write a Linux driver for the WinModems, it's getting the info from the likes
of USR/3Com and others who use HSP (Host Signal Processing) style modems
e) AFAIK the term WinModem is (R) USR - Correct me if I'm wrong
here, and as such is a misnomer as far as other modems using HSP
technologies are concerned.
f) The most obvious way of discerning wheather the modem you're
looking at is HSP based is to look at the H/W requirements - they will
generally state - 1 free ISA / PCI / PCMCIA slot for a normal modem, a HSP
based product will have Processor and OS requirements also - I'm not
referring to the standard "Some of the software included needs W'95 and a
Pxxx and xxxMB to run" but rather the "REQUIRES Minimum P90 and 8MB RAM"
bit.
As for recommending a modem to use, the USR Courier V.Everything is a
*great* modem if you can afford one, otherwise look seriously at the
Rockwellian modems - they're generally very stable - but do check with your
ISP (they won't always be able to express a preference if they're any way
big (like the one I worked for) 'cause the modem companies could be paying
them for that type of publicity (it works both ways though).
- Your best bet is to find out (if you can) what they use their end (USR /
Rockwell) and buy the same, but the Tech support staff may not know :(.
As always I'm open to contradiction on any points made here :)
Proinnsias
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