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Old 24th December 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by drhowarddrfine View Post
Argh!! I thought all my boxes had fax modems in them. Turns out, none of them do. I found an old external USR one but it needs a serial cable. I might have one but do I really feel like messing with all this?
You are kidding right? Build in fax modems are 100% win modems. Of course you have to have external serial modems for each box. Those old USR are fantastic. I was finding them in thrift stores for $1 a peace.
They are breeze to set up. Make sure you phone lines are not DSL but analog lines!!!
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Old 24th December 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Oko View Post
You are kidding right? Build in fax modems are 100% win modems. Of course you have to have external serial modems for each box. Those old USR are fantastic. I was finding them in thrift stores for $1 a peace.
They are breeze to set up. Make sure you phone lines are not DSL but analog lines!!!
Hmm.. be a little easier on him.

But ya, drhowarddrfine, BSD (and most others..), only support ISA modems, external serial modems, or USB CDC modems.

If your systems have PCI modems, they would not be supported.. unfortunately. (This includes most laptops..).

Note; some newer systems have modems that are part of the AC97 audio chipset.. AFAIK, they are also unsupported at this time.

Sorry.
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Old 24th December 2008
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If you haven't heard of them, you may wish to read this Wikipedia article.. it's a sad reality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softmodem
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Old 24th December 2008
drhowarddrfine drhowarddrfine is offline
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Originally Posted by BSDfan666 View Post
Hmm.. be a little easier on him.

But ya, drhowarddrfine, BSD (and most others..), only support ISA modems
The two I was looking at are ISA modems. I'm aware of the WinModems and soft modems. I'm positive I had one or two fax modems in the past that weren't soft driven. The boxes I speak of are from the 90s.
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Old 24th December 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by drhowarddrfine View Post
The two I was looking at are ISA modems. I'm aware of the WinModems and soft modems. I'm positive I had one or two fax modems in the past that weren't soft driven. The boxes I speak of are from the 90s.
So what has lead you to believe they're incapable of sending faxes? any specific error you're noticing?
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Old 24th December 2008
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Googled the part numbers for the ones I had in a box. Used 'cu' to see if it would give anything back but it just hung.
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Old 25th December 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BSDfan666
If your systems have PCI modems, they would not be supported.. unfortunately.
I'm not sure what you mean here. Not all PCI modems are "software win-modems". I have a PCI "hardware" modem that works under NetBSD/OpenBSD/Linux.
Code:
> lspci
...
00:0a.0 Serial controller: 3Com Corp, Modem Division 56K FaxModem Model 5610 (rev 01)
...
I'd think you'd prefer this kind of modem because the newer PCI bus should give better data transfer between modem and computer, than would an ISA bus.
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Old 25th December 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by IdOp View Post
I'm not sure what you mean here. Not all PCI modems are "software win-modems". I have a PCI "hardware" modem that works under NetBSD/OpenBSD/Linux.
Code:
> lspci
...
00:0a.0 Serial controller: 3Com Corp, Modem Division 56K FaxModem Model 5610 (rev 01)
...
I'd think you'd prefer this kind of modem because the newer PCI bus should give better data transfer between modem and computer, than would an ISA bus.
I suspected some PCI modems existed, presenting itself merely as a puc(4) compatible device, but I have never seen one until now.

Thanks, for sake of completeness.. can anyone recommend non-softmodem PCI devices besides this 3com beauty?
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Old 25th December 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by IdOp View Post
I'm not sure what you mean here. Not all PCI modems are "software win-modems". I have a PCI "hardware" modem that works under NetBSD/OpenBSD/Linux.
Code:
> lspci
...
00:0a.0 Serial controller: 3Com Corp, Modem Division 56K FaxModem Model 5610 (rev 01)
...
I'd think you'd prefer this kind of modem because the newer PCI bus should give better data transfer between modem and computer, than would an ISA bus.
I personally have not seen those. In all honestly FreeBSD does support
Win modems based on the Lucent Chip-set. Those were very popular at the day.
The driver is in ports and must be installed before you can see the modem in dmesg.
YMMV with that kind of stuff.

Last edited by Oko; 25th December 2008 at 01:42 AM.
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Old 25th December 2008
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@IdOp, Previous comments withstanding, I agree that this is how all PCI modems should have been designed.. but there are many oddballs.

As for the claims that a PCI modem would be faster then an ISA modem, going by sheer bus speeds, you're undoubtedly correct.

But.. I've never seen a dial-up modem exceed 20KB/ps, and the ISA bus could handle a fully saturated link at that rate.

For general reliability though, you're right.. a decent PCI implementation would be much better, it also allows for greater hardware independence. (i.e: it'll work in your sparc64,alpha,etc..).
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Old 25th December 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BSDfan666 View Post
But.. I've never seen a dial-up modem exceed 20KB/ps, and the ISA bus could handle a fully saturated link at that rate.
I can only add an anecdote to this (which of course proves nothing, and at the risk of diverting the thread). My regular modem (I still use dial-up) is the 3COM above; it generally reports connecting (to the other modem) at 44,000 kbps, and extremely rarely at 45333, never higher. I've a good feel for the download speeds I get in practice.

Well, recently I got an ISA USR 56K Sportster modem out of a give-away machine. Stuck it in my main box and tried it. It was connecting at 45333 every time. Wow I thought. Well, not so much, the downloads were noticably slower than with the PCI, and very "jerky". Again, proves nothing, could be a dying ISA modem etc.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled thread ...
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Old 25th December 2008
drhowarddrfine drhowarddrfine is offline
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Yes, we're back. (From Christmas Eve dinner at my brother's.)

I abruptly ended my previous post because I had to leave but I got connected to the sportster external modem and it tried to dial out but I didn't have the telephone line plugged in. But it looks good so we'll see what the morning may bring.
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