eli@bbn.com (Steve Elias) (03/28/88)
In article <1689@van-bc.UUCP> sl@van-bc.UUCP (pri=-10 Stuart Lynne) writes: >In article <265@telebit.UUCP> modems@telebit.UUCP (Modem Mail Account) writes: >>in modems, particularly for the Unix environment. If any of you have any >>specific ideas on features that you'd find useful, please mail to me at > >How about support for V.29 9600/4800/2400 modes to support G3 Fax. > >Given the ever increasing number of G3 Faxes in the world, and the implicit >problems of running fax software under something like PC-DOS I think that >being able to dial up a fax machine from my Unix box would be quite useful. what implicit problems are you talking about? i guess a modem dedicated to fax is a bit of a problem -- it eats up a slot and an interrupt & dma line, perhaps. and of course, it eats up $400 or so. are there other problems that i'm not thinking of ?? even an 8088 PC can drive a fax modem at full speed, though the text to fax conversion can't be done at full speed. (i wrote PC software for a G3 fax modem last year -- it works fine.)
sl@van-bc.UUCP (pri=-10 Stuart Lynne) (03/29/88)
In article <22686@bbn.COM> eli@BBN.COM (Steve Elias) writes: >In article <1689@van-bc.UUCP> sl@van-bc.UUCP (pri=-10 Stuart Lynne) writes: >> >>Given the ever increasing number of G3 Faxes in the world, and the implicit >>problems of running fax software under something like PC-DOS I think that >>being able to dial up a fax machine from my Unix box would be quite useful. > > what implicit problems are you talking about? > i guess a modem dedicated to fax is a bit of a problem -- it > eats up a slot and an interrupt & dma line, perhaps. > and of course, it eats up $400 or so. > > are there other problems that i'm not thinking of ?? > even an 8088 PC can drive a fax modem at full speed, though the > text to fax conversion can't be done at full speed. > (i wrote PC software for a G3 fax modem last year -- it works fine.) As I sit and type this in on my *home* computer, on *one* of the five screens littering my desk (my own hardware dependant, hardware based multi window Unix system :-); I'm also editing two files, monitoring uucp LOGFILE, and sitting in ELM. The two phones are pumping news bits to other sites. In another minute cron will check if there's anything to run. I've got news unbatching. The printer isn't but could be. Hopefully uuxqt will get around to passing on the mail sitting in those X/D files sitting in my spool directory in a few minutes. I've still got a few spare serial lines. I'd love to be able to answer the phone and receive fax's. Or to be able to send fax's just by mailing someone a message. I *don't* want to have to stop everything else that my machine is doing to do it. Yes, the lowly little 8088 can drive 9600 at full speed. Doing so only eat's up about 70% - 80% of available CPU power but it can do it. Unfortunately it: - won't happen totally in the background oblivious to anything else - won't integrate seamlessly into an existing mail system with little work By seamlessly I mean that I would like to be sitting in elm and about to send a copy of a contract to some customers by email. I say to myself, maybe I should get a copy to my lawyer. So I simply CC it to 555-1234@fax (his fax machine). I then send the message. From that point on everything is automatic. elm gives it to smail who gives it to uux for delivery to the other unix sites, and a faxcico for delivery to the remote fax. The faxcico program keeps trying to dial the remote fax until it connects and delivers the message. Meanwhile I've been doing something useful, like reading news. The only thing different I had to remember was the fax machine phone number. The mail delivery system took care of everything else. And didn't impede me from going about my other work. In fact I probably wouldn't even notice that it was being sent unless I have the speaker turned on in the fax modem while its dialing and connecting. My point is/was that PC's are great but I far prefer to multi-task. G3 and 8088 under MS-DOS don't quite give me that solution. With an external fax modem and Unix I can do pretty well everything you can do in MS-DOS, without impeding anything else I may have the system doing and probably a bit more. For virtually any Unix box with fairly generic code. But I do need the external fax modem. In point of fact there will be one available shortly from Quadram. They are just finishing a product called JT Fax Portable. It's essentially an external modem which (apparently) you simply talk to over an async port. Some sort of command set allows you to answer/originate calls, and send/receive fax images. It may also act as a normal 300/1200 baud modem. List is $495 US. (Still only 4800 bps though!) BTW please don't interpret this as a flame. I don't think there's much of anything that I personally would want to do on an IBM PC running MS-DOS. I only use MS-DOS occasional at work where they *pay* me to do so. At home I run Unix because it allows me to get far more done. ***** MS-DOS, just say no! ***** -- {ihnp4!alberta!ubc-vision,uunet}!van-bc!Stuart.Lynne Vancouver,BC,604-937-7532
eli@spdcc.COM (Steve Elias) (03/31/88)
In article <1698@van-bc.UUCP> sl@van-bc.UUCP (pri=-10 Stuart Lynne) writes: >In article <22686@bbn.COM> eli@BBN.COM (Steve Elias) writes: >My point is/was that PC's are great but I far prefer to multi-task. G3 and >8088 under MS-DOS don't quite give me that solution. With an external fax >modem and Unix I can do pretty well everything you can do in MS-DOS, without >impeding anything else I may have the system doing and probably a bit more. an 8088 is certainly underpowered for multitasking, but quick 80286s do the job just fine -- they have enough cpu power to make the incoming or outgoing fax not affect other tasks. MS-DOS is certainly a joke... i developed the software using Concurrent PC-DOS, which is a real multitasking OS. the quadram product does sound like a good one...