Bruce_Kahn@MAYTAG.CEO.DG.COM (12/23/87)
I have been trying to decide on which 9600 modem to buy/upgrade to. I currently have a USR Courrier 2400 and want to go to 9600 (or 17.2 if worth the $$ and time). I dont know how the cooperation between USR and Hayes will work out but I have been told that if the 9600 scheme now in use by the USR modems is not adopted as the "standard", you will receive a FREE upgrade to make your USR conform. Can anyone confirm/deny this and are there any suggestions as to which I should/shouldnt get? Thanks. Bruce
wayne@fmsrl7.UUCP (//ichael R. //ayne) (12/24/87)
In article <195.004254@adam.DG.COM> <Bruce_Kahn%MAYTAG.CEO.DG.COM@adam.DG.COM> writes: > > I have been trying to decide on which 9600 modem to buy/upgrade >to. I currently have a USR Courrier 2400 and want to go to 9600 (or >17.2 if worth the $$ and time). Having just obtained my 2 Telebit Trailblazer modems for $680 apiece, I start to wonder why anyone would purchase anything else unless they were in a situation where they had to confrom to existing 9600 baud modems. With the processing power in these modems, there is no technological reason why Telebit can not make their modem conform to the 9600 standard (when it is finally developed). Several people have voiced questions as to why the company does not already do this, answers range from "lack of time" to "the standard does not exist yet". My personal opinion (looking at things from a business point of view) is that Telebit does not wish to encourage people to use other people's modems (no :-) here) but will do the protocol when there is sufficiant demand. The trailblazer is a wonderful modem, I have less line noise with it than any other modem I have used when talking at 1200 & 2400 baud as well. High speed interactive mode is quite reasonable once you get used to the little delay in character echo (certainly better than 2400 baud!). The modem even understands several protocols (kermit, uucp g, xmodem) and speeds up the file xfer if one of these is used. Since the technological issues have been discussed here (at length) and are available from the company, I will not repeat them. There are a few negative points about the modem. Since I have not seen any negative press on these, I thought I should balance the picture a bit: 1) Although there are a lot of configuration registers, I can find no way to shut off the OK<cr><lf> response to commands (this could be just me). 2) Interactive mode is packetized (an annoyance). I understand that this is being addressed. 3) The manual could use a few more examples in configuring the (many) registers (ideal would be a subheading under each register description of the suggested setting for common configurations: inbound, uucp out, and general outbound would be a good start). The information is all there but you have to RTFM (not an enticing prospect when you have just unpacked them and are dying to try them out :-). 4) The future, non bug-related, ROM upgrades could be made freely available/downloadable/duplicatable. At present they cost a small amount. 5) Many people do not understand what happens to a (smaller) machine when it has a couple of serial lines doing uucp at 19.2K. Not really a Telebit problem, more a user perception issue. 6) There is no second source for the modems. This makes it extremely difficult to get the purchasing department of a large corporation to permit the purchase. Of course, the 9600 baud modems are no better at present. 7) An option to suspend transmission of the escape character until it is recognized as either a normal character (and transmitted) or an escape (and not transmitted) would be a welcome addition. 8) At present, the modems must agree on which protocol they are going to "spoof". This means that at least one of the modems must know what type of transmission it is going to do. Optional automatic protocol recognition would be more desireable. None of the above are really major problems (except, perhaps #6). Considering the price, I have a very hard time justifying anything else. If you want information call 800-TELEBIT and talk to the company directly. If I had it to do over, I'd buy them again. Obviously, I have no connection withe TELEBIT (or I would have fixxed the above problems). /\/\ \/\/ -- Michael R. Wayne *** TMC & Associates *** INTERNET: wayne@ford-vax.arpa uucp: {philabs | pyramid} !fmsrl7!wayne OR wayne@fmsrl7.UUCP >> If you own an MPulse, please contact me to exchange info and experiences <<
david@ms.uky.edu (David Herron -- Resident E-mail Hack) (12/25/87)
In article <5969@fmsrl7.UUCP> wayne@fmsrl7.UUCP (/\/\ichael R. \/\/ayne) writes: >In article <195.004254@adam.DG.COM> <Bruce_Kahn%MAYTAG.CEO.DG.COM@adam.DG.COM> writes: >> I have been trying to decide on which 9600 modem to buy/upgrade >>to. I currently have a USR Courrier 2400 and want to go to 9600 (or >>17.2 if worth the $$ and time). ... > There are a few negative points about the modem. Since I have not seen >any negative press on these, I thought I should balance the picture a bit: > 1) Although there are a lot of configuration registers, I can find > no way to shut off the OK<cr><lf> response to commands (this could > be just me). That's not true. I had one of 'em being totally quiet. I don't remember the exact settings, and I don't have the modem right now so I can't look, but some permutation of the E, V, and Q settings will get the modem to be totally quiet > 2) Interactive mode is packetized (an annoyance). I understand that > this is being addressed. Apparently it used to be WORSE with delays up to 1-2 seconds for echo. I found it to be ok .. there were delays but I was able to train myself to the delays ... > 3) The manual could use a few more examples in configuring the (many) > registers (ideal would be a subheading under each register description > of the suggested setting for common configurations: inbound, uucp out, > and general outbound would be a good start). The information is all > there but you have to RTFM (not an enticing prospect when you have > just unpacked them and are dying to try them out :-). YES!!!! If I hadn't saved away that posting from Rick I'd have been lost. > 6) There is no second source for the modems. This makes it extremely > difficult to get the purchasing department of a large corporation to > permit the purchase. Of course, the 9600 baud modems are no better > at present. Not true any longer. On P 282 of _Data_Communications_ there is an announcement from VenTel of a modem which does PEP "(making it compatible with the Telebit Trailblazer and *other*PEP*compables)." (emphasis mine) All the specs they mention are very similar to those of the Trailblazer, so I won't repeat them here. There's a picture included ... the lights on the fron't aren't the same as on the Trailblazer. (No SLOW light for instance). So it aint' just a Trailblazer with a VenTel tag on it. What's this about OTHER PEP compatables??? hmmm... ANyway, for the low low low price of $1399 you can drive this sucker home and impress all your neighbors. :-) VenTel Inc. 2121 Zanker Rd. San Jose, CA 95131-2177 Hope this helps -- <---- David Herron -- The E-Mail guy <david@ms.uky.edu> <---- or: {rutgers,uunet,cbosgd}!ukma!david, david@UKMA.BITNET <---- <---- Winter health warning: Remember, don't eat the yellow snow!
wtm@neoucom.UUCP (Bill Mayhew) (12/29/87)
I use a Telebit trailblaizer from home at 9600 baud quite a bit. The turnaround dealy really isn't objectionable. All the other attributes of the modem more than offset the small turnaround delay. When I know that I am going to be doing editing where I am looking at the screen, and delay might confuse me, I switch to 2400 baud FDX. 2400 is fine for document entry. I'm curious in hearing what people manage to get for real world throughputs. I typically get about 550 char/sec for uucp xfers twixt the vax at work and my 3b1 at home using the g protocol spoofing feature. The instaneous line rate is usually about 14500 toward me and about 16000 bps toward the vax. I suspect that the load on the vax is keeping the xfer rate "so low". One peculiarity I've noticed with the Trailblazer is that is always sends ^S ^Q when it goes off hook receiving a call except in PEP mode. For some reason the ^S ^Q has peculiar interactions with login on 4.2BSD. You can hit \r a couple of times, get a couple of "login:" prompts. The first login attempt will fail, despite a correct userid and passwd being entered! This really drove me crazy until I attached a serial line analyzer to see what was happening. This is only a "bug" in 1200 and 2400 baud connects. PEP mode doesn't do it. It is pretty easy to handle this in the handshaking sequence in L.sys or Systems, as appropriate, once you know what is going on. I made sure that I had ATE0Q3 set. I can see why they do it. On a VMS machine (and probably some others) you have to make sure the line wakes up by entering a ^Q. Why they send a ^S first, I don't know. Why not in PEP mode, I don't know. Happy holidays, --Bill
mw3s+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Martin Weiss) (12/30/87)
pyramid!fmsrl7!wayne@lll-lcc.llnl.gov (//ichael R. //ayne) writes:
"With the processing power in these modems, there is no technological reason
why Telebit can not make their modem conform to the 9600 standard (when it is
finally developed)."
I would like to point out that the full-duplex 9600bps dialup standard, V.32,
was approved by the CCITT in 1984. Several vendors have products that
conform to this standard.