CCEWCH@NUSVM.BITNET (12/21/90)
Here in National University of Singapore we use a lot of Nodems to connect our Mac+ to the Ethernet. We have tremendous problem with them. The first problem we encountered is some of the nodems have the so called bad chip set in it. The y give very strange behaviour : A user can conenect to the AFP server but can run MS Word and most of the appilcation installed there. We have to recall every one of them and check for the 'bad chip set' and then replace with the good one. Nodem is a SCSI device and so it inherited a lot of the SCSI problems. It take us at least 2 to 3 days (on average) to make sure a nodem is working all rigth for Mac with no external harddisk and about a week or so for people having external hard disk. For Mac with external hard disk, the hard disk refuse to boot from time to time and the nodem has to be switched off before it can be boot up. After that, if you off every thing and start all over again, then it appears to be normal again ????? The user acceptance of the nodem is bad for novice user. This is because user sometime forget to on the nodem before switching on the Mac and the network driver switched back to the built-in driver instead of the NodemTalk driver (in Network under Control Panel). The user get confused and call us (the support personnel) to fix it. It is a waste of our time just to fix problem like that and it is not easy to get the user to remember the boot up procedure. Especially for old people. So, somebody just leave the nodem on 24 hour on ! There is another reason for leaving on : there is no switch on the nodem for you to off the nodem, you have to knee down to the ground to off it from the main switch !!!!!!!!! A lot of people just do not bother to off it. There is a incident of fire related to the nodem : a proffessor leave the office at aroung 5 pm and intend to come back at night to continue working. A fire was reported at later of the night before he comes back. Both the Mac and the nodem are burnt. We are still investigating the cause (?) Other report related to nodem are : Hard disk crashes, file get corrupted, etc So far there are about 3 cases like that had happened. (we do not mean it is caused by nodem in a definite term) The nodem is not slow. It is very very very slowwwwwwwwwwww. One last thing: If the nodem does not work, remember to shake it hard enough before you try again. We are looking into the possibility of getting rid of the nodem. Did I hear from someone saying that Nodem is rated as one of the very good SCSI Ethernet interface device ? Disclaimer: Whatever mentioned here is what we experience here. It only represent my personnal view as a support person to this product.