[net.micro] Racal-Vadic 2400 baud modems: a good deal?

lisa@phs.UUCP (Jeffrey William Gillette) (08/28/85)

[]

Anyone have any experience with Racal-Vadic 2400 baud modems?  I am told
the price to universities is $325.  Is this as good a deal as it sounds?

Jeffrey William Gillette
Duke University

CSTROM@SIMTEL20.ARPA (09/03/85)

That is an excellent price. Would you let a fellow university in on
the contaft at R-V?
There has ben a lot of trouble with all of the 2400bps modems (the R-V
"Maxwell" 2400 unit is included) based on the Rockwell chip set. It is
most curious that these problems have not surfaced in Infoworld, or is
it? In any event, there appear to be real prolems at 1200 bps talking
to certain other modems. This has been notable on Compuserve in
particular. R-V has been working feverishly for a couple of months now
trying to extract better performance from Rockwell, buit no luck as of
yet as far as I know. Note Hayes is in the same boat but doesn't talk
about it, whil R-V lays their cards on the table. US Robotics does
_not_ use the Rockwell chip set so is unaffected.
I have been using a R-V 2400 unit for about two weeks,, mostly to here
and CIS when at 1200 bps and have virtually no problems with it, so it
may well be related to other factors such as phone line quality.

Charlie

rap@oliven.UUCP (Robert A. Pease) (09/10/85)

> There has ben a lot of trouble with all of the 2400bps modems (the R-V
> "Maxwell" 2400 unit is included) based on the Rockwell chip set.
> 
> R-V has been working feverishly for a couple of months now
> trying to extract better performance from Rockwell, buit no luck as of
> yet as far as I know.
> 
> Charlie

Gotta let you know that Rockwell fixed their bugs some time ago.  R-V and
Hayes should be shipping modems with the bug fixed by now.  Then again,
maybe you're seeing modems that have been sitting on the shelfs for a few
months waiting for a buyer.  If you have a modem with problems, take it
back!  The bug is a publicly known flaw.
-- 

					Robert A. Pease
    {hplabs|zehntel|fortune|ios|tolerant|allegra|tymix}!oliveb!oliven!rap

CSTROM@SIMTEL20.ARPA (09/16/85)

I am curious as to the source of your information that Rockwell has
fixed their 2400 bps modem chip set. I am in constant contact with two
people who represent the equivalent of a beta test site for R-V 2400
bps units and as far as they know, no progress has been made in
solving unreliability at 1200bps. Note that I have one of the Vadic
units on loan and have never had significant problems at 1200bps - the
trouble is related to the brand of modem on the other end, from my
reports.

-Charlie