madler@pooh.caltech.edu (Mark Adler) (01/14/91)
glang@Autodesk.COM (Gary Lang) wonders: >> > the fact that people need to ask the net how to >> >install modems indicates to me that it is _not_ a personal >> >computer. >> >> Anyway, I am not sure what problems with this the NeXT has in >> particular; I plugged my modem into the serial port, just like I've >> done on my Macs and PC's, and ran my comm. software. I really don't >> see what the difference is that you're citing here. I forgot who that original poster was, but anyway, Gary is right. It's quite easy indeed to connect your modem and get it working for dial-out. Any old Mac modem cable will do, and you can even use the wrong device (/dev/ttya instead of the correct /dev/cua), and it'll work. The complications arise when you want to support dial-in as well. That's what most of my "how to connect your modem" posting deals with. As regards the comparison with personal computers--getting dial-in to work on a personal computer is *much* more difficult than on the NeXT, or most any other Unix box. Of course, MSDOS and the Mac were never really designed for dial-in, whereas Unix was, so the comparison isn't entirely fair. But when you compare oranges and oranges (note that I cannot use the word "apple" in this cliche), i.e. dial-out, then the NeXT is a "personal computer". Mark Adler madler@pooh.caltech.edu