burkley@cod.NOSC.MIL (V. J. Burkley) (10/30/90)
Yo hardware dudes and dudettes, I am currently looking at purchasing a 2400 baud modem. I being of the thrifty (cheap) mind set, I am looking at low end models. I am now confused on two points. 1. I know that a modem that is compliant to a certain spec (like V.42) is better than one that is compatible, but technically what is the difference? In the real world what is the difference? 2. There are currently two data compression schemes MNP 5 (almost a standard) and V.42 (the comming standard). My use of the modem will be in mostly transferring compressed (PAKED) files and programs. The question is since the files I will send over the modem are already compressed, will I get any benefit in transfer speed (effective baud rate) by using modems with MNP 5 or V.42? Has anyone done a real life test? Judge for yourself whether these questions are worthy of reply on the net. I will gladly take email replys and will give summaries to those interested partyers. A side question. I just breifly looked at comp.dcom.modems listing of articles. Many of the postings there seem to think a 2400 baud unit with V.42 and MNP 5 in the $200 range is a great price. At the local Softwarehouse (computer dealer chain) there were a few units approaching $100. What am I missing? Thanks in advance. -Joe Burkley burkley@cod.nosc.mil