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Date:      Wed, 10 Mar 1999 13:45:16 -0500 (EST)
From:      Chuck Robey <chuckr@mat.net>
To:        Richard Cownie <tich@ma.ikos.com>
Cc:        freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: PCI WinModem
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.4.10.9903101342390.43830-100000@picnic.mat.net>
In-Reply-To: <199903101606.LAA20476@lonesome.ma.ikos.com>

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On Wed, 10 Mar 1999, Richard Cownie wrote:

> Wes Peters wrote:
> 
> >Most PCI modems are "WinModems" and are not supported under FreeBSD
> >anything.anything.  They are nasty little pieces of trash foisted
> >on people who don't know better by hardware charlatans.
> 
> In defence of PCI WinModem's, I just built a machine (Cyrix MII-300)
> put in a PCI WinModem which cost $20 after rebate, and it works
> just great under Win98 - downloaded some stuff at about 5.5KB/sec
> (~= 45000 bits/sec, 85% of the theoretical limit of 53000bits/sec).
> This is substantially faster than I get with my "real" modem under
> FreeBSD (maxes out at about 4.5KB/sec).
> 
> Economically and technically, from my (admittedly meagre) experience
> I'd say WinModem's are a neat solution - if you only run Windows
> (like 95%+ of users).  Don't knock it just because FreeBSD can't
> support it (yet).

And FreeBSD isn't very likely to support it at all, because it's an
incredible waste of computing power.  You make it sound like being
incredibly cheap is a virtue.  The simple minded thing just offloads all
the signal processing of a modem onto your processor, which means it
can't do anything else useful while the modem's going.  That isn't
smart, that's idiotic, especially seeing as the price of *real* modems
isn't all that high, comparatively speaking.


----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------
Chuck Robey                 | Interests include any kind of voice or data 
chuckr@glue.umd.edu         | communications topic, C programming, and Unix.
213 Lakeside Drive Apt T-1  |
Greenbelt, MD 20770         | I run picnic (FreeBSD-current)
(301) 220-2114              | and jaunt (Solaris7).
----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------






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