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IBM Releases GPLd WinModem Support For Linux
horst writes: "Subject says it all -- IBM has released first
GPL winmodem driver. Link found at LWN" I'll be even more excited when they release the code that works with my T20 ... I've never even dialed my modem *sniff*, but if you've got an MWave (600, 600E, 770) then you should be golden. But props to IBM for making a cool move.
Hopefully it's not an isolated one.
That some of the more rabid linux-ers(?) will soon be using a 'win'-modem....
I hope for the sake of anyone using Linux with an MWave card that the drivers are of a superior quality to the buggy/bloated/disgraceful drivers produced for Windows.
One would hope Linux developers were generally more switched on to writing decent code, although it may just be the underlying hardware to blame!.
In saying that, top marks to Big Blue for doing the right thing.
So does this mean that we have to rename all 'win' modems to unidimensional polychromated multiplexing software based super-modems? I mean - if Billy Gates wanted to keep modems for himself -- he's gotta try better than just to name something "win". Some smart soul or two is just gonna try to get it to run on linux! muhahaha
Does this mean that every modem will become Linux-compatible? No.
;-)
It does, however, give a nice shred of hope to those of us who can't really afford an external or expensive internal modem.
One thought though. Since this IS GPLed, could we use it to make more modems work? I don't know if it is, but if the MWave uses the AC '97 standard, we could get things moving quickly. Intel may actually have helped Linux again. (Note: If you are an Intel PR person, don't say that this was your original intention; admit that you made a mistake. We would still love you...)
Just make the MDP3880-W(U) a priority, k?
Intel and IBM are different companies :)
+++++
+++++
The harder you look the less you see. That's what we're up against.
... and I thought, IBM developed this thing for their ThinkPad. Hmm.
According to the register, Alcatel will be releasing Linux USB drivers for its ASDL modem in the next month or so...Open source etc...
It will be here.
whats it with companies refusing to document spec? i would love to know why lucent is hiding info on thier winmodems. do they honestly think some competitor will clone them and sell them for less? by that time lucent has gone on to the next version...
of course, i still dont know why ibm just doesnt just use real modems. they worked great in the earlier models. i somehow doubt the cost difference would be more than a few more dollars at the factory...
Linux has been wiped off my drive twice due to interconnect failures.
I've also flown > 20K miles with it (I know some readers will laugh, but I'm a tech guy), and it still works. Two years of a laptop doing well for me, and two separate Linux attempts makes me hopefull. Ill at ease, but hopefull. Hell, I like BSD and Solaris, so I know I'm going to be shot down, but laptops are different. People need easy, fast, interoperable [whatever] before they'll even comment. No cares about which layer it acts on, or whether it is proprietary, _people need email_. The rest is cool, too. I'm done.
Sure, modems are dead, or something.
Tell me that when I need to get email through via a random hotel.
-j
I forget what 8 was for.
Can't comment on the stability of the driver as I haven't tried it -- yet.
:/
The driver though is developed from the NT driver which IMHO is a good sign. NT is way more linux like than Win9X/Me.
Don't know if thats enough to get the MWave back on it's feet. I have heard of problems with IRQs and other things which led me to suspect that the MWave while a great design in theory was a poorly executed design in the real world
See for example
/usr/src/linux/Documentation/sound/mwave
http://www.ibmmwavesettlement.com/
on the matter
Thomas S. Iversen
OK, I see the ploy, they wait for me to buy a winmodem, then switch to Linux, then be nice and give away the modem, THEN THEY RELEASE THE DRIVERS!
Well, atleast I have RoadRunner now
Take a look at the very large number of ".dsp" files. These are binary only files. They contain all of the difficult modem algorithms. The GPL specifies that the code must be in "the preferred form for editing", which is long for "the source code". I assure you that binary .dsp files aren't the source code.
The tar file includes the GPL in the usual "COPYING" file, but none of the driver source files refer to it. Neither does the documentation. In other words, it's a tar file which happens to contain a copy of the GPL text.
In summary, none of the source code is GPLed, and all the difficult modem algorithms are binary only.
Thanks for the helpful driver IBM, but don't pretend this is free software. BTW, there have been half-binary, half-source drivers for Lucent modems for a while now, and several other manufacturers too.
-- Jamie
IBM have said in the past that unless a manager can come up with a very good reason not to release something under the GPL (such as proprietry code huge technological advantage etc) then everything must be released under the gpl. I for one am pleased that they are holding to this.
Hopefully they can now sell there linux certified laptops with more of a clean consciusness.
I do not know if this will help the other winmodem users (see www.linmodems.org) there is a lucent driver that works with my saterlite 4030cdt but hope fully this will help to getting an open source driver (or a second sound card)
The other modem releated question is those amr (audio modem riser cards)
does anyone know howto / if these work under linux
Some problems can be overcome simply by the experimenting programmer (compile-run-crash type), but it will be a real pain. Why not open up for the documentation so that the MWave board can show it's potential: A bunch of resources (dsp, soundcard, telco interface, midi interface) tightly knit together with the dsp chip in control.
Call me fanatic
Thomas S. Iversen
Even so, I've never really liked the premise by which winmodems work. They use the sound card and clock cycles to generate the modem-y sound, and then send it out on an RJ-45 (or whatever phone cable is). You'd think in the day of cheap hardware, it wouldn't cost that much to just adda nother processor (small) onto the modem itself and free up the other hardware a bit.
Also, wouldn't it be nice if other generic winmodem manufacturers see this open standard of sorts and comply to it?
For those who know, can this winmodem driver be ported to BSD and other OS's pretty easily?
I can see a trend, here : when the technology of a piece of hardware is not hot anymore, they open the specs/ release the driver, so that they found a new market in Linux users.
Well, not that I like to be a second-class user. But OTHA, I'v never been keen to hot hardware, either. And a driver is better than no driver. And an open-source driver is better than a half-hacked binary one (Lucent, please, follow IBM example! ).
Ciao
----
FB
You'll also need the Linux PPTP driver. Hopefully it works with these USB drivers.
Jacco /var/log
---
# cd
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Warning: Slashdot may contain traces of nuts.
Bill Mair setup a pettion over 2 years ago, and we have be goading IBM ever since, particularly over the "IBM supports linux 100%" even though it part binary it is nice to see, this IBM driver, not that i think anyone will use it, we all bought a pcmcia modem along time ago. Just its nice to see ibm supporting legacy machines, yup mwave only ships with disconnued machines. However this is good I guess cos LINUX brings old machines back to like. My 770X has has another 3 years in it.
James
I know someone who's gotten the T20 modem to work.o p/
Check out http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/linux-lapt
for more info.
Of course, this was with redhat 7.
I dunno about others.
Oops! The driver source is GPLed, it just doesn't refer to the "COPYING" file like I'd incorrectly remembered in the traditional GPL copyright template. Ahem. The .dsp files, containing the modem algorithms, are still binary only though. The whole driver is still not free software. You don't have the freedom to port it to other hardware, run it over a sound card or a ham radio, modify the signalling methods, or study the DSP code to learn how a modem works for example, but parts of it are free and GPLed.
(apologies for not reading the source properly),
-- Jamie
I didn't read your comment properly.
I retract all allegations of muppethood.
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The harder you look the less you see. That's what we're up against.
OK, so most Linux people don't like the fact that winmodems are closed devices that are not supported on Linux. The conventional wisdom complains that existing winmodems give poor performance and kill the CPU. However in a recent /. post no less a personage than John Carmack suggested that winmodems could be implemented in a way that is better than conventional modems for the needs of interactive games.
In the process of doing a web search I then turned up Stuart Cheshire's old home page. For those who don't know who he is, well before the web was popular he wrote a classic networked Mac game called bolo. (In fact when the web became popular the bolo players used to curse that the web was dragging the internet down too much...) Most links to it are dead, but the official home page is still up although there has not been a release since 1995. (This was apparently done as research into the needs of interactive networked programs. Gee, all of those hours that I spent as a test subject without knowing it...)
With Stuart's credentials established, it is well worth looking at his rants. In particular his latency rant, which was expanded out into a white paper.
Once you are through reading those you will see that for anything interactive, particularly games, what really matters is latency, not bandwidth. And modems are a major source of this latency. In addition he and John Carmack agree that software modems (AKA winmodems) can be (though they are not currently) programmed to operate in a mode that reduces latency, and the result would be better for interactive games than conventional modems.
So, are winmodems just a bad idea, or are they just poorly implemented? Conventional wisdom says that they are bad no matter what. But the people who should know best suggest otherwise.
-snellac
Accentially what a win modem is a Digital to Analog Converter. And the OS itself has to basically send the sounds to the modem kina like a wav file. The atvantage of this is the fact that they are cheap to build. But will put a strain on the CPU of your computer and whathappends if you are doing some real Intensive CPU utilities, your modem can disconnect or hang on you. (Which WIN Modems are known for) Win Modems are a dumb Idea in begin with. Now with linux supporting Win Modems how will the real modem survive?
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Those 'dsp' files are firmware to be loaded into the modem card itself, and processed onboard. There is no reason we need source for these, and the same files would be used no matter what OS it is. The trick is how to get the contents of those file sinto the modem so the DSP on the modem can use them.
They aren't even technically part of the 'driver'.
You have the freedom to make their modem work on *any* hardware platform now; just not to steal their DSP code.
Although this may be a nice day for some thinkpad owners, these drivers doesn't help the linux
community in general.
What we really would need is an opensourced/GPL'd implementation of all the dsp-like algorithms used by software modems. They are currently high valued property by some manufacturers and therefore only given out as binaries for linux drivers if given out at all.
IBM does it that way, and AVM (famous manufacturer of ISDN cards here in germany) did the same when releasing software modem / fax emulation.
I would really love to see one of the main linux players sponsoring an open source development of such an implementation. This would allow the support of many winmodems after all (just replace the modem specific interfacing stuff), fax / modem emulation with all isdn cards, usage with ham radios and much more nice possibilities.
There _are_ some opensource efforts (see www.linmodems.org for some pointers) but they are stuck in some main points and could probably need some financial support as well as development help by DSP specialists.
So Redhat, VA or whoever feels responsible: Put some of your money here. Many people of the linux community will be grateful
I have got the lucent one on my thinkpad here. They only have a binary driver which only works for 2.2.1[234].
Now for me to be able to use both internet and 2.4.1, I actually have to ipmasq via a windoze box at home...
I hope they'll avoid closed hardware in the future. I made sure to not get a Thinkpad last time I was shopping due to the MWave problems. (Yes, it was for Linux use. I bought a new Toshiba laptop and reformatted the disk for Red Hat.)
- The MWave DSP is used on Thinkpads to provide Soundcard and modem functionality. We can get cheap PCMCIA modems for $30 on eBay. However getting decent sound card support on a MWave laptop isn't as easy - we can use the infamous Linux MWave hack, which gives us fixed rate 22.1kHz 8 bit sound which doesn't work with the majority of sound playing applications out there in my experience and which resets itself and ceases to work if the laptop is ever suspended, or get a PCMCIA Soundblaster card which is usually pricy and, to the best of my knowledge will have exactly the same problem with low sound quality => poor compatability. In short, why concentrate on the largely redundant modem functionality?
-
I'm glad IBM are supporting the last set of Thinkpads to come with MWave chipsets, but given there are almost certainly many, many, more Thinkpads and Aptivas out there with the older chipsets, is support coming for those machines? I couldn't see anything to suggest so.
I guess it's a matter of priorities, but... I wonder whether enough documentation exists that would allow a reasonable programmer to implement the missing functionality using the IBM driver as a base?--
Keep attacking good things as "communist"
KMSMA (WWBD?)
Flo
PS: Patents are evil but better stick them into hardware as HW is not really interesting to copy anyways.
If you design or change a modem algorithm, you are required to have it approved by the FCC before you are legally allowed to connect it to the telephone network.
Most of you wouldn't know what to do with MWAVE DSP source code anyways... You don't need it.
ipv6 is my vpn
I may be a young pup, but damnit, has anyone actually gotten this to insmod this driver. I only ask due to the fact that my old company, (God Bless you New Economy), was always spouting off, "and our new drivers...", which I was usually in the back ground doing a "No, No, NO!!!" and living the IBM new marketing plan(you know, "We can do it three months"). Talking with tech support is fine, but if noone has used it yet, I'll stick to my good old USR33.6, and you can tell me how to write non-runon sentances!!!
Alas, poor clippy, I loath him so.
This was easy to predict, and expected.
IBM has been releasing drivers and support for all their laptops with linux.
If Taco had posted which problems he has with his T20, I could point him to IBM's Linux Technology center where they have the answers.
I will come back and reply to this with the correct link where t20 support can be found.
(I thought Rob liked Vaio's! good on him for using a thinkpad!)
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
But props to IBM for making a cool move. Hopefully it's not an isolated one.
Didn't you mom teach you manners? Just say thanks man!
Anyone know how to get one of these printers working?
Costs a hell of a lot more extra here - for EXACTLY the same bandwidth you pay £250 instead of £150 installation and £100 instaed of £40 per month. Not even slightly close to a good deal as for the extra £100 installation you can buy network cards, hub and cabling and using free (as in beer) firewall and proxy software share out to all the computers you have, just like the more expensive ethernet version, but you have an internal LAN as well... BT are so stupid, but many of the public are even worse so they might just get away with it! Nice to hear the Dutch are being sensible about the pricing though.
They are uniformly afraid that their modems will not pass certification if they are seen to cooperate in any way with circumventing the certification process. And if a company helps people write non-certified software, that's what they're doing. Yeah, it sucks.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Every modem manufacturer I've talked to refuses to help with an Open Source driver because it's too easily modified. It's illegal to connect non-certified equipment to the public telephone network. These manufacturers don't want to participate in any way with something that's illegal. There's just no benefit to them.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Whatever they are, and under whichever operating system they run, they will still be inferior to REAL MODEM!!!!! ("hardmodem")
samrolken
It will never happen as long as equipment must be certified before it can legally be connected to the public telephone network. The barrier is not economic or technical. It is legal.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
But wait, I thought the conspiracy theories all say that Jews run the big companies? Could it be that the conspiracy theories are wrong? But there is no such thing as a false conspiracy theory (anyone proving it false is obviously a part of the conspiracy).
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
...really,send them an email telling them how much you appreciate this move...theyll feel good and IBM will know how much we appreciate this,even if you dont have a winmodem.
Paul Schroeder
Mike Sullivan
thankyouthankyou
Actually, this story is not by a Jewish conspiracy to extort monies from IBM...
And anyone who can seriously combine the words occupied and palestine in the same sentence reveals that they know nothing about history or current events.
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
One would think that the LGPL would be a more appropriate license for driver code. Isn't it hard or practically impossible to integrate this in non-GPL open source systems?
Not that I'm waiting for Winmodem drivers (I'll use a real modem thank you) but there may come a time that there is practically no choice (think of laptop-integrated winmodems).
That question has just haunted me since I tried to install linux on my HP - I've a got single card that does everything - at home...
I do everything the voices in my head tell me to...
Expect others in the industry to foloow suit? I have a Sony Vaio and although i can still use a pcmcia modem, having the winmodem work would be really nice. Then I can actually keep my wireless card installed also. Does anyone know of any tricks to get the PCG series Vaio's winmodem to work?
--DrMyke
-DrMyke
"mmmmmmmmm, doughnuts" - H.J.Simpson; super genius
They are the only big company that totally gets it. They have a deep commitment to Linux. On another note, they had enough guts to admit their ties to Nazi Germany. Do you think Bush will?
Republicans are Nazis. LetsRiot!
Read the following statement:
When the Nazis took over, they siezed control of all German business. Either businesses played ball with the Nazis, or failed and were destroyed. I don't defend Nazis.
If you're going to accuse IBM, at least go to NYU and get the facts rather then rely on this questionable new report floating around and the book on which it is based.
A recently published book, as well as a recently filed lawsuit against the company, speculate on the uses of Hollerith equipment by the Nazi government and IBM's role.
IBM finds the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime abhorrent and condemns any actions which aided their unspeakable acts. It has been known for decades that the Nazis used Hollerith equipment and that IBM's German subsidiary during the 1930s -- Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen GmbH (Dehomag) -- supplied Hollerith equipment. As with hundreds of foreign-owned companies that did business in Germany at that time, Dehomag came under the control of Nazi authorities prior to and during World War II. It is also widely known that Thomas J. Watson, Sr., received and subsequently repudiated and returned a medal presented to him by the German government for his role in global economic relations. These well-known facts appear to be the primary underpinning for these recent allegations.
IBM does not have much information or records about this period or the operations of Dehomag. Most documents were destroyed or lost during the war. The documents that did exist were placed in the public domain some time ago to assist research and historical scholarship. The records were transferred from the company's New York and German operations to New York University and Hohenheim University in Stuttgart, Germany -- two respected institutions with academic credentials in this area. Independent academic experts at these universities are now the custodians of these records and supervise access to the documents by researchers and historians.
IBM remains interested in any new information that advances understanding of this tragic era, and looks to the appropriate scholars and historians to verify it.
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
Call me a pedant and mod this to "Offtopic" if you want - I guess it's what I expect. But...
The proper initialism is "ADSL" (not "ASDL"), which stands for "Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line". It's common for people to want to put the S before the D, as in "ISDN", but it's not correct. If anything, use that as a mnemonic device - it's the OPPOSITE order of "ISDN", it's "ADSL".
Not trying to sound condescending, but rather an attempt at being informative.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
ThinkPad 755CX/755CD/755CDV/755CV/755CE
ThinkPad 760C/760CD/760E/760ED/760XD
ThinkPad 765D
The following models use an Mwave MDSP3780 chip for Modem functions only and ARE supported by this newly released driver.
ThinkPad 600D/600E
ThinkPad 770D/770ED/770X/770Z
All models released later with an internal modem use some variation of a Lucent or 3com WinModem that is NOT supported by this driver.
For a lucent modem driver for 2.2 and 2.4 kernels that worked for me, check out http://walbran.org/sean/linux/stodolsk/
Examples of such ThinkPad's:
ThinkPad 240/240X
ThinkPad 570/570E
ThinkPad 600X
ThinkPad X20
ThinkPad A20/A21
ThinkPad T20/T21
The only exceptions that I am aware of to the above are region specific machines (like the US model ThinkPad 701 and the Japanese PalmTop 110 which both have hardware modems).
http://reswat5.research.ibm.com/projects/linux/dev driver.nsf
Linux Hardware Configuration and Compatibility Database.
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
Hardly surprising. The goal of companies are to sell products and services, not to be political correct. What I have trouble understanding is: Why on earth do people expect ethical actions from huge corporations/hierarchies based on money and power?
I suspect the answer is the same as in everything we have expectations for: To be disappointed and find answers elsewhere.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Critisism of Israel is anti-semitism, not racism.
Criticism's of "Jews" is racism, criticism of Israeli foreign policy is merely politics.
AFAIK isn't anti-semitism just a subset of racism?
--
Marias suggests:
But if the DSP sources would have been open-sourced as well, it would have been possible to port them to other Winmodem (and ISDN4Linux) hardware as well.
Unlikely, since as I understand it, the ACP (MWave) modem design is radically different from most (eg. Rockwell or Lucent) "winmodems". For one thing, the MWave actually does have an onboard DSP, but it's a more general purpose one than in more traditional serial modems.
Your suggestion is similar to trying to port a program to Windows by looking at its Macintosh Assembly Code. Technically possible, but more work than anyone cares to do.
----
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Open mind, insert foot.
All I need now is for BT to get round to actually implementing ADSL in my area. Judging by their current disgusting behaviour I'll get ADSL sometime in 2023.
And anyone who can seriously combine the words occupied and palestine in the same sentence reveals that they know nothing about history or current events.
Can you please explain this...
Drivers for other winmodems can be found at linmodems.org.
Personally though, since I got the DSL hooked up I'm never going back to dialup...
Prove it. Don't just blow smoke, give me EXAMPLES of Malda's espousing this belief.
If you can't give me PROOF, then I will dismiss this as a troll and move on. However, this is serious business...if Malda really does hold to Holocaust denier beliefs, I want to know so I can bail from /. for good.
I have family who died from the Holocaust. My mother-in-law was evacuated from Nazi Germany on the Kinderlift of 1938. This is serious business, folks.
----
http://www.msgeek.org/ -- All your estrogen are belong to us!
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Someone at flexion.org used to be thinking about an MWave for Linux project, but apparently discontinued it when IBM started their "official" MWave for Linux project... But I'm assuming that since support for current machines is already done now at IBM, support for earlier machines is never likely to be forthcoming...
*sigh*
There are so many Thinkpad 760-series machines and IBM Aptivas out there with the older MWave chip... Many more than there are Thinkpad 600 and 770 machines, I'd venture to guess.
Please, IBM -- I bought the machine. It cost me lots of dough. I've been loyal and bought Thinkpads over the years... I like 'em. I just want to run Linux on 'em. Can't you help me out...?
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
the T20 contains a Lucent winmodem (assuming it's the mini-pci modem supplied with the machine).
Lucent don't exactly support it, but it appears that there's at least one person at Lucent who supports the Linux community. They produced a Linux driver (infrastructure source, binary dsp module), and it's been tweaked (debugged) by some folks out on the net.
For general Linux "winmodem" information, check out the linmodems website. This site links to the updated Lucent drivers. I'm using them successfully on my T20.
Tim
A billion dollars later and now we have WinModem drivers via IBM. What a waste of money!
Nobody in the US seems to understand or care about the plight of the Palestinians or about Arab culture.
Certainly nobody in Israel cares... Which is a shame; a formerly oppressed people have allowed themselves to become the oppressor and their own suffering is cheapened because of it.
You're also right in that IBM has nothing to do with either side today, and years ago (whatever the truth) is years ago. Yes, the holocaust happened, but the holocaust is OVER, folks.
Or are many of you also in the camp who believe that all of the African Amercian men in prison should be let out because they were influenced by their "genetic memory" when they committed their crime, and that the white folks should agree to live under slavery for two hundred years to compensate still-discombobulated African Americans?
I regret slavery and the holocaust, but neither one gives the formerly oppressed group a "get out of jail free card" for the rest of time. What Israel is doing now is wrong. Sharon started this when peace was nearly (finally) at hand. He's a warmonger and an Arab hater as much as Hitler was a warmonger and a Jew hater.
I wish both of these lovely and worthwhile cultures could just get along and stop being so racist toward each other. And I get very tired of Israelis and Israel-supporters who simply say that either you are on Israel's side or you are miseducated. That is the sort of self-serving egoism and ethnocentrism that las led to the conflict in the first place.
And I wish we could return to discussing technology on Slashdot instead of politics.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Even with a "Linmodem" driver, what have you got? You have saved maybe $1.50 in the manufacturing process and created a modem that will become unreliable under heavy processing loads. Mind you, I understand that some users of laptops are locked in to a soft modem, so this is great for them, but as somebody who has worked on Winmodem code, I really think that soft modems are not a trend to encourage at all!!!
Also, some of the FAX state transitions must occur within certain time windows. This is very hard to ensure with a soft modem. Doubly hard when the softmodem is a USB softmodem.
No friends, kudos to IBM for this, but please avoid soft modems if you can!
Dog is my co-pilot.
Nothing pisses me off more than the current cultural belief in America that once suffering somewhere in the past has been found (i.e. Jews, African Americans, women, etc.) these groups are given a pass on all criticism, culpability, responsibility -- forever.
It's bullshit. If the Israelis do something evil, they do something evil. If they do something good, they do something good, like everybody else. Saying that is not anti-semitism, it is common sense. But of course common sense was lost long ago in the western world...
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
i don't really see the point of using softmodems. so you can get a softmodem for ~$20 and a real modem for ~$50. if you are going through the expense of getting a computer and maybe spending ~$2000, what's an extra 2.5%?
besides, real modems are more reliable. if there is some problem with my real modem, i just flip the switch on the back of it on and off, and it's ready to go. on a softmodem, you have to reboot the pc. if you're running linux, one of you're goals is reliability. who wants to reboot because their modem won't reset.
Palestinians are Semitic.
Damn... you guys sure got the least ideal solution... Here (Denmark) there are three national ISP's offering (A)DSL (one more soon) and from two of them (including mine, *thanks*) you don't get a modem. Instead you get an actual router (Cisco 677) - NAT, filtering and stuff. Granted, it isn't THAT cheap (~$50 US/month for 256 kbit/s). PS: I hope you get the USB ones to work, or that the ethernet option gets cheaper
Is that one of those wierd thingies that are kind of like a NIC? I heard that they make strange noises, but are really slow.
...
Friends don't let friends operate at speeds less than 256K
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Winmodem is something that uses CPU to create waveforms that will go to the DSP, that actually
sound like data line of regular modem.
MWaves, have their own processor that does this.
You upload microprograms and they toil away doing
whatever sound the device needs.
It also works as wavetable, where you upload
instuments to cards memory and software to take the samples mix them and output them into DAC.
very cool device, I wish they did have support for
it before. I'd rather use this that any of 'dumb' creative cards.
The better argument for releasing the binary-only DSP software is that this software doesn't actually run on the host computer so it could be described as part of the hardware. For those of you saying that you need to be able to modify the DSP code so that you can use a modem as a video card, get a grip. If you really want to do that kind of thing get a soldering iron and buy parts better suited to the job.
_____________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
I suppose I'll find out soon enough (though with tomorrow being valentines day probably not until thursday), but does this also cover the MWave's soundcard capabilities? Will I finally be able to listen to my mp3s and record audio on my thinkpad without rebooting to windows?
-
Addlepated - punk & metal
I'm rather shocked to see anything from IBM that even closely resembles support for the MWave. There was a class action suit not too long ago over the MWave.
Being a totally worthless modem, it ALSO doubled as a equally worthless sound-card.
It was probably just a matter of fixing the drivers, but IBM never really got around to making them usable. In fact, in the support forums several of my rather in depths comments where censored because they went into detail of the limitations of the card (in my case, very specifically the Mwave Dolphin) and how best to work around them. (I.e. don't use it as a modem at all...)
IBM supported the MWave on Linux when they couldn't even get it right on Windows is nothing short of scary.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Sigh....People so often say that 'having the source' will allow the open source community to take these drivers and do everything AND make coffee with them. New bugs are showing in Bind...Interbase has one or two flaws, the list of MAJOR open source releases which are significantly flawed and stay that way is rather long. How many l337-hax0rz cry and scream for source code VS. How many people actually even look at it, much less do anything with it. Open Sourcing under GPL will not cure any woes. People who know what they are doing need to take that code and do some hacking. A very small slice of people here on slashdot have a clue as to what to do with gobs of released code...
I am still waiting for a drver for my pci scsi controler!! I thought they woud release the source for this. This would be useful.
Yeah, OK.
But one of the central principles of private property is that, once you have purchased a given piece of property it is then _YOURS_, to use, misuse, and abuse as you see fit, and if you break the law with it the responsibility is _YOURS_, not the manufacturer's. Holding IBM responsible for 3rd party modifications to their registered modem program is as ludicrous as holding the automobile manufacturers responsible for robberies committed with their vehicles.
You need firmware to make this chip more than a lump of glass, and the application that you bought with it is only one of the possible tricks that can be loaded into it. If you want to roll your own applications for _YOUR_ hardware, the source for the application that you bought with it is an important educational example. Is the modem DSP algorithm patented, trade secret, otherwise inhibited, or what? If they don't give you the SOURCE CODE then it's not Open Source. They should certainly be able to disclose this without compromising their FCC registration, the registration is a standard-compliance/noninterference/safety assurance. A smart DSP manufacturer would put product datasheets, programming tools, and all the source code he can out in the public domain in the hopes that his example application code will A) sell some chips to run that application on and B) help haXors come up with new applications (like sonar) for his chip and thereby sell a couple more.
If you muck with the modem DSP code and come up with a modem that goes 100KBits/sec, this is probably outside the federal regulations, but you are the responsible criminal and NOT IBM, _their_ firmware was certified to comply with the regs and the minute you modified it you broke that certification and you no longer have any license to even connect it to the POTS. You now have a _really_ cheap sonar development system. Of course you can, in a second, reload IBM's registered firmware and then plug it back into the phone.....
Such are the wonders of Open Source.
And THANK YOU, IBM, for at least giving us the loader, and the binaries for the modem application, so we can at least make our laptops' built-in modems do what they're _supposed_ to do!
But you _could_, if you wanted to, and for NO INVESTMENT ON YOUR PART, get into the cheap sonar (and, no doubt, a buncha other things, too!) development system market at the bottom floor!
Exceeding the recommended torque is not recommended.
Let me begin by saying I am one of the most die-hard free software advocates out there. I have yet to read any article by RMS that I disagree with.
That said, your complaint that the dsp modem algorithms, which would typically be present in hardware, should be given to the world in source form, is enough to give even me pause.
So-called hardware algorithms, written in microcode and etched in silicon, are pervasive in the computing world, not just in modems, but also CPUs, hard drives, network cards, video cards, and a whole lot more. The free software community has not demanded release of such silicon code in the past. Whether or not we should is a different question. I suspect that if you put the question to RMS directly, he would have to advocate free-ness of the code. However, even the FSF purchases and uses hardware containing such (closed-source) silicon code without compunction.
I myself think (and I may even find myself disagreeing with RMS on this one, although to be fair I haven't asked him for his view) that the need for free software stops as soon as you start talking about software that is so integrally tied up with the hardware, that you would need whole new hardware to even contemplate making use of changes in the software. Processor microcode, hard drive error correction algorithms, and yes, modem dsp code, all fall into this category. I do not require the availability of Intel Pentium microcode, Seagate hard drive error correction code, or IBM modem dsp code when purchasing hardware, and neither should you.
Why does that mean that the DSP files can't be open sourced?
Any credibility this post had went out the window with the last sentence. =)
BTW, which idiot modded me up? I'm completely offtopic here! Don't do it again!
Though some of their products can tend to suck, I still really like IBM. Why? Because IBM doesn't bullshit us. They don't redefine terms (Microsoft "open-sources" Windows), they don't give us those weak little paranoid licenses that confuse people and inhibit code-reuse (SCSL, MPL, QPL, Qmail, etc), they don't try to deceive us, they don't abuse the patent system, and they release most if not all of their hardware documentation.
Now, if only their consumer products didn't suck...
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Genius dies of the same blow that destroys liberty.