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LinModems?
Polo was the first of several to send us an article over at LinuxWorld about PC-Tel announcing LinModems, eg, software modems that can run under Linux as well. Some interesting comments in there about hardware modems being a "Luxury" item. Kinda amusing.
Okay, so the whole idea behind a Lin/WinModem is to save the manufacturer money so that in turn save the end user money, right? The article even says that on a 400Mhz computer, 10-15% of performance can be bled off by software modems. So, 400Mhz * 12.5(average)% (I know this is probably all awful math, but bear with me) is 50Mhz. So really, in order to regain that extra 50Mhz is to buy a 450Mhz processor. In Pentium II land, this can be the difference between $200 and $300.
So it boils down to this - I can either buy:
a PII-400 and hardware modem for $300
or
a PII-450 and Winmodem for $330
It looks tempting to buy the 450, but remember performance is similar on either machine. The only difference is that on the more expensive machine, it crashes a whole lot more, and you're tied to the OS-flavor-of-the-month (Windows, and now Linux I guess)
Am I the only person who thinks this way?
What would it help to put the software into the OS other than making it more difficult to upgrade if everyone makes a different software or you aren't runing Linux (at all or anymore)?
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
After all, Linux gurantees nothing as to how long a process may have to wait before it gets executed again.
Aren't there patent problems that preclude an open solution?
I'd certainly expect that 56k modems would have difficulties..perhaps not for slower pre-V34 ones.
Kernel 2.4 supposedly will support up to 8 IDE's.
I have a Zoom PCMCIA modem for my laptop and it works fine with Linux. I found lots of options for non-Winmodem PCMCIA modems for around $100.
I don't get this argument about softmodems being cheaper. I would understand if a softmodem cost a system integrator $10 to include, but a hardware modem $30 or so; with large unit counts, that adds up. However, these numbers are hardly ever invoked. Like here, we usually hear about $100 hardware modems and five times cheaper softmodems. Are these wholesale prices or retail now? Because I can get perfectly good hardware modems for $40 or less (even name brand, e.g. Creative Labs, in my experience a decent modem), but haven't found softmodems for much less than that. Looking at the high end, USRobotics WinModems are hardly cheap--you can get several decent brands of hardware modems for considerably less.
I think the whole argument revolves around the theoretical cheapness of the "soft" approach, which never really materializes. Problem is, you still have to have a substantial amount of hardware even for a softmodem--you really only save the controller chip itself and not much else. At volume prices I doubt a Rockwell chip amounts to more than a few dollars. The only way you can really save is by including the modem on the motherboard, taking advantage of a shared PCB and sundry circuitry. And that's were you usually do find big savings--look at emachines, which I think includes modem functionality on the m/b and where--considering the price--you basically don't pay for the modem.
Paul Radu
I have a Canon BJC620 and I got it to work fine by using apsfilter. 'apt-get install apsfilter' if you're using Debian like a good doobie should.
me [heart] Debian
I get the feeling that it already IS a high-end luxury item. Try walking into your typical computer or office supply store (like Office Max, etc...) and see how many WinModems vs. REAL modems you'll find. And you won't find ANY high-quality products, or even mediocre ones. The best you can expect to find is a USR Sportster external. You'd never see a Courier anywhere... god forbid.
Just a couple of corrections... :)
The extension number is not burned in, it's set in the software PBX. And most of the phone models (the better ones) already have a little two-port hub which gives you the equivalent of a pass-through. The only disadvantage of that is that if your phone loses power your PC ethernet gets cut off. Not a huge deal.
The compay they acquired is called Selsius. But you're quite right in that security is a huge issue. We've been working closely with the network group and the phone group here to make sure we implement this whole IP phone network as safely as possible. (a task of some size!)
Oh and the Call Manager (the software that runs the phones) runs only on NT. So as much as would recommend the hardware, the software leaves a lot to be desired.
Dana
All I can say is, if you like to settle for mediocrity at best, then go for it. But please don't screw up the curve for the rest of us who won't settle for junk.
The company was Selsius. Where I work, I'm getting the system setup. The phones are 486(if I remember) with a 2 port 10mbs(100mbs is coming!) hub built in. The extension isn't burned in you can set it or have it automatically pick the next free one. As for carrying the phone around unless you like to walk around with a large phone and 40 watt power supply I wouldn't do that. The really cool thing is that people don't need phones they can use a "virtual phone" for the PC all you need is sound card. And we found handsets that plug into your soundcard for $30. If you really want to be cool for $70 you get a whole setup which plugs into your speakers so that when you lift the phone off the hook your external speakers are muted(so you can hear the phone ring). All the phones are based on the same compression used in NetMeeting and one a switched network sound quality is equal to a standard phone.
Unfortunate the administration software sucks it's a bunch of asp's. They are working on version 3 which should be much better and we are still waiting for them to finish a card that will let us route calls from the pbx based on the number dialed.
I'm really looking for a liunx, bsd solution for administering them if anyone knows of one please drop me a line a themeion@yahoo.com
If they did that, then somebody would say, "Release the code for the Windows drivers!" We wouldnt want that now would we?
Closed Source Code=New Clueless User Pays For Useless Support...
Just my opinion and not meant to go down in the history books as a profound and meaningful statement
-- 100% MS-Free as of 4-4-1999, 11:47:38 PST. "The lapdance is always better when the stripper is cryin'" Free Kevin,
The flakiness in the Losemodems is almost certainly due to badly-written software. This software would be just as flaky if it was running on an internal uP; the beauty of the PC-side fix is that the problems can be fixed with a simple download. Once the driver is open-sourced, the entire modem system can be upgraded without changing a single bit of hardware. It's still a bad choice for some applications, such as anything which requires simultaneous telephone communications and heavy-duty crunching on tasks which are part of the user interface. But that doesn't cover everything, or even most things; as CPUs accelerate at 40%/year while modem DSP requirements remain roughly static, this keeps falling in importance. Remember, the old Telebit Trailblazer required an entire 68000 to keep up with a 14,000 BPS data rate. Today we can go several times as fast with a fraction of a Pentium. This trend will continue.
For the Internet appliance, this may be the way to go. And with open-source drivers for Linux, I can see the flakiness in software modems becoming far smaller or disappearing entirely. If flaky SW modems proves to be a Windows problem instead of a modem problem, that changes both the argument and the lesson, doesn't it?
I havn't seen any linux fanatics lately that seem to be interested in "aiming" for anything higher than the drooling, brain-dead, point-n-click masses. The concept of the "sophisticated user" is something apparently foreign to Linux developers these days.
I used to have a Best data 33.6 ISA PnP modem. It was actually a pretty good PnP modem. The only thing the software did was setup the I/O address and the IRQ. Allowing any programs to access it. This allowed me to use isapnp to configure it. I have seen many PnP modems that NEED the software to actually be used, but my Best Data PnP modem wasn't too bad. I still prefer a hardware modem over a software one anyday.
Oh yes, IRC support:
Hello, I'd like to setup a DNS server. How might one go about getting started?
Well, first you have to masturbate like a tree-monkey, then you must @#$^^^!@# and #$& your mother and your sister, you uncle *&#$
save money on hardware????
let's see... $6.00 to $12.00 for the processor..
they made modems with the "processor" in them for years and years without making them cost $9000.00 plus tax. Nooo it's not saving any money for us users, that is a blatent lie. it's making something very shoddy, very cheaply, so that your profit margin is huge.. they dont care that their win-crapodems are junk, in fact they know that they sell an inferior product... all of the manufacturers do... (Let's see... let's blatently lie about 56K modems....) the spiel about software modems are cheaper is 100% bull, it makes them able to sell you the same damn modem next year with a flashy new install program...
Look at sever brands of winmodems... they all look alike, and act the same...
besides, who actually believes that you can buy a winmodem cheaper than a good hardware modem?? at my local staples I found a good external modem for less than a sportster internal 3crap!
It's all lies.... everything said by any manufacturer is a lie...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
IIRC ...
... you can't turn a pig into a thoroughbred, but you can sure make a damned fast pig."
66MHz 486DX 45-50 MIPS
133MHz Pentium 120-130 MIPS
200MHz PentiumPro 200 MIPS
400MHz PII 450 MIPS
400MHz K6-2 420-420 MIPS
400MHz PII Xeon 450 MIPS also
500MHz PIII 560 MIPS
500MHz K6-3 550 MIPS
500MHz K7 (not in production) 600 MIPS
300MHz RM5271 400 MIPS
300MHz RM7000 475 MIPS
It is kind of depressing when you think that the Mips chips (the QED-designed 5271 and 7000) both use about 6 watts at 300MHz and the 500MHz PIII is at 60 watts or so. The 600MHz PIII and K7 parts should be about 700 MIPS and a 600MHz RM7000 would run at 12 watts (less than a 300MHz portable PII or K6-2) and about 1000 MIPS.
I guess that this (the baroque evolution of the x86 CISC kluge) just proves the old adage that with sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine.
Actually, A.J. Foyt, talking about the 935 whale-tail Porches that dominated racing (240+ down the Mulsanne Straight at LeMans, for instace, in short-wheelbase rear-engined air-cooled cars!) for more than a few years in the '80's commented similarly. I am working from memory, but I think the quote was:
"By the end [of the type evolution under racing conditions], even the door handles were titanium. We were only using the windsheild. It's funny because that was really just one of those ass-backwards Beetles, but we worked on it and worked on it
I think that Intel is damned lucky that Linus will come along. Merced is dead and people will need to have a reason not to go with someone else's 64 bit platform for a while while Intel figures out what to do. Linux may be that reason.
Can somebody post some URLs for some Linux CPU temp monitors? I looked on Freshmeat but only found something called /proc/health that didn't even compile. Thanks.
I compile, download files, play mp3's with gqmpeg, and either irc, telnet, or play games all at the same time!
:|
Not to mention various other jobs that are scheduled automatically.
I don't want my download slowing down; I don't want my mp3's skipping, I don't want my irc/telnet lagging and I don't want to wait forever for my compiles to finish.
In short, I want ALL MY CPU POWER available for running applications and if I can offload a task to hardware then I'll do it.
Linmodems are not for me.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
Hmm... Funny you mention it - that *has* been done for radio modems (AX.25, is it? I'm really unfamiliar with that stuff) and is included in the kernel already.
Wonder how the CPU load of that compares to a more traditional sw modem. .
One of the great things about linux is the support anyone can get from other experienced users whether on IRC, news, or mailing list posts. Unfortunately, these LinModems will probably end up in newbie hands and no experienced linux user can help them because only the newbies own the new modems. These modems could have the effect of shooting linux in the end-user's foot.
-arcana
Whoa! POP!
(Dammit, Slashdot, when I type something in, preview it, it looks okay, and I submit it, *NOTHING*SHOULD*CHANGE*.. Fix it, Rob.)
Well sort of. Without a program like cpuidle. When the cpu isn't computing it's running in it's idle loop. So it is still running running operations. They just don't do anythin (A NO OP). Therefore the CPU is always running at "100%" just many of the cycles aren't computing anything. I think cpuidle actually stops the processor from running NO OPs, and therefore it runs cooler. However there has to be some sort of performance cost for this startup and stop action.
Although a hardware modem can cost up to five times more than a software modem,t hey are relatively cheap, with a current price tag at $100... ... 'I think that [in the future], a hardware modem will be a high-end luxury item'"
Okay. So even though hardware modems are *already* fairly inexpensive and will continue to go down in price, they are going to be high-end luxury items? $100 is not a high-end luxury price. The only way anyone could consider a modem high end is if everything else available was complete garbage. Of course, this *is* the prediction of a winmodem software manager
Personally, I fail to see how, with DSL, cable, and ISDN becoming cheaper and more available, any modem could be considered "high end". If you want high end connectivity, why modulate and demodulate a bunch of analog signal?
Traditionally, software modems have a bad reputation in the linux community. In fact, they've earned the nickname "WinModems" because many are optimized to work with the Microsoft Windows operating system, and refuse to cooperate with any other OS.
Funny, I always thought they "earned the nickname WinModems" because they say "WINMODEM" on the frigging box. It's the fricking model name, not a nickname.
They do not just have a bad reputation in the linux community, they have a bad reputation among just about anyone with any idea how modems work. And it's not because they aren't very cross-format, it's because they are lousy modems. I work at an ISP, and I can say with some certainty that the loathing and contempt our tech support has for WinModems is *not* because they only work on windows, but because they barely work at all
Phew. Felt good to get that out. So anyway. What planet did these people say they were from?
Another damned comic
+++ NO CARRIER
Load does indeed increase the temperature of the CPU. At least with Intel Pentium II and higher CPU. The CPU has internal voltage regulation and control circuitry. When the CPU is executing halt, nop or any other instruction that does not require bus/memory access or is in suspended/low power mode it actually consumes less power. Less power consumed == lower temperature. Whether there is a noticeable temperature difference between Windows being in idle mode and Linux in idle mode is, however, questionable.
Ex-Nt-User
Who makes color inkjet printers that are not Win-printers? And have linux drivers?
This is very true, they (PC-TEL) HSP modems tend to be very particular about who / what they connect to. Unfortunately they come in you average run of the mill e-machine. Since the public is generally in love with price over quality these days, I tend to see a lot of these modems. It is a shame they don't work well. I have always been leary of modems that have a minimum hardware req. And when the modem has a higher requirement than say a webserver, you know you are in trouble.
:)
I would be very skeptical about running one of these in a box, I am a big fan of real hardware. The only good thing would be that we would be able to tell all the people that whine in #linux that yes your POS modem might someday be supported
Just my $.02
To E-mail me, replace the first period in my domain with an @
Really, this is a good thing. What is so great about Linux is the plethora of alternatives we can afford. Software modems are taking a heavy beating on Slashdot mostly beacuse people prefer not to use them. However, why is it that those same people are not complaining about Linux running other inferior hardware? Example: Why are attempts to run Linux on 386s not flamed? Why are we not all running Linux on Alphas when that is an architecture regarded by many as superior to x86?
My impression is that a company that wants to give another option to us is a good thing. Look at the fight we gave Nvidia to release Linux drivers. We fought and we won. We didn't say "I hate hardware acceleration." Now a company comes along to give us a product and we meet it with criticism.
Personally, I would rather chew sand than buy a software modem but who am I to decide what is best for all of us? As long as I have a choice, anyone that wants to give us more hardware is good.
-Clump
Bad analogy. A better analogy would be, imagine if some company put out a video card with no 2D/3D acceleration on it. Just a dumb SVGA card. Any acceleration would have to be done in software.
Pretty clearly, that would be dumb. Most people utilize their video cards pretty heavily. You'd really notice if your 2D acceleration was taken away.
LinModems aren't *quite* as dumb, because it doesn't matter whether you're using hardware or software modems, they're still too slow for anything interesting. We need cable modems.
You're a fucking retard, why don't you die?
Everybody is complaining about software modems being the bain of technologies existence. Isn't a software modem analgous to an OpenGL ICD? Is that bad? Software modems do have their place and their usage. More hardware for Linux is almost always good.
I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed...
You misread.
$200 machine. $50 of it is for the hardware modem (I've been corrected as to the cost of the modem in these machines).
HARDWARE MODEMS!? A *LUXURY*?!
*gaspcoff* Okay.. I think I'm done laughing now. Wait. *coffhackwheeze*
Somebody tell that two bit hack of a writer to get the hell out of the business, please. Or at least get their facts straight. I lost a LOT of respect for LinuxWorld's editors for letting this one through. The technical inaccuracies of this article are blatant and rampant.
"Although a hardware modem can cost up to five times more than a software modem, they are still relatively cheap, with a current price tag at $100 for a high-quality model, he said."
Stupid error number one. Please go visit CompUSA before making such claims, you incredible morons.
Diamond SupraExpress 56PCI, $80.
Diamond SupraExpress 56e, $120.
Okay, hrm. $80*5 is $400. Gee. The hardware modem isn't five times as much. It's not even twice as much. And that's an EXTERNAL too! *NEXT!*
SupraExpress 56PCI, $80.
SupraExpress 56i, $70.
Waitasecond. The SupraExpress 56i is a HARDWARE ISA PnP MODEM. (Trust me; I recommend them frequently. I know 'em.) And it's *LESS* than the PCI! Will you PLEASE *PLEASE* get your facts straight, folks?
"PC-TEL engineers don't disagree with Ockman's assessment that hardware modems aren't likely to disappear anytime soon. "I think that [in the future], a hardware modem will be a high-end, luxury item," said William Hsu, software manager for PC-TEL."
They already are if you're buying from an OEM. There are no OEMs remaining save for smalltime ones that offer hardware modems, as far as I know. Next.
"In fact, they've earned the nickname "WinModems," because many are "optimized" to work with the Microsoft Windows operating system, and refuse to cooperate with any other OS."
Get me my cluebat, or hold me back.
They're called WINMODEMS BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT USR CALLED THEM FROM DAY ONE, YOU INCOMPETENT FOOLS! They *REQUIRE* Windows because the drivers use some funky API, DirectX I believe, to simulate a DSP in the processor. GODS!
"Even on a powerful 400-MHz processor, a software modem can demand as much as 10 to 15 percent of the CPU's total throughput."
CPU performance isn't measured in throughput you idiots. Gods. And that percentage is totally wrong. The average WinModem (Lucent LT chipset) requires between 15 and 30 percent of your processor time at realtime priority to achieve ~4.8k/s. I've seen it in person.
I can't believe the ignorance and blatant lies that jouranlists are allowed to send to print these days. Falsehoods, libel, slander, hatemongering speech, and worse. Either way, somebody needs to write these people at LinuxWorld a serious reality check.
-RISCy Business | Rabid System Administrator and BOFH
your company here.
shelby != ford
ok, I am going to list some modles, HP 600, HP 660C, HP 670C, HP 672C, HP 690C, HP 692C, HP 694C. all of these work well with linux. now if you get any HP printer that ends with CXE dont buy it, but my HP 692C works very well with Linux. Try this simple test to see if it is a software printer. boot to a DOS disk, and type this `type config.sys > PRN` if your printer starts printing out stuff, then it has alteast hardware support for text printing, and can probably print a file in PCL just fine. one final note, stay away from the 7xx series of HP printers, every one that I have seen is a software printer....
Well there goes my dream of bying a computer with a good modem
No, this this certainly applies to winmodems specifically (at least, as compared to hardware modems).
If you've got a real hardware modem following the AT command set and communicating via a real UART, you don't need vendor-provided OS drivers. Worst case, you have to change the init-string a little. Ooooh. Big whoop.
If your software modem doesn't have any drivers for your new OS... you're screwed.
We (the Linux community) have complained about software modems for years. Doesn't it seem a bit hypocritical for us to do the same thing? Software modems are inherently limited to a certain number of platforms, and they require a certain amount of CPU time to run. Not to mention the security concerns of adding yet another driver running as root. It's not worth the risk or the hassle.- --------------
----------------------------------------
If you need to point-and-click to administer a machine,
Well it could be running worse: embedded Win CE (which in my book stands for Windows: crappier edition)
A software modem working under Linux? I wonder if we'll see the appropriate improvements. I should go read the article.
BTW, It's my birthday!! and it looks like I got the first post.
I bought myself Suse 6.1. What a day...
:-)
Another company cashing in on buzzwords? I couldn't tell if they are going to write the drivers or just release some specs.
Also, when the article mentions how Linux users tend not to like software modems, I know that's the case. No one I know wants a software modem, it doesn't matter what OS you run, it's still not worth the cheaper price.
--- Jeff
The PPA For The Masses page says it has some GPLed software to drive at least some of the 7xx-series HP printers (with the help of Ghostscript).
I've not used it, so I can't say one way or the other how well it works.
Goal number one, I'd love to see, Linux, or some UNIX variant on as many desktops, servers, laptops, set top boxes, toaster, cars, refrigerators as possible.
What is hindering this? Not much, but WinModems have been a thorn in the side of Linux for awhile. Why have they prevailed? No, the evil microsoft giant hasn't shoved it in people's faces. The fact of the matter is, they are cheaper. Cheaper, doesn't mean better, but cheaper is more valued than better to OEMs.
When I purchased my machine, long ago, from gateway, a winmodem was slipped inside. Unknown to me, but i noticed.. I didn't do as well as other modems. When the CPU load got high, my connection stuttered, dropped, and my mouse got drunk. With a 56k modem, connecting at 53000 or something like that bps... I was only getting 2.5kbps!
So, time goes by, I install linux (around january) and gasp, come june, I try to dial up to my newfound *non proprietary ISP* and discover. Winmodem = death. Sharp slap in the face.
Two choices, sit on my butt, and wait for the OSS community to shoot something useful into my phone jack, or buy a new modem. I'm choosing the latter.
The question is, how many prospective linux users will run into this problem and just *give up*? A Linmodem sold to OEMs is garbage, but a step in the right direction. What we need. Is to work out and support those Winmodems regardless of manufacturer.
They may suck. But a new linux user is a new linux user, regardless of hardware power or modem type.
I disagree and hold myself in contempt, what blashphemy!
soundmodem driver is max 9600bps.
I'm curious as to if people think this is a good thing or a bad thing. Personally I'm torn. Software Modems for Linux == Good. Software Modems == Bad.
If they were to release the specs in general, as they said they are considering, then I don't think I'd have any real reservations, but if not I think we're back in the same old show. What about the BeOS users? What about the FooOS?
Specs please, or I'll stick with my hardware modem!
-- IANAEG - I am not an elder god.
Thousands of posts all over the usenet:
Subject: NEED MODEM HELP!!!!!!
hi, i just bought this linmodem and cant get it working under windows. CAN SOMEONE HELP ME???? a window just pops up and says it cant find a driver for the unknown card...
---
hehehehe.
This sig is false.
Anyway, this just seems like another version of the circle of life that video hardware has undergone. Why should communications hardware be any different?
Right on, the MWAVE was the worst modem I have ever seen in my life. Modem and Sound card integrated into one pile of horse .... When you want to play sound you have to reduce the modems throughput to 14.4. Not only that a week after I purchased one my computer would freeze for no apparent reason. Once I removed my MWAVE the problem was solved. I did not even want to trade in my MWAVE for a new one. I bought a sound blaster and modem blaster and never looked back.
---------------------------
^_^ smile death approaches.
Well, I think this is rather bad for normal Linux users who would rather have good hardware than cheap hardware, but to vendors of low-cost PCs, this is a pretty good thing. Instead of a modem being a quarter of the price of the computer ($200, $50 modem), it can be an eigth.
But, I certainly won't be caught using one.
PCTEL modems for Winblows are total shit. We tell our customers right off the bat that we can not even guarantee the shitpile will even work with our service... If the tradition continues, I will tell people, "Get an external modem..."
-- 100% MS-Free as of 4-4-1999, 11:47:38 PST. "The lapdance is always better when the stripper is cryin'" Free Kevin,
I must contradict you, I'm sorry.
I *HAD* a SupraMax winmodem in my box (which was Win98, now runs FreeBSD like a champ!), and there was a horrible delay - usually about 2 seconds - between when I hit connect and the computer unfroze and started dialing. I do not know HOW it could possibly take that many processor cycles, and tells me that the driver itself is horribly bloated.
I have since replaced that with an external 56k SupraExpress - which again restores my confidence in hardware. It's almost finished dialing before I even realize that I'm back at the command prompt (in interactive), although most of the time it does on-demand PPP for the entire network (4 machines =).
In my dedicated Windows machine in the next room, I have a USR 56k Winmodem. I have always liked USR, and have bought them almost exclusively since '92, when I started up my multi-line DOS BBS. Unfortunately, their expertise in modems is not carried over into the Winmodem. The box is very touchy, and I am beginning to think either the CPU or the motherboard is shot, but it crashes only 5 or 6 times a week (Hey, my W95 box at work crashes atleast twice a day). I have started noting that - gasp - it'll crash during about 60% of all Winmodem usage.
Again, this whole CPU-centric thing is dangerous. I didn't buy a K6-2 400 so I could use my Winmodem and video card at the same time - I bought it so I could play some cool ass games, among which are games like Quake, where you NEED all the CPU power you can get - and modem - at the same time.
Ok, I'll finished rambling now.
I see where we could be if we invested a lot of time into hardware development instead of hardware cost-saving. Remember the Cold War? It was quality, not quantity. Sure, NATO's stuff was really expensive, but the Warsaw Bloc couldn't buy enough "Winmodems" (without going bankrupt) to overpower NATO's smaller number of "3com/USR Courier V.Everything 56k"'s.
My friend just got a new PC, which has a winmodem. OS differences aside, he has a p3 450. When he is online running very little, his winmodem gets about the same speed my hardware modem gets. If he starts playing an mp3 (about 1% of his CPU), he loses a full KB off his download speed (IE from 3.5 KB/s to 2.5 KB/s). I can play an MP3, have 2 or 3 IE windows (sorry...) open, have my WinTV (which takes up 10% of the cpu for it's interpolation software) running, and mIRC on my p2 400 (same ram), and I still get good rates downloading software (when downloading HTML, i have seen my modem hit 132KBps!). It's internal and works with both windows and linux.
When referring to my winmodem, I call it the "not a modem", cause it's not a modem. It just a phone jack with a little bit of logic built in. My not a modem is a 56k and when I try to do something like play q3test, it totally craps out and disconnects. My "regular" 33.6 works just fine when I play quake. Go fig. All you people out there with suck-ass ping times, get a real modem.
Recycling and speed limits are bullshit. Like someone quiting smoking on their deathbed.
I have a prophesy:
-B
Will they be providing the source to the LinModems? If so, this could be a step in the direction of getting WinModems to work under Linux.
to convert the V34 or similar modulation to a basic sound format. I was thinking about something like a few days ago but it couldn't be done with extern modems.
Being less knowledgeable on this subject, let me ask the question:
Will future versions of Linux ever require that the "LinModem" driver be updated? In this case, would we not be dependent on the manufacturer for such updates?
If yes, this is a bad thing indeed. Closed source model through and through!
Certified Microsoft Notworking Specialist
Last time I checked they would not be able to make the driver Open Source (or even source available) sue to patents on the V.* specs. (I won't pay for V.250, I'll RE it from the source).
What do you guys think?
they have an 80186 for accepting commands/controlling the serial port. The actual modulation is done by a TI DSP. I once had a sportster v.fc that had a bad solder joint on one of the DSP pins. It kept hanging up during a connection, but worked normally otherwise.
There are problems that bother me though: Companies like corel don't give out there stuff open source. Code Warrior is for RedHat only. The more the linux community accepts this the more hypocritical we look. I am proud to say that I have 100% open source code on my system. I do believe it is great that 95% more or less of linux's stuff is open, but if companies like corel, oracle, etc. are not planning to play by the rules the linux community is in danger! We can only win if open source becomes cool. If major companies trample all over us in the name of progress, the linux community will look like hypocrits.
---------------------------
^_^ smile death approaches.
Accually he was probably a pompous ass cause he was frustrated. I know a person who works tech support who frequently gets calls about lexmarks (he doesn't work at lexmark tech support btw) and states that they are pure evil. Great for a while, but once they start acting weird there is almost nothing that can be done from the typcial user level over the phone.
This doesn't happen under Linux. Partly because the only code that doesn't really work is marked that way eg odd version 2.3.x as apposed to 2.2.x. Also, if the driver did crash, the driver crashes. I am assuming it is a module unless they release the code, but even then it can be modular. In that case rmmod linmodem;insmod linmodem . done crash fixed.
---- aut viam inveniam aut faciam
http://linuxtoday.com/talkback/29972.html
Apparently this guy has a similar idea with these new modems.
I worked at an ISP that ran 3com terminal servers and PCtel modems had a VERY difficult time connecting to 3com/USR products. Very bad modems!
.
A software modem may be cheaper to buy, but in the long run you'll pay for it with poor quality transfer times, etc., just like printing with your WinPrinter slows your box to a crawl. (BTW, be glad you have an HP -- I've helped two people install Linux, only to have to tell them that their cheesy Lexmark won't work with Linux)
I certainly hope that Linux users will respond to the introduction of this sort of crap by not purchasing anything less than a real hardware modem, thus forcing this junk off the market.
Anyway, I agree with you -- money is better spent on hardware that doesn't tax the CPU.
At work, I've got a variety of inexpensive (and not-so-inexpensive) hardmodems (Viking56k, supra 56k, sportster 56k). The Viking hardmodem *SUCKS* badly for any real use, I've found (its a cheap modem, go figure).
At home, I've got a softmodem in a pIII-450 WinNT server machine (!) that is connected 24x7 and it has never given me an ounce of trouble (after I updated to newer drivers).
I still would not put one in a machine where reliability is important because I have seen the driver blue-screen NT (before I upgraded), and I would imagine the same could happen under Linux.
The difference is crucial. The Linux community has a well-deserved reputation for making silk purses from sow's ears. Old, slow motherboards sing with Linux. Here's a chance to do the same thing for yet another segment of the hardware market. And that is crucial to increasing mindshare over Microsloth.
The most significant part of the Linux World article has to be this quote: William Hsu, the company's software manager, characterized the Linux development as "cleaner and easier than for Microsoft." Don't you see what this means? Hardware manufacturers can get a product out sooner (and probably with greater reliability) if they develop for Linux first! And if the driver code is open-sourced, any bugs in the modem won't be there for very long. One of the major complaints about software modems disappears.
Sure, software modems use CPU. That's the point, you only have to buy one CPU and you can get its full power applied to your task whenever you're not using the modem. If you're like me, that's 90% or more of the time. It gets the hardware price down, and for people on limited budgets that makes a lot of sense. Look at it this way: after saving $70 on Windows without having to spring another $80 on the modem, the price of an entry-level Internet system just dropped by a whopping 12%. That is savings everyone can take to the bank, and all of it comes out of the pocket of that rotten bastard who keeps giving us software that sucks. That's gotta feel good to any /.er.
My core disagreement with you is that you fail to take the past into account. Look at Unix. When more people adopted it, it became more supported and more powerful. The problem set in when it fragmented and became proprietary.
Linux is open-source and will remain as such. Myself and others certainly will not stand by and let companies get out of control. As long as the source code is there, nobody can monopolize Linux.
Further, paranoia over more people accepting Linux will get us nowhere. We can't say "I am afraid of your modem. Please keep it working only for Win32. I am afraid the Government will own Linux." Seriously, we need to realize that if we have the code, we have control. Anything too restrictive will be rejected or changed by the community.
-Clump
At least one implementation of this so-called
Host Signal Processing is simply DSP sandwiched
between an ISA-PnP chip and a POTS interface.
The model I'm familiar with is the Motorola SM56
series. It puts the host port of a DSP56303
behind the ISA-PnP part, and then hooks
the POTS interface up to (IIRC) the ESSI port.
It fits the model desired by the original
poster -- download data across the ISA bus
for FFT processing by the DSP is *very* feasible.
Of course, ISA bus speed may be a problem for
some applications.
Correction: Not windows only. Windows 3.1/9x only. I run NT (have to), and it doesn't work on that, and there *will be* no drivers for said printer under NT.
big PITA to have to use the 9x laptop to print (not that the quality's any good, and the printout smudges, damn inkjets).
Yes, of course -- and it doesn't work with standard modem protocols, either, being limited strictly to radio ones. I was simply pointing out that such IS possible and inquiring as to how the CPU load compares to a winmodem running at a comparable speed (to get an idea of how much hw processing the winmodems do that is, in the soundmodem, strictly done by the CPU).
It's nice to get my score bumped. But why for "funny"? I was dead serious.
I worked with synthetic aperture radar back in 1967 - when you processed the data with lasers, film, and optic benches because the closest to a supercomputer available (at least to me) was Cray's very first effort - around which any laptop can now run rings.
You shoud be able to build all the microwave hardware you need for a synthetic aperture mine IMAGER starting with a couple X-band burglar sniffers (and maybe adding a PIN diode to sweep the frequency a bit better), plus a few low-grade discretes from Radio Shack, a pie plate, and a broom handle.
The signals outside the microwave plumbing, both what you generate and what you detect, are no worse than audio frequency, and over 90% of your crunch is one two-dimensional FFT to about the resolution of your screen - just what the DSP shines at. With a modem card you ought to be able to get real-time imaging or close to it - a big improvement over developing film at the lab, twice, after the airplane comes back.
Side-looking sonar is identical to one of the two modes of the radar "magic wand", except you use a sonar transucer you picked up for a hundred bux or so at West Marine or some other yacht outfitter, and you have to do your carrier yourself - which means a little extra crunch: a swept sine wave generation and a per-sample multiply at ultrasound frequencies. Still a piece of cake.
You can put the sonar transducer on a stick and use it {in both modes} for finding mines, too. Like when they're in a rice paddy, for instance.
Or hang the microwave gadget on your car window, drive by the local pizza parlor, and map the ovens and tables. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Ya'll better hope PCTel puts out the source code on those drivers or Whoa-ha-ha-ho!
no joke, i do tech support for an isp. (visualink.com in case you want to know), but by far the most problematic modem are winmodems (especially winLT). Its hard to tell people that they bought a piece of crap with a phone jack in the back.
my other penis is a vagina
Couriers have *TWO* processors on them.
/.) that certain WinModems (the *real* winmodems, I believe) actually have a DSP chip - just the controller (AT commands, RS232, etc) was offloaded onto the host processor, making it a signal analysis card...
:-) and knowing if my comp is screwed, or the connection [great for modem games: my friend has a bad line, so it's nice to know if the "lag" is caused by modem retrain {MR light goes off} or block errors {ARQ/FAX light goes off}).
There's an 80186 that handles the "non-RT" critical stuff (i.e., RS232 interface, [compression?], AT command interpretation, flash memory, etc), and a DSP chip that handles the telephone work (basically, creating/analyzing the signal, and translating said signal into bits).
There's a hidden "easter egg" (as always) in the courier that gives credit (as well as chip IDs) to the various hardware/software programmers.
Oh, one other thing: I read somewhere (possibly
Me? I use an external modem (heh. No such thing as a external [Win|Lin|etc]modem yet). More costly, but nicer, IMHO (those blinky lights!
Despite increasing CPU speeds, software modems are still proprietary, dependant, and underpowered. USR does make a decent Winmodem that, last time I checked, at least had a datapump on the board. Lucent, however, should be disbanded simply for manufacturing LT Winmodems.
You want this garbage in Linux? Yer nuts.
I bet my Courier V.Everything external will run spiffy in just about any OS. Yeah, it costs more. It's also got it's nadz on the board instead of borrowing them from another hardware device.
My 2 cents.
"There are two ways to get something done -- the right way and the cheap way."
I like that.
I can see only two good uses for Linmodems:
1. Used in an iToaster type of device (cheap $200 web surfing box).
2. Paperweight.
-- My neighbors dog has a four inch clit.
You mentioned the following:
For a perfect software modem, yes, this is true. But for a simple software modem, there are many things you can do to be "good enough", including the following:
After all, Win9x has the same problems as Linux does in this regards (eg. no guaranteed hard-real-time scheduling), yet software modems seem to function passibly in such an environment. If anything, Linux would probably do better than Win9x at this same task. In any case, missing a real-time deadline with a soft-modem would look like lag to the end user and little else. Annoying, but not fatal.
Now, I'm not running out and signing up to buy a soft modem (particularly since I'm about to get DSL service, obviating the need for a POTS modem almost entirely), but there are some interesting ideas that could make LinModems popular, depending on how open PC-Tel is.
- Software modem lights that actually work. (The ones I've seen in the past were worthless for actually diagnosing modem troubles. Eye candy at best.)
- Real-time modem connection quality statistics, such as number of retrains, current symbol rate, etc... perhaps via an entry in
/proc. The more detail, the better. - General on-the-fly control of modem parameters, such as explicitly requesting fallback/fallforward. For instance, lower symbol rates tend to work alot better for interactive sessions since latency is lower, but higher symbol rates tend to be better for downloading. You could actually request the modem to fall forward or fall backwards by signalling the driver directly. You can't really do that with an external modem.
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
I have a notebook with a PCTel modem built in (TI Extensa)
I would love to not have to pack my external around with me.
Soft modem support in linux is a good thing, just think how many fewer times you'll have to respond to newbies "Is it a winmodem?"
I've talked to many people who have installed linux on their box, only to find that they have a winmodem. So before they have a chance to see just how great linux they go back to winblowz 'cuz they can't afford a new modem at the time.
The more hardware supported, the more people will try linux & maybe stick with it!
As for stealing CPU cycles & driver having root access, of course you're not going to use these things on a mulituser box that already has a high CPU load, just like you wouldn't want to use software 3D on a graphics workstation.
It's like any other piece of hardware/software you can take it or leave it! Unless you got unwittingly stuck with it like me & millions of other winmodem owners:(
*
"Uhmmm this might sound a little paranoid but, I want shielded twistedpair. I figure if I wear a tinfoil hat, my data s
A driver for software modems under Linux would be a GOOD THING! More hardware support for Linux, especially vendor backed, is a GOOD THING! The more vendors start supporting Linux, the more OTHER vendors will see it as a growing platform and start supporting it as well!
There are many people out there who want to run Linux but can't because they're "stuck" with a software modem. They can't afford a new modem! Support for their modem would be a good thing!
*I* personally wouldn't use a software modem if given to me free on a silver platter. But there are many others who would greatly benefit from Linux support for software modems.
- =^o.o^=
Or, for $150, get an ISDN modem and get something that will cost you no trouble at all. Period. When was the last time that you had a problem with support with ISDN? Set the config right and there you go. I am no longer a bob, but I always suggested ISDN, even for Granny with a new Pee-See and I was never disappointed at how happy people were at the speed and the lack of problems. Line conditioning works wonders and is required for ISDN. That alone ...
I understand what you are trying to say, but my point was to stress that more hardware is good, not that x86 or hardware acceleration is bad. We need to be open-minded when it comes to hardware and look at the big picture. Just because some people hate software modems does not mean they should:
A.) Prevent the entire community from using them
B.) Reject attempts to increase Linux's supported hardware
C.) Give the impression that Linux users are snotty and unwilling to make that which is proprietary open.
The 2.4 kernel will offer limited support for WinModems. Should we now yell at Linus?
-Clump
> We (the Linux community) have complained about software modems for
> years. Doesn't it seem a bit hypocritical for us to do the same thing?
Actually, it's not hypocritical at all.
It's not the Linux community that's making these modems. It's PC_Tel. I will *not* buy one of these, or a system that has one preinstalled.
Software modems are a bad idea because they offload much of the modem's work to the CPU. This is bad, because most of that functionality is time-critical: I've seen software modems disconnect when the CPU load gets heavy. No more compiling while downloading. I even think it's a bad idea for anybody to build linux drivers for software modems, because it perpetuates bad hardware. Paraphrasing someone else's post yesterday, I'd rather see the bad hardware die with Windows.
#ifdef SMARTASS
Great. So let's also get rid of NICs and disk controllers that can do DMA. After all, the CPU can just poll the data from the I/O ports. Oh, and those graphics accellerators? What a stupid idea. We can just have the CPU do blitting and fill in triangles. Yeah, and SMP stands for Stupid Money Pit.
#endif
There's something ... I dunno .. immoral and distasteful about this kind of thing. Consider how much money Intel spends on pumping steroids into the 386 architecture, compared to how much the other chipmakers have to spent to get similar performance gains. If x86 users are so apathetic about speed that they are willing to use dumb peripherals, then all the money Intel has spent in the 90s has been wasted. You could just use a slower CPU with smart peripherals and get the same performance, without Intel's customer base having spend millions (billions?) over the last few years trying to get the last few % out of the x86. What a waste.
---
Have a sloppy night.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Don't confuse Dial Up Networking problems with modem problems. I've noticed in Win98 that there is a remarkable decrease in system stability when I'm using Dial Up Networking (with a hardware-modem).
Move that dialling duty to an IP Masq Linux box, and the 98 machine has suddendly become a much more stable gaming platform. Go figure. I haven't had a system lockup ever since I stopped using the 98 machine to dial out.
When the CPU is halted (HLT instruction), it burns very little power while it waits for an interrupt to wake it back up again. When the CPU is not halted, it burns a fair amount of juice.
Linux (and I hear NT) execute a HLT whenever the ready queue is empty. Win9X sits in a busy loop.
Ergo, CPU power consumption (and therefore temperature) is a function of system loading in OSes which halt the CPU (Linux, NT), and not on OSes which don't halt the CPU (Win9x).
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
The $20 modems all use your CPU instead of their own hardware. You take a 10%-20% CPU speed hit on high end CPUs (more on low-end ones). Good hardware modems start at $50 and go up from there.
What's the point on spending big bucks going up from a PIII-450 to a PIII-500, if you're going to throw away that peformance gain (and more) by using a cheezy software modem?
Don't get a lexmark! Maybe their higher-end printers are ok, but for 9/10ths of what a home user would get, it is windows all the way. Plus, they have extremely rude tech support. I called to see if I could get my 7000 working and the tech was an pompous ass. Besides, I've had enough problems with it even in windows.
I discourage the use of lexmark printers wherever I can.
** TARGOZ THE INVINCIBLE **
"I anyway have a old p120 on my lan as a firewall that have overall load on 0.00 .. dont mind if it become used some.. "
Until your VPN encrypt/decrypt needs get so severe that it starts to impinge on your throughput. Get ISDN or a cable modem and an Ethernet card and see how fast you can really go with serious firewalling and VPNs and serious connectivity!
Yes, you are right. But ISDN is a better solution for barely more than a "good" modem. So is getting a cable modem and dual-homing an old 486. Analog is not really where it's at except for cost reasons. Look at how to pay for the networking -- you will learn more and get better service.
It is true that normal Linux kernel is not hard realtime, and cannot guarentee QOS (unless you get rtLinux). However, neither is Windows. Linux is actually quite a bit better as a soft RTOS than any variant of Windows (including WinCE). As such, any software modem that works under Win95/98 with the proper drivers is capable of working under Linux.
Four real modems or ISDN line in, an ISDN modem, an ISDN service with an ISP. I will take the ISDN.
There was a link on /. to a story about how Micros~1 won't be able to deliver a version of Win2k Consumer edition targeted at el cheapo computers in time for christmas2k. In light of the fact that "LinModems" are now available (The article _did_ say they were available to OEMs) the article I provided the link to seems appropriate to read again.
MWAVE isn't a software modem per-se. It's a DSP card, which needs software downloaded to it (MWaveOS?) to perform tasks involving the RJ11 port [answering machine, caller ID, modem, etc), and tasks involving the audio ADC/DAC (sound card).
It's basically a DSP with RJ11 ports that happen to be telephone friendly, and mini stereo jacks. The reason why the speed drops is because that DSP doesn't have enough processing power to handle sound and modem simultaneously. (Side note: running sound and modem simultaneously takes more processing time than either one alone-task switching overhead)
I have an MWave on this box, but resorted to an external modem and AWE32 card (I already have both, so might as well use them). Used MWave as another soundcard [single tasking, they're nice]. IRQ hell, though. Stopped when I ran NT full time (no drivers).
See the Linmodems site for more details.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Linmodems.org.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
WinModem is a of USR
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
My AMS Tech Roadster laptop computer came with a PC-Tel ShitModem [tm] internal (not pcmcia card.)
:) But you have to tell me what you find out about it :)
Whenever the laptop gets slightly warm, which is usually after a half hour of use, the modem quits transfering data. Upon redial, it connects, but no data gets transfered... or if it does, it goes extremely slow--less than maybe 8 or 10 bytes a second. If I shut the laptop off and leave it off for 15 minutes or until it cools down, it will work again for a few minutes, and then It will break again. It isn't worth the irq the damn thing takes up. I bought a PCMCIA RealModem and it works great--Even if the laptop gets really hot from playing Unreal over the internet. The pcmcia card gets really really hot sometimes, but always works.
I think some people should file a class-action lawsuit against PC-Tel because their modems are just plain useless. Even occasional users who browse the web to maybe read cnn.com once in a while--It is useless for them if they just "crash" after a few minutes. The fact that they require software to suck off of the CPU isn't the worst thing about PC-Tel modems. The worst thing is that they are pieces of shit that are unreliable and do not even work when they have their 'friendly windows environment' with their drivers loaded. Pricewatch.com shows pc-tel winmodems for like 15 or 20 dollars. Still not worth it one bit. You'd be buying something that just doesn't work.
Incidentally, the damn PC-Tel modem loads a program called ptsnoop.exe which is run from one of the registry startup keys. I think it's about 30K in size. The modem won't even dial or accept any AT commands if this isn't loaded. Any takers with a disassembler? I'd be happy to give you a copy, contact ryan_antkowiak@hotmail.com
The most reverse engineering I ever do is hex editing a binary or using a resource editor.
--- there can only be one.... not...
If the driver is open source, I can see it being a nice thing - there's LOTS of things you can do with a DSP.
But the world really doesn't need this sorta thing.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Lats time I have checked on www.priceatch.com, you can buy a "REAL" 56k USR Internal ISA hardware modem for $55. It has jumpers on it and stuff, I have used 4 different OSes on this PC, and it never gave me any problems. Is that luxury? No
The only reason why winmodems are popular is because the freaking PC manufacturers always put the cheapest hardware they can find, even in their high end systems. Last time I checked Micron defaults its Millennia MAX (P3-500) systems to winmodems. But you can always change it when ordering from their website.
PC-Tel seem to be the modem of choice for things such as e-machines, with cyrix processors that can't seem to provide the power the modem needs to operate. The *fastest* I have personally seen one of these connect(with a live connetion) is 28.8. Any noise on the phone line kills the connection. I feel like breaking out in tears as soon as I hear PC-Tel.... it's going to be a long call that I can't end quickly without being a jerk.)
As soon as someone calls up with one of these pieces of crap I tell them to buy a new modem.
As a ISP tech, I take all the crap from people saying they have a 56k modem and wondering why they are only conecting at 24000. I would just once love to tell them to go out, stick a crowbar in their wallet, and spring for a 150 dollar USR external.
It is a pain in the ass to explain to someone that since they just spent 2500 dollars on a new PIII from $major_manufacturer (that'll never be used for anything more then talking to friends online), perhaps they ought to spend another hundred on their connection to the outside world
The exact same thing goes for Rockwell HCF's (hint for any tech support people out there, "+MS=V34" is your friend) and Diamond Supras...even the externals.
If there is going to be a Lin-modem, it should at least be on a modem with a DSP, not these HSP pieces of crap that are currently being put out.
My rant is done, feel free to moderate, as an ISP bob, I'm just passionate about modems.
Mikesch -- admitting my main system is currently a Cyrix with an LT Win-Modem (not all that bad... for a WinModem)
When the CPU has been idle for some time, Linux (and other well-engineered OSs) issue the hlt instruction. It puts the CPU in a 'sleep' state from which it gets out in any interrupt. After returning from the interrupt, it already 'forgot' it was in an sleep state and continues working normally.
.com with only 18 hlts. When I run it, it waited for a second (timer is 18.2/sec under DOS, 100/sec under Linux/i386) and exited (ret to int 20 on psp).
When the CPU is idle, this means no proccess has anything to do, and the only things left to do are answering to keyboard, timers, modems, sound DMA exaustion, IDE read/write completed, mouse movement, and other things like that. And they all use interrupts, so it gets out of the halt state without losing any cycles (besides, the hlt is only used after the cpu has been idle for some time, so if you are fully using the cpu no hlt will appear).
When the proccesses are idle, they are all waiting for some event (blocking reads/writes and sleeping for some specified time being the most common). All those events can only happen after a ISR (so it'll wake up after a time interrupt, or after a disk interrupt, or after a keyboard interrupt, or after a NIC interrupt, etc.). So the CPU has actually nothing useful to do until an ISR happens.
Once I wrote (under DOS, before I got Linux) a
I hope someone understood.
Do you have any information to back
those allegations up?
It really makes linux look bad
if it can't have a driver schedule
a timeout to occur (e.g.) 8k times
per second.
I believe the real reason why WinModems
never made it on linux was because linux people
(with skill) were never interested in them.
Linux community has shown repeatedly that
it can work around hardware spec and driver
writing problems, so those probably aren't
reasons why LinModems are not available right now.
even if it is a five percent drop in performance /while/ using the modem, you are effectively losing 22.5MHz on a 450MHz. The cost of a 450 PIII is $285 or lower, thus you end up with $15 lost from the CPU to the modem, /while/ the modem is in use. Given that you'll save greater than $15 on the modem, you'll end up saving more than you would with a hardware modem.
And, if there's a 10 to 15 percent loss on a 400MHz system, like it says in the article, and a PIII 500MHz costs $450, you lose $165. You can get four real modems for that. There's just no excuse for bad hardware.
If an OEM includes a Linmodem on my box, I'll expect that processing power for free. Anybody willing to sell me a P600 for a P550 price, to save $50 on the modem? I didn't think so.
Actually, um... I thought that Couriers had Intel CPUs in 'em. Like a 80186 or something. I never opening it up to check, though... Someone please set me straight before I start cracking black plastic...
---
Have a sloppy night.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
No, they don't. The main issue has to do with sensitivity to line noise. The cheap ones drop the line. This gets old. Fast. Adding a line filter helps, not not all that much.
Without a free software driver, we're stuck with a dumb piece of hardware and a closed driver. No thanks. The embedded intelligence in a modem doesn't cost more than $10, so I doubt that would fly.
I'd really like to encourage these guys...
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Umm $200.00 for a hardware modem? for a manufacturer?? wow you must live in beverly-hills. Most manufacturers pay $15.00 for a nice off-brand hardware modem (I.E. one that dont suck and actually adheres to the HAYES command standard) and the soft-modems come for $2.00 - $3.00 each! (3com OEM packaged software modems!!!) we made a decision not to suck every dollar out of a computer and sell a nice machine with real hardware instead of crap. anyone that gives you a win-modem/ opti sound or integrated mo-bo etc... is giving you a large pile of crap and giggling at the fact.. while a real computer can be had at the SAME price or just a little more (Example we sell a P-II 450 with an ASUS mo-bo, SBAWE64, ATI expert28, etc.. for less than $900.00) while the competetor sells a celeron with butt-brand mobo and hung-chung-foo sound built in with on board AGP video (no agp port though for the same)
people buy this crap because it has the name packard-bell or DELL or Compaq on it... it's low grade crap, and they eat it up...
If you want real hack potential, just hook your phone line up to your sound card. Now get to work on writing a modem emulator that way. ;-)
---
Have a sloppy night.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Is it true? Will we one day have LinNICs?
Nothing new. Embedded systems have long been implementing software features instead of hardware peripherals to save cost(and weight/size). The bottomline is that hardware will _always_ cost more than software. If you can stand the 1% performance hit, and it's worth the price cut, then there's no reason not to. As processors get faster and hardware gets smaller, software will dominate in our cost-cutting world.
-Adam
"The rich live hand-to-mouth too-just on a higher level."
-John Guare
It's just a general system cost copout. One of the reasons modem became what they were was to offload the CPU so more of it was available to the user. Now we've taken a commodity chip off the daughter card and brought the mundane processing back into the main CPU. people should look at this as if they had taken a coprocessor off the motherboard. they are stealing CPU from you afterall!
That's not true though. I spend plenty for those 400Mhz+ processors. If a software modem will take 15% of the CPU time out of my system, I'll spend the extra money and get a real modem. The hit is a lot more than 1%. I think they even mention that in the article.
Since when is processor performance measured in MHz and not in MIPS?
If you lose 25% of your CPU power, that does not translate directly into 25% of your CPU clock speed.
--------
"I already have all the latest software."
I run a home network with Linux on the server (which is a 486x75). The last thing I need is to slow down network access and other processes just to save a couple of bucks on a modem. In any case, I prefer external modems--I'm guessing these pieces of junk can only work as an internal modem, yes?
---
Put Hemos through English 101!
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
A software modem is essentially a downloadable DSP chip with a fast interface to the computer on one side and a phone line on the other. To sell one to Linux folk you have to open-source the code - and probably the board schematic, too.
Think about the hack potential (both white and black) of such a device!
And don't forget tapping into the DSP lines behind the telephone interface.
I'm already drooling over the prospect of making a side-looking sonar for my wife's boat, to explore the local bay's floor, or a landmine-finder synthetic aperture radar hacked up out of a couple radar motion detectors and a laptop with one of these "modems". DSPs have specialized instructions for FFTs, which should make it MUCH easier than using a sound card and pure software.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Supporting the functionality of a modem in software is indeed a task for strict realtime. If you can't get realtime response, there's a chance you'll violate the neccesary protocols and you'll have a failure.
The same is true of Class 1 faxmodem support. In order to use a Class 1 faxmodem, you need realtime response characteristics (this is the big reason that Class 2 faxmodems are so much better, especially on Unix systems). None the less, people do Class 1 faxing on systems without realtime schedulers, and very often the results are "good enough". I expect it'll be similar (either that, or it'll be in the kernel, where stricter realtime is actually somewhat possible).
Actually, one of cisco's latest accquisitions is a company that makes an Ethernet-based VOIP (Voice Over IP) phone... Apparently you get a phone with an RJ-45 jack, and a little ROM with a MAC address and extension number burned into it. Plug into any network jack on the LAN, the phone gets an address via DHCP, and there you are. Add a little two-port hub onto that phone and a laptop and you've got a roaming office.
Add broadband metropolitan ethernet and there you go.
Of course, Ma Bell managing a global IP-based network is kinda scary-- phreekers and crackers would finally have a common ground. And looking at how @home is layed out now (of course that's the Death Star, not the RBOC's), you gotta wonder what kinda clusterfuck we'd end up with if the had another hundred million or so clients attached... I better stop while I can still sleep, or I'll be up all night pondering phone guys with LAN analyzers running CAT5.... NOOOOOOO!!!!!
It is called 'being as cheap as hell'. Luckily I have talked to every friend who has bought a computer recently, and only one managed to get a winmodem after my speil on them. And he is a laptop owner, and it is an internal modem.. and he owns a v.90 pcmcia already.
I think the main reason for the prosperity of winmodems is the big chains want cheap computers, people will look at the price and choose another computer (rather than the individual components, understandable since most people buying computers at Office Depot have no clue what the difference between a 'Sound Blaster Live!' and a 'Ensoniq AudioPCI' is, or what it means for something to be a WinModem)
So, to compete they have to put cheap, shoddy hardware in their boxes. The difference between these and the old crappy Packard Bells is that the new computers usually make the winmodems 'removable'
Well said! (Except for the fact you said you put ATI stuff in those systems... Common, you guys should know better! :-)
Some off brands I've seen:
- Kalok hard-drives (Perhaps they meant K-LOC?)
- Octagon hard-drives (Yeah, they were shaped that way too).
- The heart stimulant of pentium 486 (CPU Fans, for 486 ONLY. Not for use in emergency situations.).
- Faxenger modems. (Wow, what's next? Sexenger modems?)
- MAD16 sound cards. (I'm mad, cause I bought one!).
- Happy Palette Manufacturing Co. (or something this, or more, stupid, I forgot the name now. Must be the Methyl Bromide they use for fumigation.).
- China Treated Palettes (Does this mean no nails, just glue?)
- ASOUND Gold sound cards (But I wanted two sounds, not just A SOUND!).
- Avance Logic 007 Sound Chipset (Must be buying their name on the installement plan. The 'd' comes tomorrow, after james bond delivers their latest batch of chips).
- Hung Fu cables (Why not just go all the way and have Kung Fu cables?).
- Cyberex mice (Need I say more?)
I'm sure you can all come up with some even worse semi-english company names. And don't forget the stuff so brandless, you'd swear it was either:
(a) Stolen; or
(b) Silkscreening their name would have cost extra; or
(c) They don't want to get sued
(I usually figure c).
My most favourite piece of off-brand hardware would be the MVP Socket 7 mobo I bought. They silkscreened the jumper settings wrong on it, and gave you no manual...
Huh, how about all the development that is being done to improve SMP, using a journaling filesystem, the inevitable IE-64 port, etc.
Are these just "drooling, brain-dead, point-n-click masses" aims? Besides, what's wrong with making Linux more user-friendly for the masses? You can pick from dozens of different distros or you can download the kernel itself and build Linux to your liking.
And if you want "sophisticated user" features, why don't you implement them yourself? Or maybe you should get in touch with Linus or Alan Cox.
My point is, if you feel that Linux developers are not aiming high enough for you, then you should do some development yourself. That's what Linux is all about.
PC-Tel is the absolute worst of the software modems.
Linux needs this support. Not everybody can just buy a 'real' modem. Yes, winmodems suck ass, but almost every new laptop comes with a winmodem. Winmodems have less chips and require a lot less power than a normal modem which makes them ideal in the OEM's view for laptops. You can get real pcmcia modems, but even most of the new pcmcia modems are winmodems.
--- A Jesus Fish eating a Darwin Fish only proves Darwin's point.
I believe Rendus was referring to $50 being the cost of a hardware-driven DSP modem, thus being a very high percentage of the total $200 of these cheap computers they want to build.
:-) I've generally had very nice "good enough" success with cheap hardware, but modems are definitely not something I'll cheap out on again.
Those $20 modems you saw are the software-driven "Host Signal Processing" modems, which is what is being debated here (DSP vs. HSP).
I know this because I bought one the other day, and promptly returned it. I had not bought a modem for a couple of years, and had no idea that HSP == WinModem. I just saw that it was cheap, and ISA (it was intended for a 486/33).
The box described hardware requirements as being at least a 200MHz machine running Windows 95/98 or NT. I dismissed this because I frequently see "requirements" on products that are not necessarily true, but rather just there to comfort folks that don't "know better". "Hmm, I have Windows 95, I wonder if it will work with my computer. Yes! It says requires Windows 95, so it must work!"
Needless to say, I'm the one that "didn't know better" this time, regarding WinModems.
An interesting thought with the LinModem though -- if the driver and specifications are sufficiently open-sourced and stable, the $200 Linux box used for net surfing could have lots more potential as well, as software for voice mail could be written as well and integrated with the user interface.
Even if the user had a DSL or Cable Modem connection, a cheap "LinModem", given a stable enough driver, could still be used to provide said answering machine capabilities.
And what about a Linux "telephone server" in a wired home, where your conversation is transmitted digitally to the server before sent out over the phone line? Whoa, I'm starting to get some scary privacy-related issues here, I better stop writing...
I love to see a company shoot themselves in the foot and die in a blaze of horror
LINUX users arent the general mindless PC user crowd, we use quality hardware, are picky about what kind of video card we have (how many pc purchases have you overheard at the local computer/office supply shop where the buyer asks what chipset is on the video card?) we will blackball any company that doesn't cooperate, and we praise to all on high about those that do (Connectix screwed themselves with the Quickcam VC, while the BT chipset folks have all of us running to buy their products)
No, they missed the point, Linux users arent brain-dead droolers we actually have 1/3rd of a brain while almost 80% of all windows users dont have a clue, shouldnt have a computer in the first place (if your 12 year old son knows more than you do, please paste moron on your forhead) Please make this lin-modem.. so I can tell people not to buy it or anything from anyone selling it...
People are like cattle, they follow mindlessly, eat grass, moo and flatuate....
I enjoy the flatuate part.
While sometimes the WinModem manufacturer will provide "drivers" for your new OS, more likely than not they will leave you in the lurch. After all, without software to run your WinModem, you'll just have to go out and buy another one, and that is exactly what they want.
If you only use your box for two years, then this isn't so much an issue, but some of us like to have computers that at least have a shot of working two years from now.
For a long time, the hlt instruction shut down x86 CPUs until the next interrupt. While it's halted, it uses barely any power/generates barely any power.
On normal instructions, well engineered CPUs may also shut down functional units not being used. So for instance, some CPUs will shut down the FPU if they are not currently processing an FPU instruction. Intel's (formerly Digital's) StrongARM series of chips certainly does this with its functional units (although not with the FPU, since it doesn't have one). I don't know if any x86 chips do this, but they probably either do, or will in the next generation of chips.
I was under the impression that Penguin was a VAR,
not an OEM -- "Value Added Reseller" as opposed to
"Original Equipment Manufacturer". If Penguin is an OEM, exactly what original equipment are they manufacturing?
Well, that's odd because I'm running 5 IDE devices as I write this, and there is room for 3 more. Some MBs now support 4 chains (33 and 33/66 UDMA), like the ABit BE6.
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
"I think that [in the future], a hardware modem will be a high-end, luxury item."
Sounds like something from SegFault.
"Soon every household will have at least 512k SVGA Cards!"
_______
2B1ASK1
You can get modems for a lot less than $50. Last show I was at I saw 56k modems for about $20. They might not be "quality" modems, but what difference does it really make? They still get your bits from one end of the phone line to the other just as fast.
-matt
PC-Tel modems are straight from the Devil. I work for an ISP. Trust me, these things suck monkey weiner.
-Zen I'm gonna make the _world_ my bitch.
I've always thought that the reason WinModems aren't supported in Linux had nothing to do with the release of specs for the drivers. Rather, in order to correctly interprete the wave signals from the modem in software required that the driver execute at specific times. The only way to assure this would be to allow quality of service in the kernel. This warps the design of the kernel and has not been allowed by the kernel maintainers.
So, along comes someone trying to port their WinModem driver to Linux. How are they going to get the quality of service they need? Are they going to hack the kernel? Do you want your hardware vendor requiring you to hack your kernel in a way that the kernel maintainers themselves do not accept?
Or, is this a vaporware announcement intended to make their stockholders think that they are tapping into a market just waiting for a product.
Don't trust this announcement. I'll believe it when I see a Linux machine with a LinTel modem running.
Not only are there soft modems, but then there's dumb printers and other hardware too. I have a piece of crap printer from HP that is also controllerless, luckily some great guy wrote a Linux driver for it, but it still wont print in color :( But if you think soft modems are bad for the CPU, whenever I print, my computer slows to a freaking crawl for the whole time I print. Hardware like this just adds to the bloat found in software these days. They build a faster CPU, and then tax it with crap to where the CPU is just as useless as the previous generation one. It's a sad thing to see companies putting this crap into their computers. It's always better to have peripherals take the load off of CPU's just like playing a game with a 3Dfx card as opposed to using software rendering. Or having a seperate DVD or MP3 decoder card as opposed to having the CPU do it. I think the money is better spent on more expensive peripherals than a hella-fast CPU...
-- My neighbors dog has a four inch clit.
Ah, but you'll also note that even if it is a five percent drop in performance /while/ using the modem, you are effectively losing 22.5MHz on a 450MHz. The cost of a 450 PIII is $285 or lower, thus you end up with $15 lost from the CPU to the modem, /while/ the modem is in use. Given that you'll save greater than $15 on the modem, you'll end up saving more than you would with a hardware modem. Now, if you are playing quake or a game over the modem, you would be considered stupid to buy anything less than a hardware modem, you can't afford that performance drop.
But if you are buying 1000 PCs to sell to home users then you can have a significant cost savings, since they will likely only run a few programs (browser, mailreader, word processor) when they use their modem. Since *nix is becoming mainstream(or is on a path which may take it mainstream) then these companies are hoping to be in the game when it starts. Then you have all the kids who want a linux box but can't afford the hardware. $15 makes a big difference.
Anyway...
-Adam
"We are here on earth to do good to others. What the others are here for, I don't know."
-W H Auden
Hate to burst your bubble, but software modems are NOT DSP chips. They instead turn your CPU into a DSP chip, but since DSP is a hard task (didn't it mention 10% of a 400mhz PII?) the CPU does a bad job. The DSP can do FFT very fast as you say, but that isn't what a winmodem does as we are talking about them.
Now if you has said a regular modem (ie. $100 each) you would be right, all those modems are these days is a DSP chip and some rom. My USR (3com) courior could be everything you say if only 3com would release the specs! Technically this is a software modem as you write code for the DSP to decode the signal, but typically we don't consider them one because the code resides in (flash or similear) ROM.
I know I am probably going to be flamed for this but I don't think winmodems are really such a bad thing for home use in the same way IDE drives are not so bad for home use. I have an 28k external modem for my linux mach. and a 56k internal which i basically got for free from tigerdirect when I bought my machine.
:) Moreover, just to test out what the degradation really was like, I had the machine play mpegs (video) (I have no mpeg card so it was softwarebased decompression) at the same time and got less than 10% loss, still well above a typical 28k modem.
I think if you are logged in all day and run jobs in the background on a regular basis then by all means you should get a real modem, but to be honest everything i've ever done on the windoze side of the box (which basically involves downloading the random piece of software) the winmodem has pretty much worked exactly as specified and i get 56k transfers basically for free (which isn't so bad really).. running netscape isn't exactly CPU intensive
(Incidentally the box is an AMD 350-K2 w/ 64
megs of sdram, to give you an idea of the power)
I think if you are trying to build a $200 box for your parents so they can send email, read cnn news and other crap, winmodems are the way to go, since one of the nice things about linux is legally building costeffective machines where every penny counts, i think it would be nice to take advantage of the cheap hardware. (In the same way we now all take advantage of cheap IDE drives which are also more cpu intensive than your typical SCSI drive at home)
just so you know, more than likely if i actually buy a modem it'll be external etc but thats only because most of us are more than typical online users. (Incidentally i think i'll switch to SCSI as well next time around, mostly because 4 IDE device limit is out of control) but again the performance loss is really negligable as far as I can tell for doing typical home use stuff (not games obviously) but real_audio,surfing,email etc..
Actually... I run SETI@Home practically all the time... (I've got the priority set real low).
If I had to run a *inModem it would slow that down...
the onyl real question is if the linmodem drivers will be open source and there will be documentation for the hardware. if yes then this is an extremly good thing.. e.g.
these lin modems could be used for telephony application then as well.. if the driver is binary only then i hope no one will buy that crap..
greetings mond.
Well - I don't think I'd ever want something like this in my PC. I also think that I had enough of DumbHardware(tm) after changing 3 soundcards before buying an AWE64 (I have to say that the guys that sold them to me were resonable enough to accept them back - mainly after telling them that if those cards don't work with linux I will come back and shove them up their ... NO CARRIER :)) I also had enough beeing unable to make a Canon WinDumbass printer print color from linux.
...NO CARRIER] is [bigger|better|faster|loger] than yours all)
IMNSHO it *ALWAYS* worths to have the good ol' hardware do whatever is to be done and let the CPU out of the cheesy things. A good thing (tm) may be the possibility of upgrading the firmware (for example: Courier modems). And even more - a hardware thing will (almost) always do whatever is supposed to do - and do it well.
On the other hand more powerfull processors don't necessarly mean hogging them with tasks a shitty I/O card can't do because we were cheap when we bought it though we spent X times more on the bloody CPU (or any other not-so-important piece of hardware). If you can buy a Bleeding-Edge-Processor (tm) for sure you can settle down to a 1m-from-the-Bleeding-Edge-Processor and a good piece of hardware (be it modem, soundcard, video-card, whatever), and that of course unless
you suffer of some macho ambition (i.e. my [#!@^^*%&$
I remember an old saying that goes like this: "those who don't know Unix are condemned to reinvent it - poorly" though I'm afraid I can see
a similar one that is: "those who don't know Windows are condemned to build it on Linux - with the well known consequences"
Embedded systems usually take the total cost in to account...and "software modems" are very cheap for those sorts of system. Why take two $5 processors (and their board space, power requirements, etc) when one $10 processor will do...
Getting an Intel processor to compete with a $5 DSP is incredibly foolish though... "Big computer" processors just don't have the MAC units needed to handle "software modems" efficiently.
A point to note is that all modems are software modems these days...
ok, you odviously have never done tech support. HSP SUCKS. I would say over 45% of the calls I get (I do tech support for a really cheap, shitty ISP) are because HSP modems cant connect worth shit.
Mr Sanity has gone home for tea, the hole industry is insane. Hell, my names Charles and I'm a baboon. Wibble.
These days, people buy modems...or rather get a computer that comes w/ some winmodem
and they only ever call one number?
Cable, eh? ADSL, huh? Whaddya call your land-line BBSes with? Your university mainframe dialups?
What about head-to-head games of Doom, or ROTT?
Dont tell me you do that over your "internet" too?
I remember reading this on some newsgroup a while back: The Microsoft Winmodem driver contains code that's patented. Microsoft licensed the right to use it from the intellectual property owner. Same with hardware modems: the manufacturers pay a royalty to the IP owner.
Again, I read it somewhere. I have no idea whether it's true. But if it is true, then they're SOL if they plan to write software that does the same thing.
> ...aiming for the more sophisticated user...
More like they are aiming for the ignorant new linux user who hasn't got a clue what they're getting.
Mark Edwards
"You'll never go broke underestimating
the intelligence of the American Public"
Yeah but ask a gamer that's utilizing his CPU 100% in some game if he wants to give up FPU/Graphics 3D/modem performance at a cost of several FPS. The cost was 10-15%, not 1%. Was memory-mapped video a "good" idea? How many machines really need to have a modem these days anyway. I've always preferred external modems so I can move them from system to system (Mac/Linux/Windoze), watch the lights when somethings "not right", and reset them without rebooting the host. With the advent of home networks, the need to have a modem in every machine is pretty much over. Too many built-in ethernet controllers (would you suggest they make one of them software only?) to need to have every connected system go direct. Hell, even Windows has figured out modem sharing. WinPrinters was another great advance!
okay this is for all with a p2+ cpu... just to make that clear..
.. dont mind if it become used some..
I think the softwaremodem is something good for linux..
1. How often do you use you:r entire cpu when online with a modem?
I got a gnomeicu, mpg123, and a irc usaly and use about 25% at most on my p2 350..
2. Easy to upgrade if they can make a standard and I think they will if they going for the linux communety..
I wouldn't spend the cost for a new modem that speeded up my modem about 10-20% a new driver.. sure thing..
3. I anyway have a old p120 on my lan as a firewall that have overall load on 0.00
//rE^d