On  8 Jul 98 at 8:55, David A Abbe wrote:

> with this talk of modems, it reminded me of a semi-recent post which said
> something to the effect of there are two types of modems.....those which
> do the work themselves, and those which rely on your processor and tax
> it...  when you are on the internet, just goofing off, maybe downloading
> a file or two, and generally not using your system for anything else,
> (i.e. no heavy applications going), just how much are you using the
> processor anyways??  would i actually notice a big performance hit??

  Well, if that's your style of usage, then no, you might not notice
the hit.  Personally, I tend to work on other things while downloads
proceed in the background, so I'm more likely to notice it.

  But the main issues aren't really performance as such.  First of
all, drivers for such modems are provided for Windows only.  Not for
DOS, not for Linux, sometimes not even for NT.
  Secondly, a real hardware modem is self-contained; you can move it
from machine to machine and the "standard modem" settings have a
reasonable chance of working usably.  A "WinModem" is useless without
its driver disk, which is easy to misplace.
  And thirdly, Windows installations have a tendency to become
unstable over time as various programs get installed and uninstalled
and updates and patches get applied.  So when your dial-up breaks,
you have no idea whether the hardware is broken, or whether the
driver has become corrupted or is incompatible with the latest
configuration of the system.

  You can get a very decent modem for $40 or $50.  How much savings
would a WinModem have to offer to induce you to accept the risks
above?  Only you can decide for yourself.  [Most power users I know
prefer not to take these chances.]

David G