At 10:14 PM 3/23/1998   Michi Imamura wrote:
>
>I have a friend who is desperate to add a modem to a modemless 386.  I
>was wondering if any modem will work or do I need a special legacy
>modem.  I have a Maxtech 33.6K modem with rockwell chipset.  I don't want
>to waste my time trying to install a modem that won't work.  My friend
>has a 386 with only 2Mb RAM.  I know 386's can have modems but what is
>the limit?  Is the Maxtech too advanced.  My friend doesn't have the
>funds to purchase a new computer and just wants to be able to use
>Juno(a free e-mail provider).  Any ideas?


Michi:

Any modem that performs all functions in HARDWARE is suitable.
There are various WINDOWS modems out there that require
Win3.x or Win95 and a 486 computer or better to work and may
NOT work in your friend's PC because of the lack of Windows
and processing power.  An example would be the US Robotics
WINMODEM, which is likely would choke on that 386, even with
Windows installed.

Usually, the modem packaging will state something like the modem
"requires 4+MB of Ram, Windows 3.1 or 95, and a 486SX25 or
better CPU". I do NOT recommend these modems, period. The
makers are trying to shave a few dollars off the cost by implementing
encoding,compression and other functions using the CPU and Windows.

Regards,

John Chin