There are internal modems that are not winmodems, there are also winmodems
that are not software or softmodems. While I would stay away from a
softmodem, I would have no problem with a winmodem that simply is a
jumperless type modem. There are also software driven external modems.

While I have not tested any modems lately, in the past, I have tested
winmodems against both standard jumpered type modems and software modems. On
slower machines, I was using a P166, the only modems that tested slower were
the software type modems. When I used faster systems, blazingly fast 350Mhz
systems, only the cheaper HSP type modems were any slower and the better
software modems showed no difference as long as you didn't try to run any
other applications at the same time.

While I am still no fan of the software modem, with systems running at 1Ghz
or better, I imagine that most systems would hardly flinch at tacking the
responsability of any type modem onto them. Unless you have a specific reason
to want to force your system to work around a modem that you set the
resources on, I would find a good quality winmodem.

Dennis Noble


> Whether PCI-based or not, my recollection is that an internal modem is
> functionally a "Winmodem" whether it bears that name or not.  This is
> because  internal modems (whether PCI or ISA) use the system CPU to perform
> some of their processing, while an external modem actually has a separate
> processor built into it and does not "steal" processing capacity from the
> system CPU.
>

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