I agree with David that Winmodems are generally not the way to go however
just recently I picked up a Action Tech v.90 56K Deskvoice modem for
Windows....you got it.....a Winmodem! It was one of those CompUSA deals
...On sale...plus instant rebate ...plus manufacture rebate  and I ended up
paying 20 dollars for the modem. The manufacturer payed off on the rebate
surprisingly quickly. CNET rated this particular modem number two in a 56K
run off of around fifty modems from all manufacturers....a Zoom was number
one. This fact intrigued me enough to pay 20 bucks and check it out.

With good phone lines it runs as promised....the fax worked well.....the
voice message with Winfax Pro is good and it installed into 95b simply and
quickly. I was online with no problems at all and in just a few minutes.  I
installed it in a striped down basic 95b setup running a P 133 with 16 megs
of EDO. Once connected ..with no Internet apps running I am using less then
1 percent of CPU time and no resources that I am aware of....once I load a
web browser and a email program I start using 3 to 4 percent of CPU time.
On a pedal to the metal download or upload I shoot up to 7 to 10 per cent
of CPU time.

Overall I am much more impressed then I ever thought I would be....in fact
I thought I would at best give a ok for  the price sort of approval. ....
If this was the modem I used on my only PC then I would not want it not
only because it uses CPU time but also because it needs software to run
which makes it problematic and it is only supported in 95, 98 or NT4.
However on another PC used as a gateway...and or message center I think it
is fine. Especially for 20 bucks ! ! ! In fact I have decided to install it
in a 486DX100 with 16 megs of RAM and use it for a gateway and fax message
center.

m


>  An awful lot of internal 56K modems are "WinModems"; these use
>driver software to perform some of the tasks that a modem has to, and
>so (a) they work only witrh Windows, and (b) they typically specify a
>minimum of a Pentium 133MHz CPU, in order to be able to suck up
>enough CPU cycles in the driver without cutting into foreground
>application processing.
>  IF you can find an internal 56K modem that doesn't work this way,
>go for it.  But if the price sounds too good to be true, it probably
>is....
>
>David G
>

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