> -----Original Message----- > From: David Gillett [mailto:[log in to unmask]] > Sent: Monday, February 22, 1999 2:04 PM > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] US Robotics or Puretek??? > > "WinModem" is a USR trademark. > > However, USR continues to make their "Sportster" and "Courier" (top > of the line) models, and I suspect that many of the customers > who would > be satisified with a WinModem are wooed away by their even-cheaper > competition. They do sell WinModems, but I wouldn't assume they > comprise "most" of their sales.... Well alot of USR/3COM OEM sales are to companies like Dell, and they do use WinModems exclusively. USR isn't the only one making "WinModems" Rockwell has for years made RPI (Rockwell Packet Interface) modems that were just the Datapump minus the controller. PCTel is also making "WinModems." Also on a side note All PCI Modems are "Controllerless" (Translate WinModems). Alot of people bash so called WinModems. They had alwayz shown these hideous examples of 40% CPU Utilization...and well that is just not the case. PCI Winmodems might steal System RAM and CPU cycles to do what is normally done by an Onboard Controller...however the Controller is only responsible for Modem I/O, not for doing the PWM that is required to actually do the Modulation and Demodulation of the DATA (that MoDem part) plus the I/O is done over the PCI bus; The PCI Bus is some 4x MHz, 4x Bus Width of you typical XT (Yeah 8bit still)Bus Modem, not to mention that alot of PCI Bus Modems use Busmastering DMA to transfer data, which makes even less of a strain on our CPU. We are only talking 53.3Kpbs in the US, not a problem with the 133MB/sec Bandwidth we have on our PCI Bus. Also PCI is known for it's IRQ Sharing and flawless configuration method (minus some Compaqs with a Broken PCI BIOS). All of these Contollerless modems aren't the same though. the Cirrus, Lucent, TI, and Conexant (formerly Rockwell Semi) PCI ASICs are well designed. however the PCTel Modems are inferior crap. PCTel modems aren't just Controllerless they use the CPU to do the PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) that is typically handled by the DSP onboard the Modem ASIC, thus making the Argument that WinModems are inferior a reality once again. Thanks to PCTel we now have to clarify between a Host Controlled Modem (Cirrus, Conexant, TI, Lucent) and a Modem which uses Host (your Pentium II or whatevah) Signal Processing. Even with MMX; Host Signal Procesing is a bad idea. As Signal Processing is required of your CPU even while your connection is quiescent (ie up; but with no data actually being transfered). for more info seek: http://www.lucent.com/micro/K56flex/PN96053.html http://www.cirrus.com/products/overviews/md56xx_3.html http://www.conexant.com/products/modems/v90/hcf_soft56/default.asp?L1class_I D=10&L2class_ID=22&L3class_ID=64&action=level_three#9 http://www.pctel.com/products/whtpap.html ¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤øøº°`°º¤¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø Dave Hendricks: Linux-Junkie; MCP; Systems Integrator. [log in to unmask] > Do you want to signoff PCBUILD or just change to Digest mode - visit our web site: http://nospin.com/pc/pcbuild.html