Text 28, 57 rader
Skriven 2004-11-28 10:24:54 av Mike Tripp (1:382/61)
     Kommentar till text 27 av Mike Luther (1:117/3001.0)
Ärende: PCI controller modems
=============================
Hello Mike!

27 Nov 04 00:16, Mike Luther wrote to All:

 ML> Are there any full controller based PCI slot internal modems except
 ML> for the USR PCI internal, the Zoom PCI internal and the ActionTek PCI
 ML> internal products?

It's been a while back (1.5-2yrs) since I was on the same mission, so pardon
any changes to the "state of the union" since I was on a similar quest, but I
think you've identified the same chipsets that were available then with your
short list.  USR does their own chipsets that (unsurprisingly) aren't found in
anything but USR brand products.  As I recall, both Zoom and Actiontech were
using the (Agere) Lucent Venus chipset.

I was building a small form factor system to hopefully replace the DOS node
running the BBS, using the VIA Epia 6" square motherboard with embedded
everything (fanless CPU, LAN, video, sound, etc).  This gave me one more
limitation that wasn't met by any on your list: it had to be low profile, as my
baby boxen couldn't accept a full-height PCI.  Zoom's board was definitely all
of the standard height and wouldn't work for me.  Actiontech's appeared from
unreliable website pictures to possibly be a half to three-quarters of an inch
shorter but I had no luck actually finding the specific model available.

Fortunately I did find a couple of no-name options that were also Lucent
Venus-based and got =really= lucky and found one of the two on the shelf at
Frye's.  I had to insist on opening it in the store to physically read the
chipset when I saw the "actual content may vary" disclaimer next to the photo
on the box.  It was also half the price of the name brands, in addition to
being half the height.<g>  What I ended up with was called a "Pragmatic
I56LVP-F30".  I even managed to Google up a guy that had gotten it working in
his Linux box and he was even nice enough to pull it out of his machine, take
geometric dimensions, and shoot me a web-cam shot of it laying on top of (but
not covering) a dollar bill.<g>

Ultimately, I did get the modem installed and tested in both answer and
originate modes (even booting/running DOS from a USB memory key), but never
stabilized the QEMM setup enough to put the baby box in production without fear
of dreaded "exception 13" halts.  I'm sure it could be ironed out with an
intensive mapping session of include/excludes for the "integrated everything"
devices, but I am both rusty and time-constrained and simply haven't done it.

Sorry that this probably doesn't help, if you assign the line-condition
handling property to the controller chipset, since I'm fairly certain that it
is the same as one you already have.  My own limited experience would tend to
assign more of the blame to the firmware, as I have seen radical shifts in
behavior (positive or negative) come from flash upgrades than changing modems.
I doubt that there has been any new introductions and expect that the
controller-based modem is headed the way of the dodo.  Even the Linux boyz are
starting to get the hang of creating their own software to translate "winmodem"
into a "linmodem". If controller-based wasn't a Linux requirement also, there
wouldn't be enough market niche to justify continuing to produce them.

.\\ike

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