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SubjectRe: Winmodem support, some performance tradeoff estimates
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> Hmm.  My Courier was purchased approximately 2 years ago as well, and it
> was a very nice model, even when the Sportsters purchased at the same
> time started turning into crap. (Sportsters used to be good modems,
> too, then USR dropped the price and the quality of the Sportsters took a
> nose dive --- all of this before 3Com bought out USR, so we can't lay
> this entirely at 3Com's door.)

I grabbed a 28.8 sportster right about that time. It worked great for me.
About a year later (a year ago), I picked up a 33.6 sportster, and it
sure wasn't worth it. If it wasn't for the fact that that modem couldn't
keep a connection, I would have put off the 56K upgrade longer than
I did.

> So recent model Couriers have gone the way of Sportsters, eh? Too bad.
> I'll have to look at some other higher quality external modem.....

Let me expound on how much Zooms suck and should be avoided.
I bought a Zoom 56K external (every modem I've ever owned has been
external. I need the lights, I need to be able to turn it off); it was
cheap. It was a k56Flex model, since that was what my ISP supported
and that's what was cheap. Well, it worked alright for a while. Recently,
though, the ISP upgraded to v.90 standards in their racks. Well,
theoretically, the racks should be able to still speak to my K56Flex modem,
and they did, but rather poorly.

For months straight, I couldn't keep a connection up for more than about
20 minutes of use. I couldn't even get a whole game of Quake in. Sometimes,
and since I use sudo to force restart the PPP, I could even run the sudo
command without having to re-enter the password. It hung up that often.

I mailed Zoom two months ago, when the problems started. Well, I got a reply
1 month ago. 4 weeks to answer my mail, they blamed it on "e-mail trouble."
Sure was. The message was asking if they had any Linux programs to flash
a new firmware update to the modem. I assumed this might fix whatever
was causing the hangups. The answer, as expected, was no. They don't support
Linux.

I don't have any of that Microsoft stuff at home, so I dragged the modem
into work. I plugged it into a 95 box and started the firmware upgrade.
Well, the backup failed. Some dumb error about not enough disk space
(completely false, I had 4 GB free; this machine burns CDs). I skipped
the backup, and went to the firmware upgrade. The first part loaded
via ASCII upload, the second failed via XModem. I moved to another machine,
same problems. I moved yet again to an NT box. Same exact problems.
Zoom makes shitty hardware, I don't know why I expected any more from
their software.

I wrote another letter (I'm expecting a reply by Christmas) telling them
their software sucks, and that I'll never buy a Zoom again because they
don't work well at all, and they're useless to me if I have to flash the
thing just to make it work. And if I can't flash the thing in Linux,
it's not worth it.

I bought a Hayes Accura. I plugged it in. It went 40 hours before I hung
it up because I thought something funny was happening. It was only after
I had let it re-connect that I had noticed that my ISPs pipe had fallen
down somewhere near Chicago. Not the modem's fault. I don't know what
the Hayes flash situation is, but this is a v.90 chipset, it works
great right now, and the letter I sent to their support (about where
they moved the AT command set reference on their web site) was answered
in a single day. They also sell an Optima series for those who wish
to spend a bit more money.

--
Shaw Terwilliger (ten.tenecnavda@giwt)

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