On Wed, 18 Apr 2018 10:49:42 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , Ken Blake
writes:
On Tue, 17 Apr 2018 22:14:46 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , Ken Blake
writes:
[]
Personally I use separate devices: a router and a modem. Whether
router/modem, printer/scanner, or anything else, I always prefer to
avoid combination devices, since if one part fails, you need to
replace both.

On the whole I agree with you, but we accept some combinations these
days: video monitors with inbuilt tuner/decoder/audio-amp (we call that
a TV set), microwave oven with integrated timer ... in computing,
motherboard with IDE/SATA controller, sound, in many cases graphics. The
cost saving - not to mention reduction in number of boxes - sometimes
outweighs the inconvenience of only part failing.
[]
And it's not always only a matter of cost savings or number of boxes.
Sometimes the separate devices aren't available

Indeed.

Here in UK at least,
what most people refer to as a "router" is a combination ADSL MoDem,
ethernet hub/switch/router/whatever, and wifi interface (these days the
wifi part is tending to be two band).


And in the US, there are also many people who do the same thing. One
day they may turn out to be right, and only combination devices will

Or (and arguably this may already be the case), they may be right
because the language has changed. (I hate it, as it usually results in a
loss of distinction, but we can't fight language changes. I know; my
brother is associate editor on the Dictionary, so we're well familiar
with how the language changes.)


There's no question about language changing. It always has. To take a
single example related to the points under discussion, what almost all
of us call a modem these days wouldn't have been called a modem just a
few years ago. A modem was a device that converted analog signals to
digital and vice versa. So a DSL or cable "modem," both of which are
all digital, isn't really a modem.


For a while, I resisted, and refused to call such things modems, but
I've given up. The change has happened, and almost everyone, including
me, now call them modems.

I'm perhaps in the minority, but even though I know it's going to
happen, I always try to resist language change happening too fast; it
results in people getting confused.


be available. But that day hasn't come yet, and as far as I'm
concerned, calling such a combination a router is still wrong, and is
likely to confuse many people.

And help some unscrupulous sellers, who may sell a real router-only to
people who think they're getting a MoDem/router, and/or something with
wifi in it, but don't know enough to check.


Yes.


I keep seeing messages from people who say they are unable to scan an
image with their printer and are looking for help. My guess is that
they are talking a combination printer/scanner, but I'm never sure. I
sometimes think they may be talking about a printer, and don't realize
that a scanner isn't part of it.

Indeed. And you also remind me of the time when one or two printer
manufacturers sold a head, that could be fitted to their printer instead
of the print head, and turned it into a scanner!



Interesting. I don't think I have ever seen or heard of such a device.


(I've recently obtained a _mouse_-like device - actually it works as
just a mouse without the special software - that can scan; you basically
scribble with it on whatever you're trying to scan. LG smart scan. I was
expecting the results it produced to be very poor, full of lines and
mismatches [I bought it just because of its extreme portability], but
I'm actually very impressed with the results.)



A couple of weeks ago, while I was at his home taking a guitar lesson,
my guitar teacher "scanned" a page of music for me--with his smart
phone. Actually he took a photo of it, but the result was almost
indistinguishable from a scanned page.