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  #61  
Old November 16th 17, 12:56 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default dialup problems

wrote:
On Wed, 15 Nov 2017 15:20:27 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message ,
writes:
[]
I do wonder if getting a different brand of modem would help though. I

It might ...
[]
I think a lot of the problems is my ISP. They have pretty much abandoned
the dialup, but they know that some of us rural people cant connect any
other way. so they keep a few modems running for those of us who have a

... as long as the "spiral of death" isn't caused by the other end.

(I still can't understand why you don't get it with Windows 98, but I
sympathise that you're fed up of trying things!)

landline from them. Where I live, I must have a landline because my
cellphone dont get a signal.

Would it be possible to erect some sort of aerial - do cellular signals
reach your location but too far above ground level? Or are you so remote
that you are not in a coverage area at all? I appreciate it'd be
awkward, since modern 'phones don't have an aerial socket, and it'd have
to be bidirectional, which makes boosters difficult (though can be
done), but if there is a signal, two passive but high-gain (i. e.
directional) aerials connected together, in your loft or on a pole,
_might_ make life a bit more bearable.


Thanks for starting a new thread. I was considering doing the same.

I have never understood why Win98 works and not any NT based OS. I still
have Win2000 installed on the same computer as Win98. All I use it for
is to do backups, because Win98 cant handle those external hard drives
on USB. I love Win98, but USB support has always been lousy. By (dual)
booting to Win2000, I can copy everything from my HDD to my backup,
including the Win98 OS files. I would have XP instead in that partition,
but this computer is not quite up to Xp level for power and such.

No, I dont get a usable cellphone signal. I live down a hill, cellphone
signals are poor to start with, and being downhill from the nearby town,
I dont get much. Sometimes I get one bar, but have to go outside (metal
covered house). But I know I will lose the signal at any time during the
call. Other times I dont get any signal. Most of the time I drive up the
hill to make calls. Thats why I keep my landline. In bad weather or an
emergency, I rely on that landline. I do not have long distance on that
landline, but I can call all local emergency numbers as well as persons
or busineesses in the immediate area. I dont make many long dist. calls,
but when I do, I do have to go up that hill and use the cellphone.

I do think the dialup problem is on the other end (ISP), but that still
dont explain why Win98 works and not any NT based OSs.

Being rural has it's disadvantages, but I'll accept the technology
disadvantages before I'd ever live in a city. The firsdt part of my life
was in a city, and I hated it.

I know they sell signal boosters for cellphones. I am sure that having
an antenna on the roof and a booster could solve the metal house
limitations, but I'd still be boosting a very weak signal.

The only way to get high speed internet here is a satellite, and that's
very costly around here. They sell the whole package, TV, Internet, and
other stuff, at a cost of well over $100 per month. I cant afford it,
and I do not want the tv part. I have a 40ft tv antenna, and I get
enough tv stations to suit me. I mostly just watch ME-TV anyhow. I'm
elderly and like the old shows. Modern tv is crap in my opinion.


There are multiple kinds of dialup modems.

They all have to (somehow) do the following.

RJ-11 --- DAA ------------------ ADC ------------------ DSP ---- (PPP)
Data Access convert beeps convert samples
Arrangement into digital samples in the frequency
Separate phone high at 8KHz rate. Just domain, to 0/1 in
voltage from PC low like a sound chip. time domain. The
voltages. Dumb cct, frequencies separate
"like a piece of iron". into bins or buckets
(just like ADSL!).

On your USR Sportster, there is a chip called a Datapump
inside the modem. It does DSP at 80-90MHz or so. It's
a processor doing the DSP function. The USR Sportster
should be relatively consistent from one OS to another.
That's why we buy them, consistent performance without
need of ugly drivers. The modem works at the "AT command"
level. The spiral of death, is solely a function of the
firmware behavior of the DSP. Modems like this, when flashed
up to V92, basically run a different firmware that
includes the DSP function for V92 protocol. The firmware
file should be a little larger, as the firmware has to
be able to drop back from V92-V90-V34 and so on.

On a "Winmodem" or softmodem, the card you buy is really
cheap, because it contains a DAA plus an ADC. The DSP portion
is done by the system processor. This means you're on the hook
for a driver which does DSP. A well-written DSP algo, can
actually do 1% better transfer rates than the Sportster
(I tested this, and couldn't believe my eyes, and
had to repeat the A/B testing several times to be sure).
The driver, makes *all* the difference. No driver, no workie.

So the Winmodem has the DAA (transformer) plus an analog
to digital converter. Well, how could we make that even
cheaper ?

On my laptop, the softmodem function is done with a
sound chip. That means the laptop still needs a DAA,
but the ADC (analog to digital converter) function is
done with a sound chip. The driver situation on the
laptop is no different than the one in the previous
paragraph. No matter what OS, a driver with DSP code
in it is needed to convert the laptop sound chip output,
into ones and zeros for the PPP protocol the OS terminates.

While I used to believe the Sportster was superior
in every way, and I was always shopping for datapump
modems, the reality is, if you're lucky, and the
other kind comes with a "good driver", it can work
just as well. And that's really the trick. Do the
customer reviews indicate a driver is available
for the OS in question ? What do the customers
think of the driver ? Is it crap ? Even the Sportster
can have its issues, but I discovered the "generic"
dialup string is frequently enough to make the
Sportster work OK. Just because WinXP "can't find"
an entry for the most modern Sportster, you can
actually make it work with the "generic" modem
detection.

Paul
Ads
  #62  
Old November 16th 17, 04:23 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
No_Name
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 177
Default dialup problems

On Wed, 15 Nov 2017 18:56:48 -0500, Paul wrote:

wrote:
On Wed, 15 Nov 2017 15:20:27 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message ,
writes:
[]
I do wonder if getting a different brand of modem would help though. I
It might ...
[]
I think a lot of the problems is my ISP. They have pretty much abandoned
the dialup, but they know that some of us rural people cant connect any
other way. so they keep a few modems running for those of us who have a
... as long as the "spiral of death" isn't caused by the other end.

(I still can't understand why you don't get it with Windows 98, but I
sympathise that you're fed up of trying things!)

landline from them. Where I live, I must have a landline because my
cellphone dont get a signal.

Would it be possible to erect some sort of aerial - do cellular signals
reach your location but too far above ground level? Or are you so remote
that you are not in a coverage area at all? I appreciate it'd be
awkward, since modern 'phones don't have an aerial socket, and it'd have
to be bidirectional, which makes boosters difficult (though can be
done), but if there is a signal, two passive but high-gain (i. e.
directional) aerials connected together, in your loft or on a pole,
_might_ make life a bit more bearable.


Thanks for starting a new thread. I was considering doing the same.

I have never understood why Win98 works and not any NT based OS. I still
have Win2000 installed on the same computer as Win98. All I use it for
is to do backups, because Win98 cant handle those external hard drives
on USB. I love Win98, but USB support has always been lousy. By (dual)
booting to Win2000, I can copy everything from my HDD to my backup,
including the Win98 OS files. I would have XP instead in that partition,
but this computer is not quite up to Xp level for power and such.

No, I dont get a usable cellphone signal. I live down a hill, cellphone
signals are poor to start with, and being downhill from the nearby town,
I dont get much. Sometimes I get one bar, but have to go outside (metal
covered house). But I know I will lose the signal at any time during the
call. Other times I dont get any signal. Most of the time I drive up the
hill to make calls. Thats why I keep my landline. In bad weather or an
emergency, I rely on that landline. I do not have long distance on that
landline, but I can call all local emergency numbers as well as persons
or busineesses in the immediate area. I dont make many long dist. calls,
but when I do, I do have to go up that hill and use the cellphone.

I do think the dialup problem is on the other end (ISP), but that still
dont explain why Win98 works and not any NT based OSs.

Being rural has it's disadvantages, but I'll accept the technology
disadvantages before I'd ever live in a city. The firsdt part of my life
was in a city, and I hated it.

I know they sell signal boosters for cellphones. I am sure that having
an antenna on the roof and a booster could solve the metal house
limitations, but I'd still be boosting a very weak signal.

The only way to get high speed internet here is a satellite, and that's
very costly around here. They sell the whole package, TV, Internet, and
other stuff, at a cost of well over $100 per month. I cant afford it,
and I do not want the tv part. I have a 40ft tv antenna, and I get
enough tv stations to suit me. I mostly just watch ME-TV anyhow. I'm
elderly and like the old shows. Modern tv is crap in my opinion.


There are multiple kinds of dialup modems.

They all have to (somehow) do the following.

RJ-11 --- DAA ------------------ ADC ------------------ DSP ---- (PPP)
Data Access convert beeps convert samples
Arrangement into digital samples in the frequency
Separate phone high at 8KHz rate. Just domain, to 0/1 in
voltage from PC low like a sound chip. time domain. The
voltages. Dumb cct, frequencies separate
"like a piece of iron". into bins or buckets
(just like ADSL!).

On your USR Sportster, there is a chip called a Datapump
inside the modem. It does DSP at 80-90MHz or so. It's
a processor doing the DSP function. The USR Sportster
should be relatively consistent from one OS to another.
That's why we buy them, consistent performance without
need of ugly drivers. The modem works at the "AT command"
level. The spiral of death, is solely a function of the
firmware behavior of the DSP. Modems like this, when flashed
up to V92, basically run a different firmware that
includes the DSP function for V92 protocol. The firmware
file should be a little larger, as the firmware has to
be able to drop back from V92-V90-V34 and so on.

On a "Winmodem" or softmodem, the card you buy is really
cheap, because it contains a DAA plus an ADC. The DSP portion
is done by the system processor. This means you're on the hook
for a driver which does DSP. A well-written DSP algo, can
actually do 1% better transfer rates than the Sportster
(I tested this, and couldn't believe my eyes, and
had to repeat the A/B testing several times to be sure).
The driver, makes *all* the difference. No driver, no workie.

So the Winmodem has the DAA (transformer) plus an analog
to digital converter. Well, how could we make that even
cheaper ?

On my laptop, the softmodem function is done with a
sound chip. That means the laptop still needs a DAA,
but the ADC (analog to digital converter) function is
done with a sound chip. The driver situation on the
laptop is no different than the one in the previous
paragraph. No matter what OS, a driver with DSP code
in it is needed to convert the laptop sound chip output,
into ones and zeros for the PPP protocol the OS terminates.

While I used to believe the Sportster was superior
in every way, and I was always shopping for datapump
modems, the reality is, if you're lucky, and the
other kind comes with a "good driver", it can work
just as well. And that's really the trick. Do the
customer reviews indicate a driver is available
for the OS in question ? What do the customers
think of the driver ? Is it crap ? Even the Sportster
can have its issues, but I discovered the "generic"
dialup string is frequently enough to make the
Sportster work OK. Just because WinXP "can't find"
an entry for the most modern Sportster, you can
actually make it work with the "generic" modem
detection.

Paul



My Sportsters (I have two of them) are both V92. External Serial cable
types.
I had another one that was V90, and I did not notice any difference
beween the V90 and V92. But that V90 one died.

I'm looking on ebay at a NEW Supra Express 56K ITU standard.

Also an external serial modem.

The box says "Shotgun ready for speeds up to 112K
Voicemail, Internet and Fax
56K ITU standard V90 and K56Flex.".

I dont know what ITU means....
It is V90, but what is K56Flex?
Is that better than just V90?

And what about that "Shotgun Ready"?
I know there are some people online who I'd like to shoot, but I'm not
into murdering anyone online by pulling the trigger on my modem. LOL

Seriously what does the shotgun ready mean?

Like I said, I am considering buying another brand of modem. I hear that
Supra is one of the better brands. BUt if it's just anoither V90, isnt
that gonna work the same as my Sportster?

I noted that these Supra ones sell for a lot more than the USR sportster
modems sell for on Ebay. The cheapest one I found is $30 (but its NEW
and still in the box). Most of the Sportsters sell for $15 to $20, but
most are USED.

Whats a real joke is that there are sellers trying to sell 1200 baud
Supra modems for $90. Who in their right mind would even want a 1200
baud modem, much less pay that much for one?

There are a lot of Supra modems selling that are USB type, but I cant
use them on my Win98 machine, so I wont buy a USB type.



  #63  
Old November 16th 17, 06:37 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default dialup problems

wrote:
On Wed, 15 Nov 2017 18:56:48 -0500, Paul wrote:

wrote:
On Wed, 15 Nov 2017 15:20:27 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message ,
writes:
[]
I do wonder if getting a different brand of modem would help though. I
It might ...
[]
I think a lot of the problems is my ISP. They have pretty much abandoned
the dialup, but they know that some of us rural people cant connect any
other way. so they keep a few modems running for those of us who have a
... as long as the "spiral of death" isn't caused by the other end.

(I still can't understand why you don't get it with Windows 98, but I
sympathise that you're fed up of trying things!)

landline from them. Where I live, I must have a landline because my
cellphone dont get a signal.

Would it be possible to erect some sort of aerial - do cellular signals
reach your location but too far above ground level? Or are you so remote
that you are not in a coverage area at all? I appreciate it'd be
awkward, since modern 'phones don't have an aerial socket, and it'd have
to be bidirectional, which makes boosters difficult (though can be
done), but if there is a signal, two passive but high-gain (i. e.
directional) aerials connected together, in your loft or on a pole,
_might_ make life a bit more bearable.
Thanks for starting a new thread. I was considering doing the same.

I have never understood why Win98 works and not any NT based OS. I still
have Win2000 installed on the same computer as Win98. All I use it for
is to do backups, because Win98 cant handle those external hard drives
on USB. I love Win98, but USB support has always been lousy. By (dual)
booting to Win2000, I can copy everything from my HDD to my backup,
including the Win98 OS files. I would have XP instead in that partition,
but this computer is not quite up to Xp level for power and such.

No, I dont get a usable cellphone signal. I live down a hill, cellphone
signals are poor to start with, and being downhill from the nearby town,
I dont get much. Sometimes I get one bar, but have to go outside (metal
covered house). But I know I will lose the signal at any time during the
call. Other times I dont get any signal. Most of the time I drive up the
hill to make calls. Thats why I keep my landline. In bad weather or an
emergency, I rely on that landline. I do not have long distance on that
landline, but I can call all local emergency numbers as well as persons
or busineesses in the immediate area. I dont make many long dist. calls,
but when I do, I do have to go up that hill and use the cellphone.

I do think the dialup problem is on the other end (ISP), but that still
dont explain why Win98 works and not any NT based OSs.

Being rural has it's disadvantages, but I'll accept the technology
disadvantages before I'd ever live in a city. The firsdt part of my life
was in a city, and I hated it.

I know they sell signal boosters for cellphones. I am sure that having
an antenna on the roof and a booster could solve the metal house
limitations, but I'd still be boosting a very weak signal.

The only way to get high speed internet here is a satellite, and that's
very costly around here. They sell the whole package, TV, Internet, and
other stuff, at a cost of well over $100 per month. I cant afford it,
and I do not want the tv part. I have a 40ft tv antenna, and I get
enough tv stations to suit me. I mostly just watch ME-TV anyhow. I'm
elderly and like the old shows. Modern tv is crap in my opinion.

There are multiple kinds of dialup modems.

They all have to (somehow) do the following.

RJ-11 --- DAA ------------------ ADC ------------------ DSP ---- (PPP)
Data Access convert beeps convert samples
Arrangement into digital samples in the frequency
Separate phone high at 8KHz rate. Just domain, to 0/1 in
voltage from PC low like a sound chip. time domain. The
voltages. Dumb cct, frequencies separate
"like a piece of iron". into bins or buckets
(just like ADSL!).

On your USR Sportster, there is a chip called a Datapump
inside the modem. It does DSP at 80-90MHz or so. It's
a processor doing the DSP function. The USR Sportster
should be relatively consistent from one OS to another.
That's why we buy them, consistent performance without
need of ugly drivers. The modem works at the "AT command"
level. The spiral of death, is solely a function of the
firmware behavior of the DSP. Modems like this, when flashed
up to V92, basically run a different firmware that
includes the DSP function for V92 protocol. The firmware
file should be a little larger, as the firmware has to
be able to drop back from V92-V90-V34 and so on.

On a "Winmodem" or softmodem, the card you buy is really
cheap, because it contains a DAA plus an ADC. The DSP portion
is done by the system processor. This means you're on the hook
for a driver which does DSP. A well-written DSP algo, can
actually do 1% better transfer rates than the Sportster
(I tested this, and couldn't believe my eyes, and
had to repeat the A/B testing several times to be sure).
The driver, makes *all* the difference. No driver, no workie.

So the Winmodem has the DAA (transformer) plus an analog
to digital converter. Well, how could we make that even
cheaper ?

On my laptop, the softmodem function is done with a
sound chip. That means the laptop still needs a DAA,
but the ADC (analog to digital converter) function is
done with a sound chip. The driver situation on the
laptop is no different than the one in the previous
paragraph. No matter what OS, a driver with DSP code
in it is needed to convert the laptop sound chip output,
into ones and zeros for the PPP protocol the OS terminates.

While I used to believe the Sportster was superior
in every way, and I was always shopping for datapump
modems, the reality is, if you're lucky, and the
other kind comes with a "good driver", it can work
just as well. And that's really the trick. Do the
customer reviews indicate a driver is available
for the OS in question ? What do the customers
think of the driver ? Is it crap ? Even the Sportster
can have its issues, but I discovered the "generic"
dialup string is frequently enough to make the
Sportster work OK. Just because WinXP "can't find"
an entry for the most modern Sportster, you can
actually make it work with the "generic" modem
detection.

Paul



My Sportsters (I have two of them) are both V92. External Serial cable
types.
I had another one that was V90, and I did not notice any difference
beween the V90 and V92. But that V90 one died.

I'm looking on ebay at a NEW Supra Express 56K ITU standard.

Also an external serial modem.

The box says "Shotgun ready for speeds up to 112K
Voicemail, Internet and Fax
56K ITU standard V90 and K56Flex.".

I dont know what ITU means....
It is V90, but what is K56Flex?
Is that better than just V90?

And what about that "Shotgun Ready"?
I know there are some people online who I'd like to shoot, but I'm not
into murdering anyone online by pulling the trigger on my modem. LOL

Seriously what does the shotgun ready mean?

Like I said, I am considering buying another brand of modem. I hear that
Supra is one of the better brands. BUt if it's just anoither V90, isnt
that gonna work the same as my Sportster?

I noted that these Supra ones sell for a lot more than the USR sportster
modems sell for on Ebay. The cheapest one I found is $30 (but its NEW
and still in the box). Most of the Sportsters sell for $15 to $20, but
most are USED.

Whats a real joke is that there are sellers trying to sell 1200 baud
Supra modems for $90. Who in their right mind would even want a 1200
baud modem, much less pay that much for one?

There are a lot of Supra modems selling that are USB type, but I cant
use them on my Win98 machine, so I wont buy a USB type.


International Telecommunication Union (ITU) - a standards body.

*******

Shotgunning, combines the bandwidth of two modems.
It's not practical, and is some kind of sad joke.

Teaming, is the same idea, with two NICs on a computer.
Generally the NICs are identical (as the teaming software
is provided by the manufacturer of the chip, and selling
a second one is in their best interests).

On ADSL, MLPPP is the teaming of multiple ADSL connections.
My ISP will sell you up to 7 ADSL connections, for seven times
the monthly price.

In some cases, the lunacy might make sense, but most
of the time, it doesn't. In some cases, you don't
get to combine the bandwidth into a single IP connection,
and must use a multi-connection downloader software
to get the enhanced transfer rate from a single site.

*******

There were two "camps" of chip makers. One camp made K56 solutions.
The other made X2 solutions.

Rockwell was the K56Flex camp. Rockwell spun off its chip making
portion as Conexant. Towards the end of this web page, it
suggests Conexant still owns the data modem business.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conexant

The datapump version of Conexant chips is possibly called "ACF".
Some of this info, is needed on the Linux side, for setting
up modems, and otherwise we might not have got any
taxonomy info at all.

http://modemsite.com/56k/rockacf.asp

This is a picture of my Diamond MultiMedia Supra brand modem,
with a Rockwell chip inside (making it K56Flex).

Supra was bought by DiamondMM (1995). This product was
made some time in 1998 maybe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supra,_Inc.

Main chip RCVDL56ACFW/SP ACF = single chip modem w. datapump
Rockwell 1998 Week 8
CY7C109-15 Static RAM for processor
Atmel AT49F020 Flash EEPROM (reprogrammable)

(213,951 bytes)
https://s8.postimg.org/459vr7nz9/Diamond_Supra_ACF.jpg

The question then is, how do we track down a list of
ACF modems ? They might not be the only flavor of K56Flex.

Another supplier of ACF might be Creative.

*******

This is the only list I found so far. And of course,
it doesn't sound like the year 2017 here. Some of the
text strings hint at K56 or ACF. HCF is not the same thing
(probably a softmodem of some sort). There are also X2 modems
mixed into this lot.

http://xmodem.org/modems/extlist.html

Paul
  #64  
Old November 16th 17, 07:25 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Ant[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 554
Default dialup problems

wrote:

My Sportsters (I have two of them) are both V92. External Serial cable
types.
I had another one that was V90, and I did not notice any difference
beween the V90 and V92. But that V90 one died.


I'm looking on ebay at a NEW Supra Express 56K ITU standard.


Also an external serial modem.


The box says "Shotgun ready for speeds up to 112K
Voicemail, Internet and Fax
56K ITU standard V90 and K56Flex.".


I dont know what ITU means....
It is V90, but what is K56Flex?
Is that better than just V90?


And what about that "Shotgun Ready"?
I know there are some people online who I'd like to shoot, but I'm not
into murdering anyone online by pulling the trigger on my modem. LOL


Seriously what does the shotgun ready mean?


Shotgun is combining two dial-up modems on two different copper phone
lines.
http://www.modemhelp.net/faqs/shotgun.shtml for its details.


Like I said, I am considering buying another brand of modem. I hear that
Supra is one of the better brands. BUt if it's just anoither V90, isnt
that gonna work the same as my Sportster?


I noted that these Supra ones sell for a lot more than the USR sportster
modems sell for on Ebay. The cheapest one I found is $30 (but its NEW
and still in the box). Most of the Sportsters sell for $15 to $20, but
most are USED.


Wow, I remember Supra. I think I had its 28.8k external modem I bought
from my college roommate, but its connection sucked with 16800 speed.


Whats a real joke is that there are sellers trying to sell 1200 baud
Supra modems for $90. Who in their right mind would even want a 1200
baud modem, much less pay that much for one?


Were they brand new and unopened?


There are a lot of Supra modems selling that are USB type, but I cant
use them on my Win98 machine, so I wont buy a USB type.


I tried a couple winmodems at work. Dang they suck. Also, they don't
work under a Mac Mini's Mac OS X v10.9. (no driver).
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  #65  
Old November 16th 17, 11:25 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
No_Name
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 177
Default dialup problems

On Thu, 16 Nov 2017 00:37:02 -0500, Paul wrote:

International Telecommunication Union (ITU) - a standards body.

*******

Shotgunning, combines the bandwidth of two modems.
It's not practical, and is some kind of sad joke.

Teaming, is the same idea, with two NICs on a computer.
Generally the NICs are identical (as the teaming software
is provided by the manufacturer of the chip, and selling
a second one is in their best interests).

On ADSL, MLPPP is the teaming of multiple ADSL connections.
My ISP will sell you up to 7 ADSL connections, for seven times
the monthly price.

In some cases, the lunacy might make sense, but most
of the time, it doesn't. In some cases, you don't
get to combine the bandwidth into a single IP connection,
and must use a multi-connection downloader software
to get the enhanced transfer rate from a single site.

*******

There were two "camps" of chip makers. One camp made K56 solutions.
The other made X2 solutions.

Rockwell was the K56Flex camp. Rockwell spun off its chip making
portion as Conexant. Towards the end of this web page, it
suggests Conexant still owns the data modem business.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conexant

The datapump version of Conexant chips is possibly called "ACF".
Some of this info, is needed on the Linux side, for setting
up modems, and otherwise we might not have got any
taxonomy info at all.

http://modemsite.com/56k/rockacf.asp

This is a picture of my Diamond MultiMedia Supra brand modem,
with a Rockwell chip inside (making it K56Flex).

Supra was bought by DiamondMM (1995). This product was
made some time in 1998 maybe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supra,_Inc.

Main chip RCVDL56ACFW/SP ACF = single chip modem w. datapump
Rockwell 1998 Week 8
CY7C109-15 Static RAM for processor
Atmel AT49F020 Flash EEPROM (reprogrammable)

(213,951 bytes)
https://s8.postimg.org/459vr7nz9/Diamond_Supra_ACF.jpg

The question then is, how do we track down a list of
ACF modems ? They might not be the only flavor of K56Flex.

Another supplier of ACF might be Creative.

*******

This is the only list I found so far. And of course,
it doesn't sound like the year 2017 here. Some of the
text strings hint at K56 or ACF. HCF is not the same thing
(probably a softmodem of some sort). There are also X2 modems
mixed into this lot.

http://xmodem.org/modems/extlist.html

Paul


This gets very complicated and confusing to me. To sum it up, from what
you said, it seems like there is V90 / 92 and K56 Flex. The two basic
options. Since my Sportsters have never given me a decent connection
using XP, I want to try something else. Since the Sportsters are V90/92,
I assume I need to try the K56Flex. Is that correct?

This Supra Express modem says it has BOTH the V90 and K56Flex. Is that a
good choice for me, or is there something better (another brand)?

What should I be looking for? Model numbers will help a lot more than
all this highly technical info. I cant see what chip is being used when
I look at modems on ebay or whereever.


  #66  
Old November 16th 17, 11:36 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
No_Name
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 177
Default dialup problems

On Thu, 16 Nov 2017 00:25:01 -0600, (Ant) wrote:

wrote:

My Sportsters (I have two of them) are both V92. External Serial cable
types.
I had another one that was V90, and I did not notice any difference
beween the V90 and V92. But that V90 one died.


I'm looking on ebay at a NEW Supra Express 56K ITU standard.


Also an external serial modem.


The box says "Shotgun ready for speeds up to 112K
Voicemail, Internet and Fax
56K ITU standard V90 and K56Flex.".


I dont know what ITU means....
It is V90, but what is K56Flex?
Is that better than just V90?


And what about that "Shotgun Ready"?
I know there are some people online who I'd like to shoot, but I'm not
into murdering anyone online by pulling the trigger on my modem. LOL


Seriously what does the shotgun ready mean?


Shotgun is combining two dial-up modems on two different copper phone
lines.
http://www.modemhelp.net/faqs/shotgun.shtml for its details.


That wont do me any good. I only have one phone line.

Like I said, I am considering buying another brand of modem. I hear that
Supra is one of the better brands. BUt if it's just anoither V90, isnt
that gonna work the same as my Sportster?


I noted that these Supra ones sell for a lot more than the USR sportster
modems sell for on Ebay. The cheapest one I found is $30 (but its NEW
and still in the box). Most of the Sportsters sell for $15 to $20, but
most are USED.


Wow, I remember Supra. I think I had its 28.8k external modem I bought
from my college roommate, but its connection sucked with 16800 speed.

All the slower modems sucked. Not that the 56K always worked well
either.

Whats a real joke is that there are sellers trying to sell 1200 baud
Supra modems for $90. Who in their right mind would even want a 1200
baud modem, much less pay that much for one?


Were they brand new and unopened?


I dont know. I did not open the pages. It takes 10 or 15 min to open
each ebay page. I only open stuff I am real interested in.


There are a lot of Supra modems selling that are USB type, but I cant
use them on my Win98 machine, so I wont buy a USB type.


I tried a couple winmodems at work. Dang they suck. Also, they don't
work under a Mac Mini's Mac OS X v10.9. (no driver).


I dont want a Winmodem. As far as I understand, they are always internal
modems anyhow, and I will never use another internal modem. I had far
too many problems with them in the past.

Also, I do have a very basic install of an old 2009 version of PcLinux,
which is the only Linux I have ever liked. It's almost like Win98.
(After 2009, they made it bloated and very slow).
But someday I do want to try to connect a modem to it. I know I cant use
a Winmodem on Linux.


  #67  
Old November 16th 17, 12:35 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default dialup problems

wrote:


This gets very complicated and confusing to me. To sum it up, from what
you said, it seems like there is V90 / 92 and K56 Flex. The two basic
options. Since my Sportsters have never given me a decent connection
using XP, I want to try something else. Since the Sportsters are V90/92,
I assume I need to try the K56Flex. Is that correct?

This Supra Express modem says it has BOTH the V90 and K56Flex. Is that a
good choice for me, or is there something better (another brand)?

What should I be looking for? Model numbers will help a lot more than
all this highly technical info. I cant see what chip is being used when
I look at modems on ebay or whereever.


If you were going on a modem-buying spree, I think testing
a K56Flex might be fun for a change.

The industry says that flash upgrading these two modem types,
would give *identical* V90 behavior. That was bull****, based
on my testing. The original "flavor" of each, leaks through.
Even with the V90 firmware in place, the K56Flex works better with a
K56 front end. This is why I ended up with two modems, flipping
back and forth depending on what I was calling into. The IT department
at work, lent me a K56Flex to test with, and that's when I
decided to buy one.

X2 _________
\___V90
K56Flex ____/

I don't know an easy way to produce a list of K56Flex products.
That list I found is a start, but it's highly unlikely to be
perfectly accurate today in 2017. Since you're in the used
market, and since the V90 era was quite a while ago, I suppose
items in the list would still make sense as choices.

If the product description includes the K56Flex terminology,
that means there is a Rockwell or Conexant-branded ACF chip
inside. The example I gave, of the picture of my DiamondMM
Supra, shows that my chip was an ACF type. And Rockwell/Conexant
is the K56 camp.

*******

There are other ways to debug dialup modems.

The modem records the performance of the frequency buckets
in the 0-4KHz voice range. After a dialup session completes,
and the modem hangs up, you can use a particular AT
command (from Hyperterm) to dump the performance data.
However, I'll save you the trouble, and tell you not
to bother with this :-) I didn't find the data all
that impressive looking. It looked pretty random to me.

Paul
  #68  
Old November 25th 17, 10:18 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
No_Name
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 177
Default Worthless Download - Was (Cloning a 2.5" IDE/PATA Laptop Hard drive)

On Sat, 11 Nov 2017 10:17:05 -0500, Some Guy wrote:

Ghost 2003:

http://www.dslreports.com/r0/downloa...HOST_BOOTx.zip

Paul wrote:

It looks like you are saying that you downloaded the Ghost zipfile. Is
that correct? It is refusing to download for me. It starts downloading
and fails after about 10 seconds, saying "source could not be read".

The file is 1.3mb. It will take a half hour on my dialup, but I can
usually DL files of that size without problems.


The file is 1310 kbytes.



I finally got the hard drive that I ordered online and went to clone to
it. I had downloaded that file (above) called GHOST_BOOTx.zip.
I extracted the .exe from the .zip. I ran it and selected to write to a
floppy. (Image floppy). That all went fine.

But the whole thing is worthless. The floppy contains "command.com",
autoexec.bat and config.sys (basic DOS). and it has a bunch of CDrom
drivers. It created a folder called GHOST, which is empty. Trying to
start a computer with it, does boot to dos, then it whines about some
files missing, which are more CDrom drivers.

Apparently it contains NOTHING from Ghost. Why I need CDrom drivers
makes no sense. I'm not using a CD.

Anyhow, whoever suggested this file, do yourself a favor and delete it.
Its worthless.


  #69  
Old November 26th 17, 09:29 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Worthless Download - Was (Cloning a 2.5" IDE/PATA Laptop Harddrive)

wrote:
On Sat, 11 Nov 2017 10:17:05 -0500, Some Guy wrote:

Ghost 2003:

http://www.dslreports.com/r0/downloa...HOST_BOOTx.zip

Paul wrote:

It looks like you are saying that you downloaded the Ghost zipfile. Is
that correct? It is refusing to download for me. It starts downloading
and fails after about 10 seconds, saying "source could not be read".

The file is 1.3mb. It will take a half hour on my dialup, but I can
usually DL files of that size without problems.

The file is 1310 kbytes.



I finally got the hard drive that I ordered online and went to clone to
it. I had downloaded that file (above) called GHOST_BOOTx.zip.
I extracted the .exe from the .zip. I ran it and selected to write to a
floppy. (Image floppy). That all went fine.

But the whole thing is worthless. The floppy contains "command.com",
autoexec.bat and config.sys (basic DOS). and it has a bunch of CDrom
drivers. It created a folder called GHOST, which is empty. Trying to
start a computer with it, does boot to dos, then it whines about some
files missing, which are more CDrom drivers.

Apparently it contains NOTHING from Ghost. Why I need CDrom drivers
makes no sense. I'm not using a CD.

Anyhow, whoever suggested this file, do yourself a favor and delete it.
Its worthless.


You're not a very good thread reader, are you dood ?

I already patiently explained that a copy of "ghost.exe"
is located as a *hidden* file. The originator of that download
was very clever - and I noticed the download file was a little
too big for its own good, implying something was hiding in it.

Run a copy of Piriform Recuva against that floppy. It will rate
the recovery possibilities as "excellent" and it will spot that
single large file. That's what's in my picture. Recuva at work.

https://s8.postimg.org/uu1l1wekl/party_time.gif

This is the message I posted, with the good news.

http://al.howardknight.net/msgid.cgi...nt-email.me%3E

If you have written *anything* to that floppy since the
winimage unpack step, you'll have to re-generate the floppy
again. The copy of _host.exe is only good if you
haven't been messing around with the floppy. When Recuva
recovers the file, copy the file to your hard drive,
*then* copy it back to the floppy, into the Ghost folder.
Don't forget to fix the file name of course.
Then, run off and boot the (repaired) floppy.

I haven't tested the output of that step, as I was content
just to prove my sense of human nature had not erred.

So basically there is a big 1MB file ghost.exe hiding
in plain sight on the floppy.

Paul
  #70  
Old November 26th 17, 01:40 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
No_Name
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 177
Default Worthless Download - Was (Cloning a 2.5" IDE/PATA Laptop Hard drive)

On Sun, 26 Nov 2017 03:29:17 -0500, Paul wrote:

You're not a very good thread reader, are you dood ?

I already patiently explained that a copy of "ghost.exe"
is located as a *hidden* file. The originator of that download
was very clever - and I noticed the download file was a little
too big for its own good, implying something was hiding in it.

Run a copy of Piriform Recuva against that floppy. It will rate
the recovery possibilities as "excellent" and it will spot that
single large file. That's what's in my picture. Recuva at work.

https://s8.postimg.org/uu1l1wekl/party_time.gif

This is the message I posted, with the good news.

http://al.howardknight.net/msgid.cgi...nt-email.me%3E

If you have written *anything* to that floppy since the
winimage unpack step, you'll have to re-generate the floppy
again. The copy of _host.exe is only good if you
haven't been messing around with the floppy. When Recuva
recovers the file, copy the file to your hard drive,
*then* copy it back to the floppy, into the Ghost folder.
Don't forget to fix the file name of course.
Then, run off and boot the (repaired) floppy.

I haven't tested the output of that step, as I was content
just to prove my sense of human nature had not erred.

So basically there is a big 1MB file ghost.exe hiding
in plain sight on the floppy.

Paul


I did not quite understand what you were saying back then, and it's been
several weeks since. However I did restore that file. Now I know why the
EXE was so much larger than what was installed to the floppy.

If you recall, I bought the Ghost 2003 CD on ebay, but I was not having
much luck with the program installed to my HDD from that CD. For some
reason, Ghost wanted to change some sort of USB drivers or something
which I could not comprehend. (I had both of these 2.5" drives plugged
into USB, via adaptors.

Anyhow, I did not understand what it wanted to do, and I bet my
installed drivers are newer than the ones on 2003 Ghost, I did not want
to tamper with my working OS, on the computer I was using to make the
clone.

Anyhow, as I said, I used Macrium to finally create the clone that
worked. Originally I was told to not do cloning when another HDD is
booting, but I was booted to XP on C:, and cloned D: to E: (those two
were connected via USB).

In the end it all worked.

(Note, Ghost.EXE does not run in XP. I guess it MUST be booted from DOS.
I have a feeling that had I dont it that way, I would not been able to
access those drives via USB. I dont think USB ports can be used on DOS.



  #71  
Old November 26th 17, 02:09 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,679
Default Worthless Download - Was (Cloning a 2.5" IDE/PATA Laptop Hard drive)

In message ,
writes:
[]
Anyhow, as I said, I used Macrium to finally create the clone that
worked. Originally I was told to not do cloning when another HDD is
booting, but I was booted to XP on C:, and cloned D: to E: (those two
were connected via USB).


The usual advice is not to try to copy (clone or image) the drive you're
currently running from (though I think Macrium and some of the others
_can_ get round that, I'd still not be happy doing it). What you did,
cloning a second drive to a third, should be OK (as indeed you found it
was). Really, you were cloning drive 1 to drive 2, having booted from
drive 0 - it's best to think of it in that way, rather than "drive"
letters, as a drive may have more than one partition, and cloning
(usually!) is of the whole drive. Including hidden partitions, which
though not necessarily visible from explorer, may be needed for the OS
contained on the drive to boot.

In the end it all worked.


Great.

(Note, Ghost.EXE does not run in XP. I guess it MUST be booted from DOS.


I'm not familiar with Ghost, but reading this thread, I get the
impression that a ghost disc is a bootable disc - whether it loads DOS
and then runs Ghost, or whether it is an OS in itself, I don't know, and
it probably doesn't matter, but ...
I have a feeling that had I dont it that way, I would not been able to
access those drives via USB. I dont think USB ports can be used on DOS.

.... I'm pretty sure you're right - basic MS-DOS doesn't work with USB
(_some_ drivers are available as extras), so if it's DOS-based, then
indeed it wouldn't have worked. (Even if it is its own OS rather than
being a prog. that runs under DOS, given its age it probably still
wouldn't "know about" USB.)


--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

the plural of 'anecdote' is not 'evidence'. Professor Edzart Ernst, prudential
magazine, AUTUMN 2006, p. 13.
 




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