[conspire] pcmcia 16 bit modems

[Heather Stern]

On Sun, Dec 29, 2002 at 04:25:35PM -0800, Dan wrote:
> Conspirators,
> 
> Now that I have the name/location of Action Computers nailed down...
> 
> I'm looking for suggestions on a good pcmcia modem to buy for my
> linux laptops.
 
As a generic point, look for boxes that mention linux on them, they're
starting to do that :)

As a more specific point go look at linmodems.org and make sure you get 
one that isn't a winmodem under the hood.  Once upon an age ago you
could laugh at the idea that an external modem or a pcmcia modem would
require software help.  It just ain't so anymore.  There's even USB 
softmodems.  bleeeech!

> I'm convinced I need a pcmcia 16 bit pc-card modem as opposed to 
> a 32 bit pcmcia device since my current (working) network cards have 
> "pc-card 16" written on them.
 
It can't really hurt that much;  your modem traffic will be limited to
serial speeds anyway, no matter which size bus you have, and a 16 bit
card would work in anything.

They didn't make pcmcia in an 8 bit edition.  At least not as far as I 
ever encountered.

> Is a pcmcia 16 bit pc-card modem enough of a generic device that
> I may be free to pick one from a wide variey of choices?

As above, don't get a softmodem.  You should be able to see the package
readme for supported cards in your card services.  Under debian, this
would be in /usr/share/doc/pcmcia-cs/ ... every distro keeps these in
a slightly dif't place ... if you're going to build your own card
services anyway then the supported list at pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net
would be sufficient.   Sadly, these entries aren't marked with when they
were added.
 
> If it turns out that I need to try out 10 different pcmcia modems
> before I find one which works, I'd prefer to just buy a tiny external
> hayes compatible modem and connect it to my serial port.
 
I repeat the watning against finding yourself stuck with a softmodem.
If the box says "HCF" or "HSP" on it it probably is one;  I forget what 
the F is, but that's Host Controlled ___ and Host Signal Processing 
respectively.

> -Dan

I had an old Megahertz I liked, but it's too slow for the modern era.
If you really get stuck and find that even a 14.4 would do, lemme know.


  . | .   Heather Stern                  |         star at starshine.org
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