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News Archive for June 1 to 7, 1997

June 7

E-Tech has announced the Sound Bullet, a modem and sound card that's upgradeable to either K56flex or x2. InfoWorld has a story.

 

The Sound Bullet may turn out to be a fine deal, but I'm sure many people are as skeptical as I am. Combination modem/sound cards tend to be finicky because of the complexity of the IRQ setup, and in some cases you may not be able to use the modem and the sound card functions at the same time, a situation familiar to many Mwave modem owners. Note that the modem is actually 33.6 now. The 56K abilities will only be available in the future, for an upgrade cost of $99. The Sound Bullet may be an example of "a bird in the hand is worth two upgrades in the bush."

U.S. Robotics has Macintosh CCL files for use with AppleTalk Remote Access and PPP for Open Transport. Richard Lo prefers Eric Santelices' modified CCL files, which he says correctly report the connect speed. The files are at http://www.gcm.org/~ckomputer/ftp.spml, but note that the server may be slow or unresponsive at certain times of the day. If you can't get in, try again later. I've updated the inits and drivers page.

 

(I never did receive the fax from Amquest that I mentioned on Friday. Tune in next week.)

 

Buyer's Guide Status Report

 

The 56K Buyer's Guide is going ahead full steam. I'm busily collecting and compiling specs from manufacturers. I've also made some changes to the layout. The pages now use tables for a more compact presentation, there are more features listed, and checkboxes clearly show which features are included and which features are missing. The new design still looks good in Lynx, a text-based web browser.

 

You can preview the new template, complete with specs for the U.S. Robotics Courier. If there's any other information you'd like to see on the page, of if the page doesn't look right in your browser, speak now or forever hold your peace.

 

The original release date of June 15 has been pushed back to June 23. June 15 is Father's Day in the U.S., so I plan to visit my father in Georgia that weekend.

 

June 6

56K.COM is one month old today! Perhaps as a birthday gift, PC Magazine gave us their Developer's Site of the Week award.

 

 

PCWEEK has a review of four 56K modems: the Hayes Accura, Motorola ModemSURFR, Supra Express 56e, and U.S. Robotics Courier x2. There's also an executive summary.

I'm chasing down facts on several stories, so look for more news on Saturday.

 

Upgrade News - Amquest, Compaq, Gateway

 

Silas Andrews tipped us off to a big story. Amquest has a deal to rival Hayes: send them any modem of any speed from any manufacturer and they'll sell you a 56K modem for $99. Details on the web page are sketchy, but you can call 800-577-3335 to get more information by fax. I'll post the information I receive on Saturday.

 

I've added more details to the Gateway 2000 upgrade page.

 

Dustin Hall noted a mistake in Wednesday's news about Compaq upgrades. I stated that Compaq was using U.S. Robotics x2 technology, when in fact they're using K56flex, as I correctly noted on the upgrade page. Dustin also had the scoop on other Compaq upgrades:

 

Compaq's web page only lists two of their models as having 56K upgradable modems, there are more. I personally own a Presario 8760 and it's modem is indeed upgradable to 56K, according to Compaq's own information (but not their web site for some reason).

 

Using a search engine on Compaq's web site, I found a page that references the 8760 upgrade. I also found the new Armada 7700 spec sheet, which states that the 7700's modem will be upgradeable to K56flex by year's end. I called Compaq and was told there will be a charge for the upgrade, but pricing is not available.

 

June 4

Compaq has 56K upgrade information for the Compaq Presario 4784 and 8772. The software-based upgrade will reportedly be available in mid-1997, but will not be free. Pricing was not announced. This announcement brings to 24 the number of companies listed in the upgrade guide.

 

Ric Ford's Macintouch is reporting user experiences with the WebRamp M3 mentioned last Saturday. Customer experience with earlier WebRamp products has been good, but the M3 may be going through some teething pains. The M3 bonds four 56K connections to achieve speeds in excess of 200K.

 

This month's InfoWorld Gripe Line column features U.S. Robotics. Most of the gripes revolve around problematic upgrade processing. There are also complaints on the comp.dcom.modem newsgroup about botched rebates and overdue upgrades.

 

TechWeb reports that the K56flex partners are getting ready for a massive marketing campaign. As part of the push, interactive K56flex kiosks will be placed in retail outlets, including 127 CompUSA stores.

 

Windows Magazine's Win 100 Hardware awards give credit to some of the best modem designs, including units from Amquest, Cardinal, Hayes, Motorola, Ositech, Practical Peripherals, Supra, U.S. Robotics, and Zoom.

 

56K.COM has won a Laslo Web Page Design Excellence Award.

 

June 2

Today at 56K.COM: followups to recent news stories.

 

Bandwidth wars

 

On Saturday 56K.COM had a special report: "What Comes After 56K?" If you're interested in the battle between 56K, ADSL, cable, and ISDN, you have to see 3Com's slide presentation, "Cable, xDSL & v.56: Market Threats to ISDN?", also available as a compressed PowerPoint slideshow, and in a less-satisfying text version.

 

The 3Com presentation has some bad things to say about telephone companies and cable companies that should be taken to heart by anyone interested in xDSL or cable modems:

• 3Com Principle #1: Any business plan that puts a telco in the critical path to its success is risky at best.
• 3Com Corollary to Principal #1: Any business plan that puts a telco want-to-be (e.g. cable company) in the critical path to its success is as least as risky.
• 3Com Principle #2: Affordability ultimately determines what services are used.

 

Incidentally, the person who came up with the idea of turning a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation into a web page slideshow is a genius. It's extremely effective. At the end I actually wanted to stand up and applaud.

 

Winmodems

 

In "Beware Winmodems" (May 27), I noted that Winmodems and other host signal processor (HSP) modems put an extra load on the host CPU. Lee Schneider suggested that a Pentium 75 was a marginal computer for use with these modems.

 

A reader named Chris noted that this limitation doesn't necessarily hold true for the U.S. Robotics Winmodem. The USR Winmodem is a hybrid design that relies on the host CPU for error correction and hardware data compression, but has an on-board DSP to process modulation and demodulation tasks. As a result, USR's Winmodems will work with slower CPUs, and doesn't affect the host computer's performance nearly as much. Windows Sources has a review of the U.S. Robotics Sportster Winmodem.

 

USR Courier 56K for Mac

 

Robert Kay had a bad experience trying to order the USR Courier V.Everything 56K for Macintosh that was mentioned on May 20.

 

I wanted to let you know that something is very slow in the delivery pipeline for USR X2 Courier modems for the Mac via the Mac/Datacom Warehouse chain. I ordered (specifically a "DMD2436 COURIER V. EVERYTHING (56KPS)X2 MAC") way back on the 20th of April (at the time they said they'd have them in on the 21st of April). Every couple of days I call and check and every couple of days they push delivery back a couple more days. They say they have never received any of this product yet.

 

Mac/Datacom Warehouse has recently pushed back the date to June 16. PC versions are shipping, but not the Mac version, which is presumably identical except for the cable and software. Robert has another beef with the catalog company:

 

I have to mention another Mac/Datacom Warehouse nightmare. When I ordered the Courier back a month ago their listed price was $319.95, now their listed price is $279.95. Even though they have never shipped my modem and did not clearly represent the USR delays, they will not honor the lower price unless I cancel my order and place a new one, thus losing

my place in the backorder line and getting pushed into a later backorder shipment they have from USR. -- Yikes ! not much concern for customer service...

 

This fiasco is reminiscent of the Zip drive shortages a few years ago, when catalog companies promised product that was in short supply. Robert notes that Mac/PC Connection was much more honest in saying that they didn't know when the product would be available.

 

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