CH> rate his modem and system will allow (Typically 57600 for 14400 and
 CH> 115200 for 28800 and 33600 baud modems) without dropping characters.
 GG> Umm, you can safely lock your port at 38400 with a 
 GG> 33600bps modem.  The point
 GG> being, your port is faster than your modem, and that's what counts.
 GG> 57600 is also fine, but locking at 115200 isn't necessary with a normal
 GG> modem.  (i.e. 33.6k, 28.8k, etc.)
It is quicker Gary. I guess that just depends on your judgement of 
"necessary" doesn't it? I like my screen writes snappy so I always lock the 
baud at 115200,because on my system and the system I use to call into it (as 
I am doing now), it does indeed make a noticible difference. All I have to do 
is move the cursor around in Max's full screen editor at 115200 baud as 
compared to 38400 baud and I can see a tremendous difference. MaxEd runs fast 
enough with the baud locked at 115200 that I am not inclined to use an 
offline message reader to read my echomail. If I had the baud set to 38400, 
the cursor movements, when moving up, down or to the end of the line would be 
slow enough that I probably wouldn't dial in to my BBS from home to read my 
Echo mail.
 CH> will see a noticible difference in performance when our Fancy Color
 CH> Graphics laden Bulletins and reading echomail between us running at
 CH> 38400 or 115200 baud.
 GG> Umm, "fancy color graphics" under Maximus would still be a form of ascii
 GG> (with color controls in it), so it's not going to cause 
 GG> any more of a burden
 GG> than a plain textfile.  I did much testing when the 
 GG> first 14.4k's came out,
 GG> then then again with the 28.8's, and the 33.6's, and saw no noticable
 GG> differences with port speeds of 38400, 57600, or 
 GG> 115200.  My tests were done
 GG> with identical modems, one on the BBS machine, one on 
 GG> my laptop, via normal
That really must depend on your system Gary. Running 115,200 locked baud 
makes a huge difference here. I mentioned ansi graphics, knowing full well 
that they are ASCII Text which is -quite- compressible and where modem 
compression is quite useful, but as compared to a black and white text 
screen, they do transmit double to quadruple the number of characters to 
display a full screen. Having a high locked baud rate and V42bis compression 
makes a very noticible differnce in how quickly those screens are transfered. 
They can and -do- display up to 3-4 times faster with compression Gary. If 
you want to see how much your .BBS files can be compressed, just compare them 
by using ZIP.
Could be that your Computer/Operating System/Multitasker that you are calling 
in with just isn't fast enough to pass more than 38400 or 57600cps to the 
screen which is why you don't see any difference when you call in and "test". 
Old CGA monitors running with an XT could not write more than 8800cps to the 
local screen, so even with compression enabled, it didn't make any difference 
in how fast the screens were written. You are going to see the screens draw 
at 8800cps with one of those old beaters no matter what the "locked" baud 
rate is. 286's and 386's have a tough time doing over 30,000 cps. Throw in a 
pokey DOS multitasker like desqview (Desqview Screen Writes are way slower 
than Even 16 bit Windows DOS screen writes), and it's no surprise to me 
what-so-ever that you couldn't see any difference with your 14400 baud modem, 
however with a decent OS/2 or NT machine, I can garantee you that there is a 
noticible difference between locking the baud rate at 38400 and 115200 for 
ANSI laden BBS screens.
 GG> "port speed" is pretty much hooey, provided that your port is going 
faster
 GG> than the modem.  I'm willing to bet my entire BBS that you can't tell if 
I
 GG> switch my port speed from 38400 to 115200 and back again.
No, it isn't pretty much "hooey" Gary. I don't think you understand or 
perhaps on your BBS and the way you set it up or the terminal you are calling 
in from to "test", you really can't tell any difference, On my system, which 
I call into every morning to read my echo mail and have been doing so for 
-years- I can tell a -huge- difference in speed between having the baud 
locked at 38400 and 115200 when browsing message areas, any kind of activity 
that isn't transferring already compressed files. Of course I run a well 
setup NT on a fairly fast computer. Hey, leave the baud locked at 115200 and 
leave it up to your callers to decide. You can always call in at 38400 if you 
are still a non-believer or running a pig setup to dial in with.
Here is a test for you gary. Extract the nodelist to an uncompressed file. 
Then lock the baud on both ends at 115200 baud and download it with Zmodem. I 
get about 8500-10,000 cps downloading uncompressed text files from Max NT to 
Bink NT. You try it and report back. If at 115200 baud you are only getting 
3800 cps, then you have either a very slow comuter, poor multitasker, the 
compression incorrectly setup on your modem or a combination of the above 
screwed up in your BBS setup. If you can't get at least 7000cps throughput 
transfering a text file then you need to do some fine tuning. Messages and 
BBS screens will Xfer at a very similiar rate to transferring an uncompressed 
text file.
I think you are one of those many Fidonet Sysops that only evaluate your 
BBS's performance by the cps you get with compressed file Xfers. To online 
users, there is more to it than that.
BTW, if you disable modem compression you will get a bit higher throughput 
when xfering compressed files, then you will with compression enabled and 
many fidonet sysops disable thier modem compression just for that reason, but 
that's a totally different ball game than transferring uncompressed text 
files through a modem. If you are one of those fido sysops that disable modem 
compression, then to your on line users, other than compressed file tranfers, 
you will have the piggiest slowest BBS's on the fidonet no matter what your 
locked baud rate is.
--- Maximus/NT 3.01b1
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