Lewin, at 19:25 on Aug 18 1996, you wrote to Bill Grimsley...

BG> That's not true.  The so-called USR Winmodem is nothing more than a generic 
BG> DSP device, which could just as easily be a sound card as a modem, 
BG> depending upon the installed VXD.  When used as a modem under Windows, it 
BG> makes use of bit stripping and data compression, and is a hell of a lot 
BG> more functional than a Rockwell RPI modem which has neither in hardware.

LE> Nope, it is precisely equivalent to an RPI modem, only even worse - an RPI 

That's not true at all.  As an analogy, look upon a Winmodem as a generic
DSP modem with it's controller code in a Windows *.VXD instead of a
physical EPROM, with the only caveat being that it MUST be run under a
specific operating environment (i.e. Windows).

LE> modem can at least be used in a cripped, semi-dysfunctional sort of way 
LE> without special operating-environment-specific drivers, and emulators can 
LE> run the various RPI-supporting comms packages quite acceptably (well, as 
LE> acceptably as RPI can get). A WinModem outside Windows is useless. It's 
LE> unsurprising USR gave them away. Making modems into platform-dependent 
LE> devices is insane.

Careful Lew, your anti-MS bigotry is showing.  I'm not disagreeing that
platform-dependant modems are not a stupid idea, just that when used as
designed, they are a hell of a lot more like proper modems than crippled
Rockwell RPIs.

Regards, Bill
@EOT:

--- MsgedSQ/2 3.50