In a message to Paul about A good idea, Bill said:

PE> and I also I want to know if they use a general-purpose DSP so
PE> that they are likely to be upgradeable, and also I want to
PE> know similar things about the Banksia MX6.

BG> The USR Sportsters use Texas ICs throughout, apart from the Intel
BG> 80C88 CPU which drives the Texas DSP chip (all running at 16MHz,
BG> BTW). The internal model also has a TI16550A fitted on board (and
BG> it works, too).

Tisk tisk Bill, you'll never recover the pedant crown making errors
like that.  It's an 80C_1_88, which integrates a lot of the other PC
architecture modules such as timer, PIC (??), and more.
Simplistically [ RS] just add ram and rom and you have a PC on a
stick.

BG> All USR modems _apart_ from the Sportster are upgradeable with the
BG> addition of a new daughter board, which utilizes the existing DSP, so
BG> they're obviously quite powerful enough to use at the higher speeds.

BG> Unfortunately, the Sportster was not manufactured to be upgradeable,
BG> so we're all stuck with 14400 bps for a while yet.  ;-)

What a shame.  Still, you get what you pay for, as always.

'tnt, Amfony.


--- Maximus/2 2.01wb