On Thursday July 18 1996, Russell Brooks wrote to John Piper ...

 JP> a few people have had problems connecting to it. Some are experiencing
 JP> freezes and delays in drawing menus (I did myself when I hooked up the
 JP> M11F to the spare notebook)

 RB> I would have thought that this problem is not YOUR modem. The Later
 RB> Sportsters and the 33600 Dynalinks (using the borrowed code of the
 RB> sportster in question) do have a freezing problem. Not Yours.

I am glad to be in a position where I can boldly declare that it's the
other person's modem at fault. I have had only a few incompatibilities
between the
Courier and the modems my callers use. On the brighter side, one of my STD
callers (who has a 14400 modem) was unable to stay online to the M11F. Not a
problem with the Courier though. Funny, that. :-)

 RB> If it has happened to you personally, then I would suggest it has to be
 RB> software related,

It hasn't happend to me personally. I don't really call any BBSs (other
than one which I download files from once every week or so -- one which is
also
running a Courier).

 RB> thought, I do faintly remember a problem that some users had when using a
 RB> Courier back in '94 with the first V.34 SDL, with dialling into early
 RB> Maestro VFc modems, where the modem would let you connect and stay in for
 RB> upto 4 minutes, then hang you up. It was also very slow on redraws. The
 RB> Sysop concerned was not cooperative at all. He was using Remote Access for
 RB> DOS in an OS/2 window, 3 x 28800 VFC nodes, while running 18 CD-Roms and a
 RB> CD-Rom writer as well as 16 other sessions all a once.

That'd slow things down considerably. I'm not doing anything like that though.

 JP> more disturbing, one of my regular callers always loses carrier whenever a
 JP> message is displayed. He logs in, the system checks his mail, and when he
 JP> presses (Enter) to read his mail, he is cut off. It's happened every time
 JP> without fail. I'm at a loss to understand why the displaying of a message
 JP> would cause a sudden disconnect.

 RB> Not running Remote Access for DOS in OS/2 are you;-)

I'm not running OS/2. :-)

 RB> Have you had any 33600/33600 connects yet??

 JP> I have tested my Courier with a number of systems. I have a downlink in
 JP> Mudgee, a downlink in Melbourne and two points, one who has a 33.6k modem
 JP> (I'm not sure which brand -- not a Courier though). So far all of my
 JP> downlinks seem to be doing fine. I have no way of knowing whether or not
 JP> my connects were 33600 in both directions.

 RB> Safe bet that if you get 33600 one way, then you are either on the
 RB> money, or within two steps of it...28800,31200.

I wonder how I can actually tell. FrontDoor does not log connection stats
as Binkley does. Yes, some Binkley FRZ will tell me to convert to it, but I
am quite happy with FrontDoor.

 JP> I called another BBS running a V.E the other day. Typing +++ had no effect
 JP> at all. I did toggle the DIP switch to disable carrier loss on +++.

 RB> The sysop at the other end has either changed his Escape character or
 RB> disabled the feature with either the dip switches or S2=225

Possibly. When chatting with him, I told him to toggle DIP switch 9, which
he apparently didn't know. Toggling said DIP switch was the only thing I
had to do once I took the modem out of its box. I might ring that BBS
today, check to see if the sysop has toggled DIP switch 9 and then drop
into command mode before typing ATI6I7I11Y11 and ATO1.

 RB> I use AT&F1&A3&K3 AT&W The &A3 is just cosmetic
(Full protocol result
 RB> codes)

Mine reports connect speeds as such: CONNECT 33600/ARQ/V34/LAPM/V42BIS. I
don't suppose you could ask for more than that.

John (japp{at}mpx.com.au)

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