Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!stat!fsu!loligo!pepke
From: pepke@loligo (Eric Pepke)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: What's a good, cheap, 2400 baud modem
Message-ID: <392@fsu.scri.fsu.edu>
Date: 7 Dec 89 18:30:18 GMT
References: <7224@dime.cs.umass.edu> <3516@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU> <1989Dec6.160832.26226@aucs.uucp>
Sender: news@fsu.scri.fsu.edu
Reply-To: pepke@loligo.UUCP (Eric Pepke)
Organization: Supercomputer Computations Research Institute
Lines: 39

The Saga of the ZOOM Telephonics 2400 baud modem

A few months ago, I ordered a ZOOM 2400 baud modem.  It was a nice little
black semitransparent box with LED's behind the front and a volume control
on the back.  It has worked just fine, done everything I wanted it to do,
and I have been quite happy with it.  Partially on the basis of my good
experience, the institute bought several of these modems.  When they arrived,
however, they were clearly different from the one I had bought.  For one thing,
the volume control was missing, and the hole in the case instead gave access
to a line impedance trimpot.  A virtual volume control was provided in
software, so that was not a big deal.  Much more serious was the fact that 
the modems did not seem to be able to send a long break.  This is important 
to us, as we have several DEC terminal servers listening to modems on phone 
lines to provide dial-up capability, and break is the default way of escaping 
to the terminal server prompt.

We called up ZOOM, and there are indeed two different modems.  The one that I 
had ordered contained a TI chip set, and the later version that the institute 
ordered contained a Rockwell chip set.  Sure enough, if you open the case 
you can see the logos on the chips.

ZOOM has exchanged four of our Rockwell modems for TI modems, and they will
exchange the two others when sent to them.  They have also claimed that if
we order new modems and specify the TI chip set, that's what we will get.
We were not able to get any promises that TI chip set modems would be 
available in perpetuity.

So, the moral of the story is, IF you buy ZOOM modems and IF break is
important to you, make sure you get the right ones.  Better yet, call them
and explain why long break is an important feature that they should support
in all their modems. 

Eric Pepke                                     INTERNET: pepke@gw.scri.fsu.edu
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute  MFENET:   pepke@fsu
Florida State University                       SPAN:     scri::pepke
Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052                     BITNET:   pepke@fsu

Disclaimer: My employers seldom even LISTEN to my opinions.
Meta-disclaimer: Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers.