Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!portal!cup.portal.com!schuster
From: schuster@cup.portal.com (Michael Alan Schuster)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems
Subject: Re:  ? How to upgrade ROMS in USR HST-DS?
Message-ID: <36213@cup.portal.com>
Date: 25 Nov 90 13:00:14 GMT
References: <9011250048.AA04068@alw.nih.gov>
Distribution: na
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 25

>It looks to me like you do not have the V.42bis ROMs.  I believe that
>they require 32K RAM.  To check for sure contact USR tech support at
>800-982-5151.  Be prepared to get several busy signals ant wait on hold
>for a while.  If you don't mind paying for the call, 708-982-5151 seems
>to get through faster.

Folks who haven't upgraded to V.42bis yet might want to wait just a tad
longer.  All the V.42bis firmware to date (10/2/90 Supervisor chip) have
a serious/fatal bug in negotiating the V.42bis compression dictionary
size at link-up. This only became manifest as newer modems were produced
that created new "test conditions" that the Courier had not been debugged
under. One such modem is the Intel 9600EX. It uses a default dictionary
size that the Courier considers "illegal", and so the negotiation fails.
The Courier assumes a different size, and the next time the Intel asks
for an increase in the dictionary size ("stepup") the Courier panics its
way out of an impossible situation and hangs up.

(My thanks to Toby Nixon, and to the Intel BBS sysop, for these details).
USR calls this the "extra stepup" bug, and they do not yet have new
firmware to fix this. 

I found this bug while calling the 9600EX's that Intel had answering
their BBS. Don't try doing this now ... they presently have a mixture
of USR's and Racal-Vadics answering the phone, while they debug their
TBBS configuration.