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From: jdudeck@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (John R. Dudeck)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: Software to transform generic 2400 modem to MNP level 5?
Message-ID: <2780d8d5.38f4@petunia.CalPoly.EDU>
Date: 1 Jan 91 18:45:41 GMT
References: <9012221054.aa08435@PARIS.ICS.UCI.EDU> <37187@cup.portal.com>
Organization: Cal Poly State Univ,CSC Dept,San Luis Obispo,CA 93407
Lines: 33



In an article schuster@cup.portal.com (Michael Alan Schuster) wrote:
>A Chicago company called MagicSoft has several varieties ("MTE", "FlashLink")
>of terminal software that claims to emulate MNP5 without additional hardware.
>The concensus is that a software-only solution such as this will be a poor
>performer. Considering also that these are commercial programs costing $70 or
>more, your money wou,d be better spent by (selling your old 2400) and buying
>a cheap error-correcting modem such as Zoom, PPI, etc.

I tried the version of MTE that is on SIMTEL.  I normally log into our
Unix system on campus, which is equipped with MNP5 modems.  The MTE program
displays a little "speedometer" that shows the bits per second being
transmitted and received.  According to this, the instantaneous rates hits
up in the thousands of bps.  But I tried timing various displays of text,
and never was able to get it to display faster than the same text at 2400
bps without MNP.  In fact, in normal interactive work such as editing or
reading news, the overall effect is to slow down your work, because there
is a certain overhead for the MNP protocol, which results in noticeable
delays as you type.

However, I do use MTE whenever I have trouble with line noise on windy days,
since it does a pretty good job of killing the garbage.

By the way, MTE only supports Hayes and a few other modems.  I had to hack
it considerably to get it to work with my non-Hayes modem.  Also, the scripting
is very limited.  For example I can't get it to just send CR's to wake up
the system on the other end, so I have to do that part manually when I log on.

-- 
John Dudeck                                  "If it's Object Oriented then by
jdudeck@Polyslo.CalPoly.Edu                    definition it's A Good Thing".
ESL: 62013975 Tel: 805-545-9549                                 -- D. Stearns