Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tektronix!reed!psu-cs!qiclab!neighorn
From: neighorn@qiclab.UUCP (Steve Neighorn)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems
Subject: Re: Everex Modems
Message-ID: <1549@qiclab.UUCP>
Date: 7 Aug 88 02:01:33 GMT
References: <6704@well.UUCP>
Reply-To: neighorn@qiclab.UUCP (Steve Neighorn)
Organization: Qic Laboratories, Portland, Oregon.
Lines: 66

In article <6704@well.UUCP> cygnet@well.UUCP (Joseph C. Decuir) writes:
>
>I've been reading the messages regarding Everex modems with
>interest.
>
>Cygnet is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Everex Systems.  Our job
>is to develop modem products to be manufactured and marketed by
>Everex.  All of the Everex modems that have been discussed on the
>bulletin board are Cygnet designs and are definitely not generic
>Taiwanese modems.

Please don't take this as a flame, but I have a few questions to ask
you about your modems.

1) Did you ever test the pre-MNP modems with high-speed (ala Trail
Blazer) modems? I am in an unenviable position having sold a Evercom
24e to a friend who wants to talk to the SUN 3 at work. The SUN 3 has
a Trail Blazer +, and the 24e loses characters at a rate that make it
unacceptable for non-protocol use. UUCP is OK since packets with missing
characters are resent - but editing files? Forget it.

2) Did you knowingly produce a modem that won't reset to 2400 baud after
getting a 1200 baud call? I am in another unenviable position of having
sold four 24e's (part of two Unix systems I also set up) that need to
deal with both 1200 and 2400 baud callers. Once a 1200 baud caller has
accessed the modem, 2400 won't work until the modem is turned off and
on.

The saving grace on these modems is the baud-rate matching. When I poll
the medical school at 2400 baud and it answers at 1200 baud, I can
still get through because of the baud rate resetting done in the modem.
This is slick, and it the only reason the people I sold the 24e to
haven't sent a hit-man after me.

Did I knowingly sell these problem-modems? Here I please no-contest. The
testing I did on my own systems and on other systems was what I thought
complete. I was wrong. The systems I called were all 2400 baud, so I never
tested for the 1200/2400 baud problem. I tested the 24e with a TB+, but only
via UUCP, never as a human-caller. And as a dial-out only modem, I think
the Everex modem is a real champ. In the past year, I have sold eight of
these modems, and given one away as a wedding gift [Ok, so it isn't a
traditional present, it was appropriate! :-)]. The only modem that has
failed was the unit given away as a present. Five of the eight modems
are now being used either as dial-ins and/or with Trail Blazers.

I have phone calls in to the reseller I purchased the modems from to
see about ROM/8032/RAM upgrades, but they don't think such a thing
generally exists. It is my responsibility to remedy the problem, but
if I can't get an upgrade, I am S.O.L. I am working on a software fix
for the modem reset problem, with the help of another local sysadmin,
but that won't fix the TB+ dropped character problem.

As the actual manufacturer of the modem, is there anything you can do?
Everex pleads ignorance (their products are far better than their
customer service), so unless they gets tons of hate-mail, I don't think
they are going to do anything about it. Telebit offers ROM upgrades
for a charge, do you have such a program? I am willing to pay for the
post-February MNP fix, but that doesn't matter if there isn't any place
to send the money to.

Thank you for posting your original message. It is good to know there
are human beings out there on the other end of all these postings!
-- 
Steven C. Neighorn            !tektronix!{psu-cs,reed,ogcvax}!qiclab!neighorn
Intel Corporation            "Where we BUILD the Star Fighters that defend the
Development Tools Operation      frontier against Xur and the Ko-dan Armada"