Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!lll-winken!gauss.llnl.gov!casey
From: casey@gauss.llnl.gov (Casey Leedom)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems
Subject: Re: Canonical request for modem information: 2400+
Message-ID: <20736@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV>
Date: 21 Feb 89 23:18:11 GMT
References: <20335@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV>
Sender: usenet@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV
Reply-To: casey@lll-crg.llnl.gov.UUCP (Casey Leedom)
Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Lines: 43

| From: Daniel Ho <dho@ORION.CF.UCI.EDU>
| 
| >   With regard to your recommendation of the MultiTech MultiModem
| > MT-224EH, do you know if it will work properly in a dial in application?
| > Specifically I'd like to be able to disable "+++" escape permanently.
| > It's pure death in a dial in application.
| 
|   Absolutely.  You can set a dip-switch so that the modem will ignore
| AT commands completely.

  But I don't want to turn off the AT commands.  All I want to do is
disable the "+++" escape.  The "+++" escape is only useful for
interactive dial out use.  For everything else it's totally useless.
When I use my modems for dial out applications they're under the control
of a program which can lower and raise DTR to get the modem's attention.

  Since almost no one talks to a modem directly, preferring instead to use
one terminal emulation package or another, the "+++" is one of the least
used features of a Hayes compatible modem.  It's certainly not justified
to make it impossible to turn off.  I would guess that 99% of all modem
applications don't want it in fact.  But it's rare that I've seen a modem
manufacturer who understands this.

  It's like the continual brain damage we're forced to live with with
regard to CAPS locks.  Nearly totally useless keys, but available on all
terminals placed in a high finger target area where they're most likely
to be accidentally and inconveniently typed.  Put the idiot key way off
to the side where I'm not going to hit it accidentally.  It's low usage
doesn't justify its current highly prominent position.

  The same goes for the "+++" in band escape.  Give me the capability to
get the idiot feature out of my way.  This is not a flame at you, it's
just an old gripe that I get totally fumed about every time I have to
deal with modem manufacturers who seem to think that the only use for a
modem is dial out interactive.  Again I have to ask: what do they think
is on the other end of the line?  A tin can on a string??

  I don't think I'm asking for too much.  The Start Team 1200 had a dip
switch to do this.  Putting S2 (I believe that's the proper register for
the escape character) in non-volatile memory and giving me semantics like
escape-char > 127 implies that escape is non-functional.

Casey