Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!oliveb!pyramid!csg From: csg@pyramid.pyramid.com (Carl S. Gutekunst) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems Subject: Re: HST Package for USENET Keywords: HST USENET Message-ID: <63451@pyramid.pyramid.com> Date: 21 Mar 89 18:17:46 GMT References: <15994@oberon.USC.EDU> Organization: Pyramid Technology Corp., Mountain View, CA Lines: 43 In article <15994@oberon.USC.EDU> chris@skat.usc.edu (Christopher Ho) writes: >Despite the marginal advantages of Telebit's PEP.... Prove to me they are only "marginal" better. I say DAMQAM/PEP, for basically half-duplex communication like UUCP, is a *lot* better. >...it is a proprietary protocol. As such, it is unfortunately doomed in the >long run to only a passing mention in a history chapter. Like Bell 212A, also a "proprietary" protocol? At least two other companies are now licensed to manufacture PEP modems. >How many of you remember (or more importantly, use) Racal-Vadic's 1200 bps >protocol? The RV 1200bps protocol died because you couldn't talk to anyone with it, and it wasn't significantly better than Bell 212A. On the other hand, out of 350 UUCP sites we talk to, my TrailBlazer talks to well over half of them. >The reason protocol spoofing was added on Telebits was because of the >relatively high overhead of turning the PEP channel around. V.32 doesn't >suffer from this problem. True. V.32 suffers from other problems. >Our organization waited a long time for V.32 modems to come down to >reasonable prices. Although I chafed impatiently and suggested >Telebits several times, I'm now convinced we did The Right Thing. No. You did the wrong thing. My six TrailBlazers paid for themselves on just local calls. Never mind the many thousands I saved on long distance. We would have dropped off the USENET if it weren't for the TrailBlazers, and we have several BayBone sites that use TrailBlazers exclusively. >A $699 price is very competitive for a V.32 modem. Oh yes! I agree emphatically with this. And for those of us with applications that really need V.32 -- SNA/SDLC, or X.25 for example -- I am going to stock up. But for USENET, there is no one talk to to, unless I use my TrailBlazer. USR's half-hearted attempt to appeal to my USENET applications is not going to cause me to buy any of their modems.