Re: Why no internal modem > 2400?

[dalloff@freenet.columbus.oh.us (Dave Althoff)]

Nathan Mates (nathan@visi.com) wrote:
: In article <2000800444-970220060400@rook.wa.com>,
: Brian Hammack <brian.hammack@rook.wa.com> wrote:
: >        We have SCSI cards, we have SecondSight, we have hard drives on
: >cards, but why don't we have internal modems for Apples faster than 2400
: >bps?  This eludes me.   Anyone have any guesses?

:    All the A2 hardware manufacturers were leaving the market? Sure, AE
: lingered on until after even 4800s or 9600s were commonplace, but the
: writing was on the wall.

:    All (well, both) of my modems have been external. I rather prefer
: being able to move it to whatever computer is doing the networking
: this year, without having to worry about PC/A2/Mac/etc
: interfacing. Serial connections are generic, supported by every
: serious computer type on the planet (at Caltech, we had a $500K SGI
: with 14 processors, 4GB of RAM, and a bunch of serial ports in a lab
: where I worked), and transferable. I'll pay the extra $30-40 to get
: an external modem and be able to move it around.

Not to mention, Nathan, that when you are talking about the Apple ][, the
internal modem would probably cost *more* than an external, particularly
for the GS, just because of the relatively small market for new Apple ][
hardware.

Personally, my guess is that we don't have new high-speed internal modems
for the ][ because the hardware developers that we have left have been
devoting their efforts to more specialized products...SecondSight and
Focus both come immediately to mind...and quite frankly, the reason for
having a modem is to give the machine connectivity, and that can be done
fairly easily using an outboard modem and serial card (or the GS' onboard
serial port.  Accordingly, we also now have high-speed addons for the SSC
to get the really high speed connections that people are starting to
demand these days.  Although, with the relative size of A][ software and
the fact that most of the time we're not downloading graphical web pages,
I have trouble keeping up with my 14,400 modem...

Now what might be useful could be one of those high-speed bidirectional
parallel ports like the PC people use as SCSI substitutes...

--Dave Althoff, ][.
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