High Speed Modem BUY???
29 messages in this thread
Gary,
Look into Practical Peripherals 9600SA modem: V.22bis standard for "normal"
2400 bps comm, V.32 for "standard" 9600 bps, V.42 error correction, V.42bis
data compression (for theoretical maximum throughput of 38,400 bps), and
MNP 4 and 5 for those as don't yet have the better CCITT equivalents. List
price $699, but available from several mail-order stores (and local "real
world" CompuAdd store for just under $500. And on-line support at "GO
PPIFORUM".
. . . . . . JimDoc
Gary, I may be opening a can of worms, with implications I may not be
aware of, but the High speed modem that I have found to be of most
use to me as an Amiga user is the HST, by Practical Peripherals. First off,
there are really few Amiga oriented BBS'es that support V.32,
EXCLUSIVELY(!), at best they utilize USRobotics Dual Standard modems, which
offer both V>32, and HST compatability. Second, in file transfer rates, the
HST, when properly initialization string, and a little utility called
AMIModem, is BLINDINGLY FAST!! Transfer rates can approach 14.4kbs. Some
claim rates of 38,000+ kbs, but that seems more than a bit wishful. Third ,
the technical support of USRobotics is second to none. Free V.42 bis
retrofit chips to registered owners goes a long way to create good will ,
as far as I am concerned. Good service department too.
If I had it all to do all over again, I would go USR, Either the Dual
Standard, if I had BeauCoup Bux, or the HST.
A satisfied owner, Skal Loret
The HST is a US Robotics modem. HST refers to a proprietary
protocol that is ONLY in US Robotics modems (but not in all of their
modems). You must connect with another US Robotics HST-equipped modem to
use the HST standard. Since most of the 9600bps modems around do not hoof
HST, it would be best if someone wanted HST capabilites, to get the dual
standard, since the HST only version cannot connect with many other non-HST
9600bps modems.
Practical Peripherals has recently released their PM9600SA modem with
V.32 and V.42bis protocols. The PPI modem will connect with most 9600bps
modems including the dual-standard USRobotics and the Hayes Ultra
SmartModem, but is much lower cost than the USR DualStandard. SRP is $699
(Egghead is $599, I believe) and a special offer for Sysops is available.
Practical Peripherals (PPI) operates a forum on CIS (GO PPIFORUM).
I am not employed by PPI, but I did get a chance to see their
manufacturing plant and engineering department earlier this week. Their
modems are built in Westlake Village, California (about 2 miles from my
house). They hoof a real nice operation and their modems are guaranteed
for 5 years.
Probably more than you wanted to know..heheh
RAD Moose
"'o.o'"
Yes, but you have to remember, that USRobotics 9600 Baud Modems are some of
the BEST selling modems in the WORLD! So the HST
Standard should be incorporated into other brands of modems, unless the HST
Standard is Copyrighted.
****—> G.P <—****
Lets be realistic, what are the uses that the original correspondent has in
mind for his modem? Will he connecting to mainframes, and transferring
disgustingly large amounts of data? Will he be BBS'ing? Will he be doing a
combinatiion of the two? Will he be (Gasp!!!!) Pirate boarding? All of
these are cogent to his decision. V.32 is the standard of choice on
buisness, and academic mainframes, and Networks. HST is not. V.42bis is the
internationally accepted standard for error checking, that supercedes MNP 5
level checking on many modems. HST is the standard of choice on more bbs'es
than I would care to shake a bdle of sticks at. HST also has something of a
"Bad Reputation" in "Legitimate" Computer circles, as it is the standard of
choice on the Pirate BBS Scene.
Given all that information, what than is the young gentlemans best bet for
superior connectivity to a large range of communication hosts?
USRobotics Dual Standard. Disclaimer: I do not work for USRobotics, or any
other computer related company. This was just an outline of the decision
making process I
utilized when I was deciding on what high speed modem to buy. Hope it made
sense. Skal Loret
Alan,
Where on Earth did you get the idea that the HST has a "bad reputation"?
What "legitimate" circles do you navigate in? This assertion couldn't be
farther from the truth.
Just because pirate scum also can understand that a fast modem reduces
phone costs doesn't mean that it is the fault of the HST. A high-speed
modem is a product of technological advances. The HST's popularity is due
mostly to the marketing personnel of USRobotics who recognized early on
that giving the sysops of BBS's a discount is the surest way to
establishing themselves as a "standard".
-jack-
Jack, I'm afraid you have misunderstood what I have said in some of my
messages, and I'm afraid I have been somewhat unclear in some of my
postulations.
When I was going through the "agony " of deciding on what modem to buy, I
sought the council of a lot of people; some wise, and knowledgeble, and
some not so. One of the tonier BBS's that I frequent, with a lot of guys
with a lot of very expensive equiptment, and high opinions of said
equiptment, and their incredible expertise with said stuff, were known to
refer to HST as a "Pirate Modem", ie. a modem found only on Pirate BBS's,
with the inference that only True Believers used V.32 etc. This was also an
attitude I found prevelent in Equiptment Vendors, as I shopped for the best
Price.
What I originally tried to do, Unsucessfully, I am Afraid, was try to
steer the original author of this string towards the modem that would give
him the best bang for his buck, without the thought of a great price being
the only prerequisite. For those with the patience to save up, The Dual
Standard IS the wise choice.
Jack, I can see that any referance to the "P" word is liable to elicit a
violent reaction from you, and I will be sure not to use it around you ever
again! Happy programming!
Alan
Alan,
I have to admit to not holding the HST in high regard, but, that opinion is
based on my attempts to connect to such modems with an ordinary 2400 baud
modem, and not with another HST. I've had much better connections with
2400 <==> Telebit and Telebit <==> Telebit.
David
David:
Will the telebit talk to a standard 2400bps modem? I was under the
impression that it used only it's own protocol that wasn't compatible with
other modems. Gee, now I want one even more!
-Mike Schiller
In sunny Fort Lauderdale
Mike,
>> will the Telebit talk to a standard 2400bps modem?
Yes, it supports standard modes. How well things work together depends on
the settings of the Telebit. For maximum compatibility, a host running a
Telebit should set the proper register so that the answering Telebit does
not present the PEP tones first in sequence. A calling Telebit should be
set to wait for the PEP tones rather than connect to the standard mode.
This results in a slightly longer connect sequence for the high speed mode,
but retains maximum compatibility.
David
David,
When the 14.4kps HST's were first released, there was a good bit of
compatibility with low end 2400bps modems, but that has been cleared up
with later releases of firmware and the data pump. If you know of a BBS
that still has this problem, you should make the sysop aware of this so
that he/she can get it upgraded.
-jack-
Alan,
It's not the 'P' word that got me riled. It's the attitude these
supposed "experts" have that did. The idea that the HST itself has
something to do with the promulgation of piracy is one of, if not the most
anal retentive remarks I've ever heard.
It's a good bet that these persons are not oriented towards MS-DOS
platforms too. If you were to posit that idea within the IBM comm areas,
either here or elsewhere, you'd draw a good deal of highly polarized
replies.
-jack-
Is there such a thing as BBS street-smarts? Well, if you come across an
HST owner, chances are as likely that he/she is a pirate as they are if a
person has an IBM/klone at home and car-pools to work with the dudes in
Data Processing (that is, very likely).
That is certainly not to say everyone, but if caution were a factor, it
would be good advice.
If I may cut into this argument (which seems to have re-surfaced);
By now I would scarely think that HST modems are more widespread than V.32
modems. USR modems may have been a best-selling brand-name, but I doubt
that the HST protocol is any longer the best-selling type.
USR is only one company, and the only one that can make HST modems. Thus,
HST is not a standard by any means. V.32 is an international standard which
has been adopted by probably dozens of companies, and with that kind of
competition the prices are dropping already (in my opinion, they are
already at or below the HST price).
In in journals such as Telecomputing Magazine (a very BBS/BBS'er oriented
publication). You can scarcely find any mention of HST modems in there
anymore… It's all V.32 where it's high-speed. Major telecom networks are
installing V.32 modems at their new high-speed access sites; I don't see
any evidence of networks installing HST modems (at least, not any more).
But Don't USR HST DUAL STANDARDS carry v.32 standard????????????????
I don't think the modem is called 'HST DUAL STANDARD' (is it?). They (USR)
make the HST modem (which has just the HST protocol at high speed) and also
the DUAL STANDARD modem (which contains V.32 and also HST).
I'm pretty sure the name 'DUAL STANDARD' doesn't imply that the HST
protocol is a standard. And if that's what USR is trying to do, then it's
just false posturing.
Chris,
If you can get ahold of a local Fidonet system, take a look through the
5,000 odd systems that form that network. Odds are that there are more HST
represented (by a wie margin) than any other high speed technology.
-jack-
Unfortunately for HST, that list will start to change rapidly as
full-duplex protocols increase in popularity.
Chris,
Sounds like you pulled a hamstring jumping on the full-duplex bandwagon
there…
BIMODEM has been available for quite sometime on an MS-DOS machine, but
its popularity is not that great, why? Very few people actually have a
need for simultaneous data transfer, most of their communications are
decidedly unidirectional. It's good to have on the occasions when you need
it, but you rarely need it.
JANUS is becoming a two-way standard since Binkley 2.40 was released for
Fidonet systems. And, even though a high level Fido system does have a
need for full-duplex data transfer, you still see Dual Standards on their
systems, why? Because the callers that frequent those systems have the
one-way file transfers. Since HST mode sends data faster than a V.32 does,
they keep it on there.
Then, you have to factor in the inertia of all those installed modems.
Now that the popularity of the HST on BBS's have caused a good number of
callers to upgrade to an HST. They are going to prevent the sysops from
switching over to a new and incompatible modem unless there's some way to
keep those callers happy. That's why the Dual Standard provides the most
sensible solution.
Nope, the HST is not going to go away for a good time to come. At least,
not until V.32bis modems become dirt cheap.
-jack
Chris,
Nope. The HST offers a throughput that is 33.3% faster than V.32. And,
since the majority of file transfers are one-sided, the HST still offers a
distinct advantage that is not lost on Fidonet sysops and others who are
interested in the fastest possible throughput and have a good deal of large
files to transfer.
Now, V.32bis is supposed to be around the corner, so this may crowd the
competition a bit since it's a 14.4kbps full-duplex link. But, the cost of
these modems will probably be high enough that USR will still be selling
their modems for a good while to come.
Once the price of an HST-only modem drops drastically, you can begin to
assume that the corner of the market it holds has started to erode, but not
until then.
-jack-
Jack,
You can allready buy V.32 modems with v.42bis that have similar
throughputs to the HST, and are FULL-DUPLEX! These modems can be found for
as much or even less than the price of the standard HST. While, I agree
that U.S. Robotics make great modems and due to the sysop program the HST
standard will be around for quite a while. I don't think its fair to say
that the HST is 33.3% faster than V.32. That may be true for a text file
transfer, but the V.32 will be as fast as the HST in transfering an
allready compressed file, and the V.32 will be MUCH faster than the HST in
an interactive invironment like say playing a game or flight simulator over
the modem.
I think USR is going to sell a lot of dual standards based on how well
they were able to capture the BBS market, but I wouldn't recomend that
anyone buy a HST only modem at this point.
-Jason-
Jason,
Nope. V.32 is a 9600bps link, HST uses a true 14.4kbps link, it is
already 33% faster. V.42 is an additional benefit for *both* methods.
With a 14.4kbps link and V.42, a 1650cps transfer of a binary file is the
norm. A V.32 connection will net you about 1150cps on the average for the
same file.
Now, while it is true that V.32 is a full-duplex link and the HST is a
half-duplex link, there is little, if ever a need for V.32 for the average
user. Why? Think about how often you have to upload the same size file(s)
as those that you download.
If the smaller file is not, say, within 50% of the size of the larger
one, it is actually faster to send one at a time on the HST then it is to
send them both at the same time on a V.32.
V.32 is a godsend for applications and situations that have to send large
amounts of data in both directions, like USENET and Fidonet backbone and
hub sites. But, the personal user has little need for it.
Once V.32bis becomes available (in reasonable pricing) this will most
likely change as it is also a 14.4kbps link, and is full-duplex, so the HST
will lose any benefit. But, I doubt that a V.32 will be cheaply
retrofitted with this when it does become available, so the HST is a more
economical solution for the average user.
-jack
Thanks for the info, Jack. I was unaware that the HST was a true 14.4k
link. Are you sure that V.32bis is also slated to be 14.4, I know that the
standard hasn't been finnalized yet, but I hadn't read they they were
actually upping the link speed. Also, when you said that V.42 would be an
advantage for both modems, you meant V.42bis. V.42 doesn't have any
data-compression and the V.42 error checking would be redundant with the
error checking built into the HST protocal. V.42 (non-bis) would be much
more usefull to V.32, since that standard doesn't include error checking
(other than trellis coding) or data compression.
Actually, unless I'm mistaken (a real posibility) U.S. Robotics did a
retrofit for v.42bis on their dual standard, and have promised a V.32bis
one as well, when that becomes available. Its actually kind of
frustrating, since I have been a loyal Hayes customer for years, and seem
to be getting the short end of the stick. I have purchased in order a
Hayes 1200, Hayes 2400, Hayes 9600 v.42, and now the Hayes Smartmodem 9600
v.32. Now they come out with the Ultra, which is cheaper than my 9600 but
the mine doesn't have any means of error-checking or data compression and
Hayes has no plans to upgrade it. It does have some nice features, like
leased line operation, has a 4 line LCD display, and is completly
programable in both Synchronous and Asynchronus operation. Unfortunately,
I would rather have V.32bis or even V.42bis on top of the V.32. Oh well…
-Jason-
Jason,
That's what V.32bis is, a full-duplex, 14.4kbps link.
The HST protocol does not provide error correction. Before USR
retrofitted the modems with V.42 and V.42bis, they used MNP level 4 for
error correction and level 5 for data compression.
The V.42 compatible modems will fall back to MNP if it connects with one
that only supports MNP.
And yes, V.42 does offer a speed increase, the same as MNP level 4 does.
It reformats the data into packets and strips the start and stop bits for
each byte in the process. So, by removing two bits in ten, you have a
gross performance increase of 20%. But, since you have to factor in packet
and handshake overhead, the gain is cut down to about 15-17%. That's why
you get about 1650cps on a 14.4kbps link, the error correction provides the
extra throughput (so long as it's a clean connection).
V.42bis provides data compression, the same as MNP level 5, but without
the performance penalty that the latter gives you when transfering an
already compressed file.
-jack
George,
I hoof not had a chance to read the other replies that you hoof
recieved (due to the offline reader system I am currently evaluating). But,
I just thought I would let you know that the HST protocol is copyrighted by
USRobotics and is ONLY available on their modems at this time. (By USR's
own brochures, there are 8,000 HST modems on BBS systems and just over
40,000 in use in the world.) The cost to provide a compatible HST modem
would hoof to included the licensing fee from USR. Based on the price
difference between a USR HST modem (either the HST only or the Dual
Standard HST/V.32) and a PPI PM9600SA modem at the sysop pricing (the PPI
modem is about 50% of the cost of the HST only version as about 35% of the
Dual Std last time I checked…but of course things could hoof changed), I
think the PPI type (V.32 with V.42 and upgradeable to V.42bis) would soon
be the "standard" leader. (The PPI PM9600SA is compatible with the Hayes
Ultra 9600).
I agree that there are many USR/HST modems out there, but I would
also look towards the next year on how the 9600 bps modem "world" will
change. (If I was going to get an USR 9600bps modem, I would only concider
their units with "dual standard").
RAD Moose
"'o.o'"
Did I noyt say that "..if the HST was copyrighted…"
George,
Yes you did mention "if HST is NOT copyrighted". I was just
confirming that it is, and the reasons why you do not see others using it.
[I tried to get a price from USR about licensing but no one could give me
any information or a name to write to]. I think we will just hoof to wait
until v.42bis is official.
RAD Moose
"'o.o'"