Re: Getting the status of a Portmaster (fwd)

Jacob Suter (jsuter@intrastar.net)
Thu, 13 Jun 1996 20:06:20 -0500

> What's wrong with Rockwell? Granted there are some crappy Rockwell based
> modems...but I thought this was just due to shoddy workmanship/design
> caused by the Rockwell chipset being cheap and easy to build modems with.
> i.e. Someone like Boca can put out something like the 1440e with minimal
> thought given to design...and it can burn itself up every few months.

They are crappy Rockwell modems, and crappy USR modems. I like the prices of the Cardinal
28.8k myself, around $145 each now (I was checking prices today, fixing to do a major
expantion). With the warranty they have, I decided if they fry once a year, who cares. I
bought two extra (one a customer loaner, and the other for me to play Duke 3d Dukematch mode
with friends). I've loaned the cardinal many times, and the customer ends up ordering one
(Either the external they were using, or its internal equivelent).

> I've been using a Digicom modem rack for about a month and a half, and
> have had no problems yet. It uses quad modem cards, they're hot
> swappable, and the unit is generally very nice looking. My only
> complaint is the lack of rx/td/aa lights.

I don't get the big advantage to the rack. Yeah, its really nice, and if I was co-locating
with the phone company or another organization I would take this route, but otherwise the most
hot-swappable easy to use setup is a bank of regular modems (like the cardinals, they run cool
enough to be stacked, and are easily stackable).