modem : Computer Hardware Buyers’ Glossary

by Roedy Green ©1997-2009 Canadian Mind Products
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modem

A modem is a device that allows your computer to communicate with other computers over an ordinary phone line. If you listen in on the call, you can hear whistles, honks, and what appears to be white noise static. Most of the time you connect to a computer owned by a local ISP (Internet Service Provider). From there, you can be connected to any other computer in the world currently attached to the Internet.
There are two kinds of modem, internal, which takes the form of an add-in card you insert into a free ISA slot in the motherboard, and external which takes the form of a box with indicator lights that attaches via a cable to your computer’s COM2: serial port. Internal modems are cheaper and take up less space. External modems are easier to troubleshoot and reset if they go mad.
Buying a non-name generic modem will waste days in frustration trying to get it to work. Ask your ISP what brand he recommends. You will have most luck if your modems exactly match his. My personal favourite no-nonsense modems are the US Robotics Sportster and Courier.
Modem speeds are measured in BPS, bits per second. Anything less than 28,000 BPS or (28K for short) is obsolete. 33K are most common. There are three kinds of 56K modems, X2, K-Flex and V.90. V.90 is the new standard. X2 and K-Flex were interim experiments and are rapidly on the way out. Very few ISP’s support 56K, so you may end up running at 33K even if you buy a 56K modem. Even when your ISP supports 56K, you may end up running somewhat slower unless you have perfectly clean phone lines. For very high speeds, 500K+ you use a cable modem or an ADSL modem. These attach to your machine via an Ethernet LAN connection, and are provided by your ISP. High speed lines are remarkably inexpensive, but are only available in urban areas.
What can you do with a modem?

Directly phone other people who have computers and send them files using a program like Telix. This is so awkward to do, people rarely do it now-a-days. It is much easier to use the Internet email.
Phone local free BBSes (Bulletin Board Systems).
Send your word processing files to people who have FAX machines or who have FAX modems using a program like Faxworks Pro.
Surf the Internet looking for information or pornography in the form of text, pictures, movies and sound using a Web browser program such as Netscape.
Download free or shareware programs from computers on the Internet using a web browser or a program like WinFTP.
Send people electronic mail, including electronic enclosures of documents, pictures, MIDI musical scores, or sounds using a program like Eudora or Agent. You can leave email for other computers that only periodically connect via a modem. Each time you connect, you pick up any mail that arrived while you were not connected.
Set up your own pages on the world wide web. Post your art, writing, club notices, photos, advertising etc. for the whole world to come and see, using authoring tools and an uploader program like NetLoad.
Read or participate on global public discussions on every topic you can imagine using a newsreader program like Agent.
Meet people from all over the world, and exchange electronic mail.
If you have a FAXmodem, allows you to send and receive faxes.
Contact information services providers such as BIX, Compuserve and AOL. Discussions in these forums is usually more civilised than on the Internet Newsgroups. You don’t need to deal with renegades who insist on placing advertisements where they have no relevance.
Most important, you can get free technical help with your computer problems via the newsgroups or vendor web pages. You can pick up free bug fixes and program upgrades. Without a modem, you would never even know they existed.

BBS
external modem
faxmodem
internal modem
irq
ISP
port
winmodem

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