[Techtalk] PC card modem/non-powered external modem wanted

[Akkana Peck]

Carla asked about modems for a laptop.

Elwing writes:
> See if you can find one of the old 3com and/or Xircom PCMCIA modems -  
> they work well under Linux.  eBay of old equipment may be your best  
> option :(

My impression has been that most PCMCIA modems are "real" modems,
not winmodems, and will work.

I've used two: a Xircom dual modem+lan card, and a modem-only card
so old and generic that it doesn't have a brand name of any sort,
just "Laptop Computer Modem" or something like that. (It came with
an old cheapie laptop long ago, but I've seen similar modems in
surplus stores.)

My laptop has a Conexant HSF chip in it which works with the Conexant
linmodem driver. The HCF chip support is more recent and I haven't
used an HCF-based modem myself, nor a Lucent-based one.

I suspect the Conexant isn't as fast as the pcmcia modems,
but I've never tried to do timing tests (modem speeds are so
dependant on phone line quality and the modem on the other end
that it would be hard to do useful tests).

Linmodems.org has some compatibility charts, I think, and so does
http://start.at/modem

	...Akkana