BOCAMODEM 14.4 Kbps, v.32 bis by Marilyn Justman This is more of an apology than a review. I am one of those people who use modems the way secretaries use computers. I'm not interested in fine-tuning its performance, or seeing how many tricks I can make it do--I just want it to do its job and let me forget it's there. This one didn't. At least it didn't easily get out of the way. True it seemed to work just fine when I called BBSes with advanced error-checking modems of their own--our club's BBS and Compuserve. It took a lot longer to connect than I was used to with a standard 2400 baud modem, and sang me a whole opera in the process, but once it connected, I was fine, and could do whatever. Downloading at 9600 baud is unquestionably a lot pleasanter than not downloading, which is what I did a lot of when 2400 was the only choice. (It is also true that I do not have a dedicated phone line for my modem, so I am reluctant to tie up the only phone line I have for long communi- cation sessions.) But Compuserve also charges me a lot more money to come in at 9600. I took Alan's advice, and used 2400 to go "shopping" for things to take, then made a separate, closely choreographed call to get what I wanted. The only other board, as it happened, that I had occasion to be on regularly, was suddenly the one at UIC, which is totally intolerant of any error-checking systems whatsoever, and isn't so straightforward to access with the most standard of modems. (It wants Mark parity, for instance). In connection with that board's idiosyncracies, I had to try a bunch of new (to me) communications programs at the same time I was trying to get this modem to give up its wunderkind features....the result was lots of frustration. I did figure out how to disable the error checking. It's an S-register (S36), which has 5 settings (3 to 7), only one of which (S36=3) doesn't try MNP connection and doesn't disconnect. It is, of course not the default. Although that may have been enough by itself, I reassured myself by also fixing the telephone line speed (via S37=024) at 2400, whereas default, of course, is Auto. With these two commands in place, it always worked at 2400. After I found it, I used the "View current Configuration" command (AT&V) a lot. This Hayes-like command set isn't case sensitive, incidentally, which is nice, but there are oodles of commands to learn to discriminate among. The BOCA's book is good. It's not too talky, is complete, identifies defaults by the typographic convention of bolding the default item in every list. There are some examples for commands that are likely to be new to users, like the command to "resume command state after dialing" (;) which they suggest be used to break up extremely long dial commands into two strings. The modem I tested was external, like my 2400, so installation was mindless. The transformer was a hair smaller than my old one. Early in my fiddling with it, I frequently had a terrible time getting it to hang up, so I was especially grateful for the physical on-off switch; I remember being most thankful that I didn't have to reboot just to hang up my phone. It's a standard size and shape, with standard lights. It even comes with a tiny stand to hold it vertical, if you like, and a faceplate that makes its labels readable in that position. I tried only once to call Tech Support. Of course, that was during normal modeming hours ... i,e., Sunday night going on Monday morning. Their phone did answer, and a machine informed that Tech Support was available between 9 and 5 on weekdays. By Monday, I had coped. The modem ships with a copy of Quick Link II/Fax. This software also went without an adequate test. It's designed for up/down load situations and faxing. (The modem is, of course, also a fax modem). It was easy enough to install and to understand, but it doesn't have a Mark option for line settings, and its defaults were also set to support the high- speed and error checking features which I was trying to disable, so I found myself going back to more familiar software. QLink looks interesting--it has lots of pre-scripted options, combining settings according to someone's wisdom, and scripts for Compuserve, Dow Jones and Genie at various baud rates and with various carriers, and they seem to be adequately described in its manual. As far as the fax capabilities of the modem and the software are con- cerned, all I did was converting and sending. Both those processes were smooth and uneventful. QLink converted both a text and a graphics file for me, proofed both of those on my HPLJ, and sent them flawlessly across town. But again because I have only one phone line--since receiving a fax is something I must set up for, disabling my phone machine and call waiting, it's a nuisance to do even with a standalone fax. Every time I got ready, and enabled the computer, the software and the settings, some voice call came in anyway, and a poor person got the audio equivalent of a pail of water on the head. The software seems to have a pretty complete range of conversion options: it can handle Text (ASCII only) PCX, TIF, BMP, CUT, IMG (I assume GEM's, not the other one), MacPaint and PCL. I think I fed it only Text, PCX and TIFs. There're two resolution settings, Normal and High, only one of which can be used for the batch of graphics sent on any single call. There's a default pre-built cover sheet, into which you can plop a graphic of your own, or they provide one, and a fax dialer list in addition to the phone dialer list. The TSR function of Quick Link (RECFAX), which you must run to receive faxes or send in the background, seemed to be innocuous enough. I didn't try to load it high, or really to use any "interesting" software while it was loaded. My expectation is that performance in its fax-modem capa- city is good to very good. QLink is apparently bundled with other fax modems, too, and it seems to be just the thing to handle them. QLink has a fax-receiving TSR that should be able to run in the back- ground and grab incoming faxes without disturbing what you're doing. That's a big challenge-- I can't even run much in Windows behind Ventura, and the thought of actually running a live communication link sounds like a pipedream to me. Maybe with 8 Meg of RAM. Maybe without Windows. In any case, I never got that far. The 14.4Kbps v.32bis External is BOCA's the top of BOCA's line of eight internal and external modems, with a suggested list price of $495. It's available from BOCA Research, 6413 Congress Avenue., Boca Raton, Florida 33487 (Voice: 407-997- 6227; Fax: 407-997-0918) ...and most likely also from several of our friendly local distributers.