On Sat, 27 Feb 1999, Michael Richardson wrote:

: > What is the model of the Zoltrix?  I'll give you a 95-98% chance it's a
: > Winmodem (Zoltrix is notorious for those), in which case you're
: > unfortunately SOL with *any* non-Winsnooze OS.
: 
:   I have one with a RockWell chipset on it, jumpers, and it shows up as com2.

Remember my comment about RPI?  Rockwell is the company that makes the RPI
chips.  If you can get Windoze to recognize it (provided you have a Windoze
partition), give it:

ATV10
ATV99

If you end up with a string that includes "...RPI..." then you're screwed. I
have a 95% suspicion that it's an RPI modem, since nearly all Zoltrix modems
are such, which are not supported by any Un*x.

RPI modems (and USR Winmodems) are cheaply built devices that consist of
just a digital signal processor (DSP) and a software interface to the
hardware I/O port.  There's a piece missing that has to be supplied in
software - the actual part that takes the DSP data, processes it, and turns
it into usable data.  (That's the same part that interprets AT commands and
the like.)

Modem manufacturers can usually get away with this shoddy building by
bundling special `Windows driver software' (i.e. the Winmodem or RPI
processing software) that works well for people with the appropriate
operating system and a zippy enough processor.  However, that means that you
can _not_ use that modem with NetBSD, FreeBSD, Linux, etc.

-- 
-- Todd Vierling (Personal tv@pobox.com; Bus. todd_vierling@xn.xerox.com)