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Date:      Thu, 3 Aug 2000 14:29:09 +0930
From:      Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
To:        Jon Hamilton <hamilton@pobox.com>
Cc:        Dale Wharton <dwharton@alcor.concordia.ca>, FreeBSD Questions <questions@FreeBSD.org>
Subject:   Re: cheapest laptop for FreeBSD? winmodems?
Message-ID:  <20000803142909.L87263@wantadilla.lemis.com>
In-Reply-To: <20000803030517.A40C016F@woodstock.monkey.net>; from hamilton@pobox.com on Wed, Aug 02, 2000 at 10:05:17PM -0500
References:  <20000803094137.P36094@wantadilla.lemis.com> <20000803030517.A40C016F@woodstock.monkey.net>

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On Wednesday,  2 August 2000 at 22:05:17 -0500, Jon Hamilton wrote:
>
> In message <20000803094137.P36094@wantadilla.lemis.com>, Greg Lehey wrote:
>> On Wednesday,  2 August 2000 at 19:57:20 -0400, Dale Wharton wrote:
>>> Dale Wharton  ve2ndw@rac.ca  M O N T R E A L   Te souviens-tu?
>
> [...]
>
>>> Jon, many thanks for your very constructive remarks. Your aside
>>> about winmodems rang my bell (internet access is essential for
>>> my purpose).
>>
>> You always have the option of a PCMCIA modem.  That's what just about
>> everybody does.
>
> The problem in this case is that the laptop in question can only use one
> PCMCIA card at a time, so you'd have to choose between a modem or an ethernet
> interface :(

I think this would be a "drop dead" criterion for me.  You need two
slots.

> I suppose another alternative would be to use a regular modem on the
> serial port or a USB modem, but those have the obvious disadvantage
> of being external and tedious to haul around, if you want them to be
> mobile with you.

Agreed.  I've done that, and I don't want to do it again.

>>> Which raises another question: how does one learn in advance if a
>>> modem is a winmodem? The only literature that I saw, a brief spec
>>> sheet on the Compaq Presario 1200-XL115, says simply "Modem 56kbps
>>> with V.90 Support."
>>
>> It's almost impossible to get that out of the vendors.  "You're not
>> supposed to know".  But I don't know of any laptop modems which are
>> not winmodems.
>
> I don't know of any by name either, but I do recall someone on one
> of the FreeBSD lists recently mentioning that they had found a
> couple of models still with real modems, but I had already made my
> purchase and wasn't paying much attention, so don't remember the
> details.

Jerry Dunham recently said there are none.  Since he's ex Dell
laptops, I suspect he knows what he's talking about.

Greg
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