Supra Vs Sportster Review Unsolicited

Supra Vs Sportster Review Unsolicited

Post by Paul Astrach » Wed, 10 Mar 1993 10:18:09



I am writing this review for other subscribers of this newsgroup that always
seem to ask.. Which Modem should I buy.  Before you read on, the answers are
not contained herein, but some insight in the problems of high speed modems
might be.  

My wife brought home a new Supra v32bis Faxmodem a few weeks ago or so as a
loaner Modem until another one could be found.  In this time, I have asked
for internet assistance once, and have called Supra Tech support for help in
trying to get the Modem to connect at 14.4.  I never got there.  The best
connection I ever got was at 12k and the throughput was greatly reduced
presumably in retransmits.  In my call to Supra, they suggested I call their
bbs and measure the signal received quality.  In his words, "We have a unique
situation here with all digital lines and therefore no noise is injected on
our end. Any noise on the line is from your end". He indicated that the
signal quality value should be interpreted as follows:
0-2 high speed connection will work fine.
 < 15 it should be ok but no guarantee
 > 15 probably not.

I had already done this in a previous connection and the value was around 50
or so.  I wasn't about to call his BBS since the digital line stuff is bs as
far as I'm concerned.
At this point I'm not real happy.  It seems to me they are saying, if you
have clean lines it will work great, if not, the problem isn't the Modem,
it's the lines.  Look guys, it's not to difficult to design a Modem under
ideal line conditions,  designing it to work in the real world is a different
story.

He also informed me to modify s109 and s110 to allow the modem to connect at
a lower rate and fall forward.  This was useful and allowed the Modem to
connect most of the time.  However, it almost always connect at 9600, once in
a while it does connect at 12k.  There are a few sites that it won't connect
except at 2400 (Yes they are v32 sites!).
I reiterate, I never got a 14.4 connection. I tried to connect to a ZyXEL, a
Dual Standard and a Supra, none worked at high speed.  

Btw, Fax worked fine. Busy detection worked flawlessly.

At this point, note that I use the Modem on two computers at home.  On one
computer, the phone line is set up so that when the Modem is active, all
other phones in the house are switched out.  On the other computer, it is a
typical connection, and the rest of the phones are still connected.  Why do I
mention this... Read on.

Since I had all of the problems with the Supra, My wife ordered a Sportster
14.4 /Faxmodem.  I initially connected it in the system that switched out all
of the phones.  It connected every time at 14.4. Somewhat different from the
Supra which never connected at 14.4.  I called the same systems as mentioned
previously without a hitch.  
I then connected it to the other computer.  It connected ok but the
throughput was terrible.  I manually disconnected all of the phones in the
house and the problem went away.  I found the offending phone was in the
garage and disconnected it. This offending phone had not seemed to affect the
Supra adversely.  The Supra didn't work well with all phones disconnected or
on the line with the phones still connected.

Final thoughts (whew). The Sportster certainly worked better at my house.  
There are a lot of people that claim they have a Supra that works great.  I
am not one of these people.  

Comments except for grammer...

Paul Astrachan
Motorola Telecom

 
 
 

Supra Vs Sportster Review Unsolicited

Post by Simon Patrick Jan » Wed, 10 Mar 1993 14:09:37



>He also informed me to modify s109 and s110 to allow the modem to connect at
>a lower rate and fall forward.  This was useful and allowed the Modem to
>connect most of the time.  However, it almost always connect at 9600, once in
>a while it does connect at 12k.  There are a few sites that it won't connect
>except at 2400 (Yes they are v32 sites!).
>I reiterate, I never got a 14.4 connection. I tried to connect to a ZyXEL, a
>Dual Standard and a Supra, none worked at high speed.  

You misunderstand the funciton of the s109/s110 feature. I just got the
new roms today, tried them out. With s110 set to 3, my modem connects at
4800 and "ramps-up" the speed according to how the line conditions are. I
have called one line that I know has horrendous line conditioning and
watched the modem speed up and slow down several times over 15 minutres
before a really bad noise hit dropped the connection.

Quote:>Btw, Fax worked fine. Busy detection worked flawlessly.

I have been lucky today, few of the places I call have been busy. :)

Quote:>At this point, note that I use the Modem on two computers at home.  On one
>computer, the phone line is set up so that when the Modem is active, all
>other phones in the house are switched out.  On the other computer, it is a
>typical connection, and the rest of the phones are still connected.  Why do I
>mention this... Read on.
>Since I had all of the problems with the Supra, My wife ordered a Sportster
>14.4 /Faxmodem.  I initially connected it in the system that switched out all
>of the phones.  It connected every time at 14.4. Somewhat different from the
>Supra which never connected at 14.4.  I called the same systems as mentioned
>previously without a hitch.  

If you set the S110 register to something other than 1 or 2, it will never
connect at 14.4. You don't say what you were setting the S110 register to.
And Supra's documentation doesn't say what it defaults to on power up.
I haven't looked at S109 since I put in the new ROMs but I assume its set
to 2 because the "ramp-up" feature always connected at 4800 on systems
that would allow it to connect at 4800.

Quote:>I then connected it to the other computer.  It connected ok but the
>throughput was terrible.  I manually disconnected all of the phones in the
>house and the problem went away.  I found the offending phone was in the
>garage and disconnected it. This offending phone had not seemed to affect the
>Supra adversely.  The Supra didn't work well with all phones disconnected or
>on the line with the phones still connected.

Just how many phones do you have? I have two that are hooked up ahead of
the modem (somebody can pick up and get the deserved carrier screech blast
in their ear :) because I don't feel that I really need to change that. (yet)

Quote:>Final thoughts (whew). The Sportster certainly worked better at my house.  
>There are a lot of people that claim they have a Supra that works great.  I
>am not one of these people.  

Perhaps you're not reading the documentation correctly for the S109/S110
register.
("ramp-up" is just my term for what it would probably be better called
"fall-forward from a slow connect.")
>Comments except for grammer...

>Paul Astrachan
>Motorola Telecom



 
 
 

Supra Vs Sportster Review Unsolicited

Post by Olli-Pekka Myllyn » Thu, 11 Mar 1993 03:14:06



Quote:

> You misunderstand the funciton of the s109/s110 feature. I just got the
> new roms today, tried them out.

Which version of ROMs you have now? Which is the latest?

Olli-Pekka Myllynen

 
 
 

Supra Vs Sportster Review Unsolicited

Post by Simon Patrick Jan » Fri, 12 Mar 1993 12:51:28




>> You misunderstand the funciton of the s109/s110 feature. I just got the
>> new roms today, tried them out.
>Which version of ROMs you have now? Which is the latest?
>Olli-Pekka Myllynen


I don't know what the latest ROM's are. I ordered mine about two weeks
ago, got them last Monday. The were marked 87-3H and 87-4H externally and
internally V1.200-H.
 
 
 

1. Supra Vs Sportster Review

      <> On 03-09-93, at approximately 1:18am,
      <> Paul Astrachan said...

PA: My wife brought home a new Supra v32bis Faxmodem a few weeks ago or
 so as a loaner Modem until another one could be found.  In this time, I
 have asked for internet assistance once, and have called Supra Tech
 support for help in trying to get the Modem to connect at 14.4.  I
 never got there.  The best connection I ever got was at 12k and the
 throughput was greatly reduced presumably in retransmits...

PA: I had already done this in a previous connection and the value was
 around 50 or so.  I wasn't about to call his BBS since the digital line
 stuff is bs as far as I'm concerned. At this point I'm not real happy...

But if your phone line grade was around 50 or so, THAT seems to point to
a line problem, not a modem problem!  Do you have a lot of extension
phones on the same line?  Get rid of them.  Check to make sure you are
not exceeding the total LOAD number sum (around 100?)

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