Modem question

[gaf at blu.org (gaf at blu.org)]

Karl Hergenrother wrote:
> 
> I'm running Linux on am old 486/33 with 20MB ram.  It has a 14.4 modem
> in the ISA bus which is pretty lame.  This machine has an OPTi local
> bus, not PCI.  I want to upgrade it, but most new 56k modems want
> Pentium 100+ processors and usually make some mention of Windows.  I'm
> not talking Winmodems, I know about them.  Any suggestions about what to
> buy and a good source?
I personally prefer external modems. The reason is that modem
technology has been changing rapidly. You can get an external modem
and plug it into your serial port. The down side, they are a bit more
expensive because they have their own power supplies. They use up a
serial port. 
An internal modem, on the other hand, can do DMA, and can give you some
better throughputs. They can also be real pains. You must have a
driver for them. I also had a situation where an internal modem and a
sound card could not coexist in the same box. There was no IRQ, port
or DMA conflict. I had tried every possibly hardware combination (This
was ISA no PlugandPray). 

Jerry Feldman