I'm trying to understand their advantage over a standard modem.<P>Could someone enlighten me?
Why are WinModems so popular?
- Thread starter Beosiman
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Cheeeeeeeaaaaaappppppppppp<P><BR>That and people not knowing what they are buying, and that something like 99.99% of all pci modems are winmodem. I was under the impression that all pci were winmodems, but apparantly one or two now aren't.
Cheap, use a pci slot, isa is being phrazed out so it's not such a bad thing..but heck, modems are being phazed out too so I wouldn't loose a lot of hair over this.
I was just noticin' that more and more CPUs are being released with Winmodems installed. As a BeOS user (and I think Linux users are in the same boat)I hate the dependancy on Windows that PC manufacturers are placing the purchaser.<P>I guess products such as emachines and web PCs are really designed to *really* show the might of the BeOS anyway.
well if you want a "real" pci modem get 3com's gamers modem. im planning upon buying one (the mobo im gonna upgrade to only has 1 isa slot .. and i have 2 isa devices .. id like to dump this 33.6 for a faster one but my sound card is fine for my speakers)
Because most people are fucking stupid!<P>Either they are just stupid.<P>They are stupid because they don't bother to find out the facts.<P>Or the worst, they know the facts, but still allow hardware companies to foist this crap upon them. Because if everybody, refused to take a Winmodem, and demanded a real modem, hardware manufacturers would quickly drop Winmodems from their inventories, and we would hardly have heard about the scourge of the internet.
Quite honestly, by the time "real" modems dissapear off the market, 90% of the country will be cable modem/dsl wired. It's not that big a deal View image: /infopop/emoticons\icon_wink.gif Now if Winonly network cards start popping up everywhere..that would be something to worry about.
Beosiman:<P>The answer to your question is cheap for the manufacturers to make. To implement a modem in hardware you have to do all sorts of nasty shit with error encoding and checking algorithms, fifo queues, etc. All in hardware. And then, if you want the thing to be flash upgradeable you probably have to do it in an EEPROM or a PLA or something of the sort.<P>The upshot? hard to do, takes a long time, error prone, and correcting errors implemented into a circuit is a bitch.<P>So if all the modem does is turn bits into analog noise and vice versa, it is a lot cheaper. Just write a program to do all the rest of the work that used to be implemented in hardware. Problem is you can really take a big hit in CPU util and PCI bus flooding. But most people won't know the difference and WinModems are significantly cheaper to make, hence sell for less, hence people buy them instead of real modems.<P>-earl-
Ophidian:<P>What's the word on this "Gamer's Modem" from 3COM by the by? Presumably, it must be a regular 3COM modem configured for the lowest possible ping? You can do all that with a regular 3COM<BR>V90 Modem, no? And save $25-$30 U.S. in the process.<BR>Or is there more to the story?<BR>Dan
dan --> its the only pci non-winmodem that 3com makes i believe<P>and it reduces ping time because its hardware and not being emulated in software while an intensive game is running
I disagree with the saying that people who buy winmodems are stupid. First, a lot of people who buy computer parts are in the 'informed' group who don't know a whole lot about computers. When every major news source they turn to doesn't even say anything about not buying winmodems, how are they going to know about their evils? Second, why would people automatically know that a newer technology such as pci is actually (for the most part) a worser choice for a modem than its older counterpart, the isa? I wouldn't assume that on my own. <P>Now, I actually bought a winmodem with my system before I heard about their evils. I don't use it for online gaming, but it works 'fine' for my needs. If I could do it over, yeah, I would get a non-winmodwm, but my current setup is fine and works. Now, I was still learning about computer compenents when I was buying parts for my system, but I would say that I still know a lot more than the average computer user/buyer, and <I>I</I> didn't know about the evils of winmodems. So, calling a person stupid because he wasn't informed about a product that actually performs better in its older form, while the newer form will probably work fine for his needs is not a correct statement in the slightest. Granted, there are a lot of stupid computer users out there, but this is one area where I would not call them dumb.
What else do you call a person who makes an uninformed purchase decision, regardless of the product?<P>I call them stupid!<P>If you have a better description, I would like to hear it!<BR>
The CMOS technology for the hardware modems has been out there for years, and has had time to mature. Look at a hardware modem and you will see chips from Intel, Texas instruments and others.<BR>The dedicated hardware solution will always be more powerful than any software emulation of it, because software must "steal" system resources. <P>A hardware modem brings it's own.<P>edit:typo<P>[This message has been edited by spoof (edited December 10, 1999).]
whisper - what do you call someone who makes an informed decision based on the wrong information: misinformed. Part of what I was talking about is most all the big computer sites and magazines I have seen don't say anything about not using winmodems, and even give their advice and reviews on the best modem - a nice, new pci modem. I wouldn't say it's the consumer's fault for not knowing this when their 'respected' advice is in the wrong. Honestly, this is a problem that is not well known outside of the 'true' computer users' group. Like I said before, when I went to research some stuff for buying my parts, I didn't even hear about this until after I bought and put my system together, and that was with informed decisions. You think that it is <I>soo</I> easy to know about this problem, and anybody who doesn't is dumb, but that is because you keep up on sources that provide you with this information (like Ars), plus you might also do a lot of online gaming and might notice the difference on your own. Most of the computer consumers aren't around sites like Ars, but more like cnet (and probably don't do a lot of 'real' online gaming). <P>If the public actually knew about this problem (i.e. their sources would actually let them know of this), then we might finally see a decline in winmodems.
They're popular because they're cheap, and for most people, they're good enough.
What is annoying is that people will be offered 2 or more modems, and for example 1 modem priced at $50 and 1 modem priced at $200. (I am Autralian, that is what we can pay here)<P>If it was any other product, would it not occur to any intelligent person to ask what the fucking difference is, between two products that purport to do exactly the same job?!?!?!<P>Do all intelligent people unquestioningly take the cheapest option available to them?
It depends on what they want it for. If they were only interested in a bit of surfing, checking email and maybe doing a bit of that 'e-shopping' stuff that's all the rage, then I'd say why spend the extra $150 when a winmodem will do the job just as well?<P>Also, a lot of people buying these modems are getting them as part of their system, often their very first PC. Now, it strikes me that making an informed decision about a PC as a first time buyer is a very daunting task these days, what with the many fiercely competitive deals around. After considering CPU speeds and manufacturer (this alone will twist a few melons), monitor size, memory, etc, modems are somewhere at the bottom of the list. You can't really call someone stupid for not knowing the difference between a winmodem and a real modem at this point.
My $35 Creative Blaster winmodem is faster than my $111 3Com gaming modem. Furthermore, I saw no improvement in lag or ping with the 3Com as advertised. Just a note for anyone looking to purchase it.
In the context of building/choosing an overall system, I can understand that some people might get confused.<P>But if I stand in front of you with a box in either hand, with products that supposedly do the same thing, and then tell you that Box A costs 3 to 4 times more than Box B, does anybody disagree that it is just common sense to ask, what the catch is??
Whisper, this is of course defensive as I bought a winmodem not knowing, but walk into any normal retail store and find me a hardware PCI modem. There are only like three on the market all are by 3com and two are only available either in built computers or OEM. The third is the brand new gaming modem. It is uninformed of me to have not known better, but not stupid as it is virtually impossible to find this information, or a viable alternative in a retail setting. If you want to hold a ISA modem fine, but some of us were trying to get rid of ISA, and that is pretty much the only hardware modem alternative available.
I see it alot of the times at Fry's and other computer-stores. I believe most of these winmodem-buyers really need help in choosing modems because I think they just read "<B>56K</B>" and assumes that its the best modem. Most of them are not buying these winmodems because they're cheap; it's just that they needed more qualified help in making modem-purchasing decisions. Half of the sales-people they encounter and ask help from don't really know what the difference and distinction.<P>I go out of my way to help people get more informed about winmodems whenever they casually ask me when I'm visiting the stores. The sad part of it all is, most retail stores don't really sell or stock any real modems anymore. It's all winmodems. It's a little frustrating.<P><BR>--treatment--
"But if I stand in front of you with a box in either hand, with products that supposedly do the same thing, and then tell you that Box A costs 3 to 4 times more than Box B, does anybody disagree that it is just common sense to ask, what the catch is??"<P>When I teach programming I tell people that the hardest parts to understand are those which are solutions to problems you didn't know you had.<P>Ditto with WinModems. You tell people that a real modem won't do X and Y and people just go with a WinModem anyway.<P>And FWIW I have a WinModem on my system and an ISA modem on my wife's machine, and damnded if I can tell the difference.<P>
"But if I stand in front of you with a box in either hand, with products that supposedly do the same thing, and then tell you that Box A costs 3 to 4 times more than Box B, does anybody disagree that it is just common sense to ask, what the catch is??"<P>Yes, in this case it is common sense to ask why. Furthermore if the actual benefits of a real modem vs a winmodem are weighed against their prices, I'd be surprised if many people went for the real modem in such a scenario. I think the performance of a genuine hardware modem is something sought mainly by people who either cannot afford or cannot get ISDN/ADSL/Cable etc and are desparately trying to sqeeze a bit more out of their phone lines. That's what I'm doing anyway. View image: /infopop/emoticons\icon_wink.gif
Operating system support if they're not running Windows obviously View image: /infopop/emoticons\icon_wink.gif or maybe they're short on pci slots. The only right answer is the one you pick for yourself. This is in fact much like the IDE/SCSI debate. <P>There is however one point, ISA will probably be gone next year (Most boards now only have 1-2 ISA slots) so if you plan on reusing that ISA modem next year...your motherboard selection choice might be severely limited<P>[This message has been edited by Zagato-sama (edited December 14, 1999).]
PeterB asked,<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Why do 99% of people need anything other than a Winmodem?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Well all I have to say is this, if you wish to be beholden to Intel for another piece of hardware, please be my guest! Not that WinModems don't work with other manufacturers CPU's, but it does seem to be Intels goal to make every fucking process in your computer, to be as CPU dependant as possible. I wonder why?
The fastest modem I have ever had by far was a wisecom winmodem. The only reason I got a 3Com/USR was for non-windows OS support. That wisecom is sitting in my sister's machine nw, and she wouldn't notice the performance difference if it arose and smacked her between the eyes.<P>In principal, I agree with Whisper that 99.9% of most consumer's woes come from reliance on hearsay instead research. But the winmodem has turned out to be a great solution for the majority of casual computer users today. Not everyone has the 100+ simoleans to lay out for dial-up tech.<P>Still, Whisper is right- there ain't no such thing as a free lunch, and if you buy it, you only have yourself to blame. I heard of winmodems vs. hardware modems loooong before I ever saw Ars...
Forget being "beholden to Intel," a Winmodem makes you beholden to MICROSOFT! A hardware modem is infinitely easier to get supported on Linux, Be, etc.
Y'all miss the point.<P>For 99% of consumers, a WinModem is all they need. 99% of consumers don't care about Linux or BeOS or even NT. The processor thing is a non-issue.<P>Why do 99% of consumers need a hardware modem that costs three times as much as a WinModem? They don't.
"Forget being "beholden to Intel," a Winmodem makes you beholden to MICROSOFT! A hardware modem is infinitely easier to get supported on Linux, Be, etc."<P>Mmmhm, that is true, but we're talking about the general mass here, and Linux and Be, and others don't apply to most people. <P>"But if I stand in front of you with a box in either hand, with products that supposedly do the same thing, and then tell you that Box A costs 3 to 4 times more than Box B, does anybody disagree that it is just common sense to ask, what the catch is??"<P>Yes, it is common sense to ask. And when the general public gets an answer that is not helpful (store worker doesn't know) or that does not concern them (online gaming and other 'higher-tech' stuff), they will go with the cheaper one. If I walk into a suit store and ask the difference between a $200 suit and a $700 suit, and the worker explains it to me (and says something like the $700 one will last a <I>little</I> bit longer and uses better-feeling quality thread), I will most certainly save some money and get the cheaper suit. Same thing with buying a TV (I don't exactly have the money yet to buy a real nice TV, I'll let just stick to a run-of-the-mill set for now). Also, if a consumer is faced with buying a much cheaper, slightly less quality product compared to a similar product that is more expensive and slightly better quality product - which do you think the majority of the people are going to pick?<P>
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