A MegaDisc           Review                         `        -==-   ---------------------------------------           |||||||||||||||||||||||||||o [] []   SCITEC BUSINESS OLYMPIC MODEM  Daniel Rutter  (( 27 )) (( 27 )) (( 27 )) (( 27 )) (( 27 )) (( 27 )) (( 27 )) (( 27 ))  Why get one? I recently decided to take the plunge and buy myself a modem, the decision being more than a tad influenced by the fact that, in my recently appointed position of Megadisc deputy editor (tra la), it was a bit silly to have either me or Tim Strachan trotting back and forth between our respective suburbs bearing single disks half-full of text. The other major motive for most people buying a modem is the prospect of oodles of free PD software down the phone lines, but since I've access to the entire MD library (which should have easily broken 3000 disks by the time you read this...), this wasn't a major factor.  What is a Modem? To the machine itself. A brief digression so that everyone out there actually knows what it is. A modem (the name stands for MOdulator-DEModulator) is a box that connects a computer to a phone line, so that data can be transferred back and forth betwee n this computer and others, of different makes or models, which also have modems. The speed at which it does this is expressed in baud, or bits per second. A speed of, say, 2400 baud would theoretically transfer 2400 bits every second (300 bytes), but this assumes a perfectly clean phone line and no extra information to keep the transmit/receive link working. I've consistently achieved rates from 220 to 230. But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Who are Scitec? Scitec is not a name familiar to many. Well, to be frank, to the best of my knowledge at the time of purchasing it was familiar to nobody at all - I'd certainly never heard of them, and I'd never seen their wares listed in any computer magazines, here or overseas, but I must confess I wasn't looking very hard. Since I got the machine, though, I've spotted some of their ads in the Sydney Morning Herald. Evidently, they're an Aussie company (based in Sydney) which sells primarily to businesses, with a range of rack-mounted modems and similar heavy-duty equipment; they specialise in industrial comms, apparently doing consultancy work as well. So how'd I get one of their gadgets, I hear you ask? Ah. A friend of a friend had a dad who had a mate at work - and so forth - and the outcome was I got a 300, 1200/75, 1200 and 2400 auto-everything modem with a telephone handset (now modified to acce pt a headset), too, for $150 (as opposed to the thick end of $400!). There were no obvious scuff marks, as could be incurred from a precipitate drop from the rear end of a heavy transport vehicle, so I averted my eyes from the gift horse's mouth, grabbed the box and ran. It contained the said modem, larger than most at 255x190x50mm (the big case allows simple layout and excellent ventilation), a plugpack adaptor, an 83 page ring-bound (the horrible plastic sort, not the nice wire sort) manual, a phone handset with a modular plug (the little American ones, as opposed to the hulking Aussie model), and a connecting cable, with a pass-through plug at one end which fitted an Australian socket whilst still allowing a phone to be plugged in, and another modular plug at the other end. The manual mentioned a serial cable to hook the modem to the computer, but one was not supplied - I think it's just an out-of-date manual, from days of yore when there weren't 93 different sorts of serial plug for IBM, Apple et al. The cable cost me $20 at Jaycar, along with $10 for an extension phone lead, and I was in business for well under $200.  Setting up At this price, my expectations were understandably low. I booted my unregistered evaluation copy of JR-Comm from MD's UT270, (after foolishly printing the mind-bogglingly huge manual), and I was away (and before the ShareWare vampires descend, I've since switched to NComm (on the same disk). So I'm cheap. So sue me). I had various software hassles, experienced impressive line noise until I unplugged the other phone, and generally did wrong everything a new comms user is traditionally supposed to, but the modem behaved itself flawlessly. All the little lights went on when they were supposed to, the manual descriptions of all the features were accurate, and the whole setup was, in general, limited only by my own denseness. The only controls on the machine itself are 4 front panel buttons (Telephone/Data switch, ORiginating/ANswering switch, SPeeD switch and LOOPback test button), which hardly ever get touched, and 8 rear panel DIP switches, which get touched even less often. Apart from that there's just the two modular jacks (for line input and connecting the handset), a 9VDC power jack and an RS232 (serial) socket (complete with those silly screw sockets on either side that will perfectly happily accept the little screws on the side of the serial plug, but upon unscrewing promptly start to revolve with the screw, necessitating use of forceps...). The bottom of the case is held on by four screws, two Pozidriv and two slightly smaller Phillips. They all have washers, fussy but safe. The innards are all on one well laid out board, which features one of the biggest piezo speakers I've seen (5 cm, a gainst the usual 2 or so), an assortment of Malaysian, Mexican and Japanese chips (so hard to be patriotic...), and one large socketed chip with a Scitec sticker over the usual cryptic IDs. There's also a spare 14 pin socket - presumably a generic motherboard for various models; the fact that almost all spaces but this are filled shows that the Olympic is pretty near the top of this slightly elderly line - there are lots of conditioning blocks scattered about to allow other configurations to be indicated.  Conclusion Overall, the impression is of solidity and reliability; I've owned the modem for a few months now, and it's been hiccup-free (which is just as well, since mine was ex-warranty about an eighth of a second after I handed the money over). There's nothing exciting or revolutionary about the design; it just works. Highly recommended.  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