On Sat, 15 May 2004 17:06:51 GMT, "Ricky Eck"
put finger to keyboard and composed:

There is also two different modems on the market.

Actually, there are three types, "soft", controllerless, and "hard"
(controller based). Softmodems have a DAA (telephone line interface),
controllerless modems have a DAA and DSP (digital signal processor),
and "hard" modems have a DAA, DSP, and controller.

Among other things, a modem's controller handles AT command parsing,
UART emulation, data compression and error correction. These functions
do not impact significantly on the host CPU. OTOH, the functions of a
DSP are highly CPU intensive, so a softmodem (which emulates the DSP
in software) may impact noticeably on CPU performance.

There is the "SoftModem" a.k.a. "WinModem".

Actually, to be pedantic, "Winmodem" is a USR trademark and refers to
their line of controllerless modems.

Examples of softmodem chipsets are PCtel HSP, Motorola SM56,
Smartlink, and Conexant HSF. Controllerless examples include Conexant
HCF, Intel HaM, Lucent Win Modem, and USR Winmodem.


- Franc Zabkar
--
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