AFAIK soft- or win-modems were always PCI or AMR. I never saw an ISA one as a system builder, anyway. I stand to be corrected.

Edit: Forgot about MWAVE cards!

There *were* very early IBM HSC modems that were ISA. They used the isa plug and play bios extensions to get configured, and were basically just a crappy soundcard.

See for instance, here, with this 'it's obviously lucent' and being 8bit isa.

Note the complete lack of config jumpers.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/196110573144?hash=it … egAAOSwsHpk7hkl

A proper vintage modem reports itself as a serial port, and has config jumpers for IRQ and base address. All the HSC winmodem trash lacks such hardware.

Being ISA is not a guarantee of being 'a real hardware modem'

wierd_w wrote on 2024-01-18, 04:32:

There *were* very early IBM HSC modems that were ISA. They used the isa plug and play bios extensions to get configured, and we […]
Show full quote

There *were* very early IBM HSC modems that were ISA. They used the isa plug and play bios extensions to get configured, and were basically just a crappy soundcard.

See for instance, here, with this 'it's obviously lucent' and being 8bit isa.

Note the complete lack of config jumpers.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/196110573144?hash=it … egAAOSwsHpk7hkl

A proper vintage modem reports itself as a serial port, and has config jumpers for IRQ and base address. All the HSC winmodem trash lacks such hardware.

Being ISA is not a guarantee of being 'a real hardware modem'

I was afraid of that...

Well, if I can't find a 56k Dos/Win 3.x friendly ISA modem, I can always use this U.S. Robotics external modem and just have to deal with it. I'll keep looking, though.

The vast majority of ISA modems will be hardware UART (actual serial ports) based, and not crap winmodem HSC garbage.

The IBM ones stand out prominently in my memory, as the mom&pop I worked for BITD got a shipment of them in 'real cheap', and they staunchly refused to work 'reliably' in anything but pentium mmx systems of 133mhz or faster.

Putting one in a 486 was a paIn I would not wish upon anyone.

Quality vintage hardware will have jumpers, and wont have that plastic shroud on it. Those will work with anything, as they report themselves as just dumb serial ports.

As long as the PC supports "fast" 16550 UART I would have thought external is more desirable? flashy lights are sexy 😀

Out of interest what are you using the modems for? just the BBS's or some project?

Of course! I totally forgot about the infamous MWAVE cards.

wierd_w wrote on 2024-01-18, 04:32:

There *were* very early IBM HSC modems that were ISA. They used the isa plug and play bios extensions to get configured, and we […]
Show full quote

There *were* very early IBM HSC modems that were ISA. They used the isa plug and play bios extensions to get configured, and were basically just a crappy soundcard.

See for instance, here, with this 'it's obviously lucent' and being 8bit isa.

Note the complete lack of config jumpers.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/196110573144?hash=it … egAAOSwsHpk7hkl

A proper vintage modem reports itself as a serial port, and has config jumpers for IRQ and base address. All the HSC winmodem trash lacks such hardware.

Being ISA is not a guarantee of being 'a real hardware modem'

kingcake wrote on 2024-01-18, 05:48:

Of course! I totally forgot about the infamous MWAVE cards.

wierd_w wrote on 2024-01-18, 04:32:

There *were* very early IBM HSC modems that were ISA. They used the isa plug and play bios extensions to get configured, and we […]
Show full quote

There *were* very early IBM HSC modems that were ISA. They used the isa plug and play bios extensions to get configured, and were basically just a crappy soundcard.

See for instance, here, with this 'it's obviously lucent' and being 8bit isa.

Note the complete lack of config jumpers.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/196110573144?hash=it … egAAOSwsHpk7hkl

A proper vintage modem reports itself as a serial port, and has config jumpers for IRQ and base address. All the HSC winmodem trash lacks such hardware.

Being ISA is not a guarantee of being 'a real hardware modem'

The *really infamous* ones, imo, were the early PCI Genica cards. Came in a generic chinesium paper box, and failed 3/4 of the time in spectacular ways that were inconsistent, and obscure.

We started calling them "Junkica" modems at same said mom&pop.

The IBM HSC crap, at least, DID work 'acceptably' in highend (for the time) pentium systems. (Even if they did make the system lurch to a crawl the instant dialling happened...)

The Genica PCI ones just did squirrely shit in everything.

I was very careful back then, to always insist on USR or Rockwell chipset modems, with hardware UARTs. Customers, however, could not fathom paying 20$ more for a 'real' modem.

wierd_w wrote on 2024-01-18, 06:51:

The IBM HSC crap, at least, DID work 'acceptably' in highend (for the time) pentium systems. (Even if they did make the system lurch to a crawl the instant dialling happened...)

They needed the processing power because the "modem" was just an ADC and the signal processing/decoding had to be done in software. They tended to work better if you limited the maximum connection speed with AT commands before connecting, but then of course you weren't using all the possible bandwidth.

Yup. 'Really just a crappy soundcard' is accurate.

The point being made was that the 'only' downside to using one of them in your high end rig, was that all the oomph of your high end rig was blown 'just staying connected'.

As opposed to the Genica pci ones, that caused mystery lockups, bluescreens, only 'certain' programs to force-close, with 'now DIFFERENT programs lock up!' Happening when you changed it out... etc.. with no apparent rhyme or reason for any specific cluster of symptoms, other than "is Junkica installed? : YES"

chinny22 wrote on 2024-01-18, 05:44:

As long as the PC supports "fast" 16550 UART I would have thought external is more desirable? flashy lights are sexy 😀

Out of interest what are you using the modems for? just the BBS's or some project?

I do want to visit some BBSs and have considered starting my own. I think that it would be cool to do so! I remember chatting with multiple people on a bbs back before we had the internet and social media. I think it would be a nostalgic and cool alternative to today's internet. I used to talk with people via mIRC and I read that many people still communicate that way. I also want to play around with old school multiplayer games. I used to play Doom, Wing Commander Armada, and some other games via modem. Later on, I bought a serial cable and a null modem adapter and friends would bring their PCs to my house and we would play Warcraft, Blood, and Duke Nukem. Many people in my area have cable phone. I used our cable phone line to call a bbs, so now I want to experiment with old school dial-up gaming, hehehe. I also want a modem in my 486 which works in DOS and Windows 3.x, for "completeness," especially if I can find a Diamond Multimedia ISA modem which works under those environments.

Because of my motorcycle accident a few years ago, I have a lot of time on my hands and often tinker with my retro machines to reminisce and to pass the time. It is why I make so many posts on Vogons, asking questions and what not, and do all of these anachronistic projects (such as my plan to make midi game and "professional" music with these old systems. I also plan to write, using old word processors on the 486 and on one of the Pentium 3s. My office/library is like a museum and 80s-90s sanctum, save for my modern TV which I use as a monitor with my modern main system. I have a lot of little projects in the pipeline, such as creating a local line just for the retro machines with an ftp server to more easily transfer files.

This old Gateway 2000 modem has "1994" printed on the pcb, and a sticker from 1/25/95, and it has jumpers instead of dipswitches. It should work, but definitely not a 56k. I'll research it later on and try to post a pic of it. It is probably a 28.8k modem.

Holy grail of ISA modems is U.S.Robotics.

Cyberdyne wrote on 2024-01-18, 13:36:

Holy grail of ISA modems is U.S.Robotics.

I came across a pdf manual of some form of 56k U.S. Robotics modem, and it mentions Windows 3.x support, so I think I need to hunt down that particular modem and give up on the Diamond brand name, hehe. If it works under Win 3.x which runs on top of DOS, I am hoping it will work in DOS, as well.

jmarsh wrote on 2024-01-18, 09:16:

wierd_w wrote on 2024-01-18, 06:51:

The IBM HSC crap, at least, DID work 'acceptably' in highend (for the time) pentium systems. (Even if they did make the system lurch to a crawl the instant dialling happened...)

They needed the processing power because the "modem" was just an ADC and the signal processing/decoding had to be done in software. They tended to work better if you limited the maximum connection speed with AT commands before connecting, but then of course you weren't using all the possible bandwidth.

The sound and modem section shared a codec. If you used sound at the same time the modem was limited to 14.4 due to bandwidth limitations. AMR modems worked in a similar fashion, they basically used an AC97 codec with the CPU doing the rest of the work.

kingcake wrote on 2024-01-18, 18:00:

jmarsh wrote on 2024-01-18, 09:16:

wierd_w wrote on 2024-01-18, 06:51:

The IBM HSC crap, at least, DID work 'acceptably' in highend (for the time) pentium systems. (Even if they did make the system lurch to a crawl the instant dialling happened...)

They needed the processing power because the "modem" was just an ADC and the signal processing/decoding had to be done in software. They tended to work better if you limited the maximum connection speed with AT commands before connecting, but then of course you weren't using all the possible bandwidth.

The sound and modem section shared a codec. If you used sound at the same time the modem was limited to 14.4 due to bandwidth limitations. AMR modems worked in a similar fashion, they basically used an AC97 codec with the CPU doing the rest of the work.

That makes sense. I have seen many soundcard-modem hybrids, but unlike many other components, I never felt the urge to buy one to experiment with. Certain hybrid cards seem weird to me, with the exception of cards with both ide and floppy controllers (I had to buy one once, because my floppy controller on my Pentium 90 stopped working.) It just seems to make sense to me to have most cards do their own things on their own slots. My Pentium 3 700 has an AGP Voodoo5, a Sound Blaster Live!, a win modem, a NIC, and still has two empty PCI slots (I am considering throwing my Voodoo2 in there since it is otherwise not being used.)

Scythifuge wrote on 2024-01-18, 18:22:

kingcake wrote on 2024-01-18, 18:00:

jmarsh wrote on 2024-01-18, 09:16:

They needed the processing power because the "modem" was just an ADC and the signal processing/decoding had to be done in software. They tended to work better if you limited the maximum connection speed with AT commands before connecting, but then of course you weren't using all the possible bandwidth.

The sound and modem section shared a codec. If you used sound at the same time the modem was limited to 14.4 due to bandwidth limitations. AMR modems worked in a similar fashion, they basically used an AC97 codec with the CPU doing the rest of the work.

That makes sense. I have seen many soundcard-modem hybrids, but unlike many other components, I never felt the urge to buy one to experiment with. Certain hybrid cards seem weird to me, with the exception of cards with both ide and floppy controllers (I had to buy one once, because my floppy controller on my Pentium 90 stopped working.) It just seems to make sense to me to have most cards do their own things on their own slots. My Pentium 3 700 has an AGP Voodoo5, a Sound Blaster Live!, a win modem, a NIC, and still has two empty PCI slots (I am considering throwing my Voodoo2 in there since it is otherwise not being used.)

There are some ISA Sound/Modem combos that I would consider decent. Aztech made some for Packard Bell that had Rockwell chipset hardware modems on the same card as a Crystal sound chipset + real Yamaha OPL3 chip.

kingcake wrote on 2024-01-18, 23:28:

Scythifuge wrote on 2024-01-18, 18:22:

kingcake wrote on 2024-01-18, 18:00:

The sound and modem section shared a codec. If you used sound at the same time the modem was limited to 14.4 due to bandwidth limitations. AMR modems worked in a similar fashion, they basically used an AC97 codec with the CPU doing the rest of the work.

That makes sense. I have seen many soundcard-modem hybrids, but unlike many other components, I never felt the urge to buy one to experiment with. Certain hybrid cards seem weird to me, with the exception of cards with both ide and floppy controllers (I had to buy one once, because my floppy controller on my Pentium 90 stopped working.) It just seems to make sense to me to have most cards do their own things on their own slots. My Pentium 3 700 has an AGP Voodoo5, a Sound Blaster Live!, a win modem, a NIC, and still has two empty PCI slots (I am considering throwing my Voodoo2 in there since it is otherwise not being used.)

There are some ISA Sound/Modem combos that I would consider decent. Aztech made some for Packard Bell that had Rockwell chipset hardware modems on the same card as a Crystal sound chipset + real Yamaha OPL3 chip.

I just recently acquired an OPTi sound card with a crystal chip and a Yamaha OPL3 because it is similar to the very first soundcard I ever had, back when I got my 486SX/33 with a Reveal Multimedia Upgrade kit. It is one of the Diamond branded cards in the 486 I put together and am seeking a modem for, hehehe..

Though it isn't a Diamond product, this U.S. Robotics modem looks like a viable solution. It has jumpers on the board, and the system requirements lack any mention of a required OS:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/204158294331?_trkpar … 7&ul_noapp=true

Yes. That looks like a good hardware modem.

V.90 bis AND x2

There were 3 standards for 56k modem, and v.90 was the best one. KFlex was the 3rd one, and was rather maligned.

But if you really want a diamond multimedia card... this is also a jumpered modem...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/254461904732?hash=it … ABk9SR6iGzpykYw

Warning that it is connexant chipset though! It could be a winmodem in disguise.

The USR modem is almost certainly better.