From: davidg@aegis.or.jp (Dave McLane)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems
Subject: Re: Digicom Scout modem
Date: 28 Dec 92 23:54:38 GMT

markp@cranham.cc.earlham.edu (Mark Pearson) writes:

>I have noticed a couple of posts about the Digicom Scout Plus.
>How do people rate it? I am looking to standardise our college on a
>new modem with all the V & MNP trimmings and fax and it looks good. 

The Scout+ is approved for use in Japan and further Digicom guarantees
the modem for 5 years. Not just for the registered owner but the modem
itself. When it's first sold the date is registered at Digicom so there
is no registration card to send in. This may not apply to your case,
but it sure beats the policies of other manufacturers who only guarantee
equipment to the registered owner, and only in specific countries.

I got about 10 and sold them at cost + minimal markup to friends and
neighbors and they have worked well. Not without some problems:

Won't connect through a switchboard. There were two cases like this
  and both were due to the time to CONNECT (S7) being set to too short
  a time to account for going through and old (rotary style) switchboard.

Slow throughput. In one case this was due to many blocks being
  resent (MR light blinks). In another case it was because the port
  didn't support the speed the speed it was being run at (z-modem 
  reports many CRC errors). Also, from what people have said,
  Windows 3.1 doesn't fully support 38,400 BPS.

Rolls over and plays dead with NEC PC-9801s (widely used in Japan).
  This has something to do with the 9801s COM ports which won't let
  you send/receive if CTS line is low. Thus if you sent AT&R1 
  (makes CTS follow DCD and there is no DCD until the modem CONNECTs)
  the NEC won't access the modem. There are no problems with an IBM-
  compatible's.

Fax won't connect to some faxes. No fix for this.

Fax receives files of binary zeros. According to Wolfgang Henke this
  is due to too many errors in transmission. He says Digicom and Delrina
  (makes the bundled fax software) are working on it.

Compared to the problems people in Japan are having with other 
14,400 BPS modems, these are minimal and most of them have to do
with the setup/PC/software, not the modem itself.

>What software comes with it?

Qmodem, Delrina's DOSfax & Winfax.

>Why is it that only the internal version has the 16550AFN chip?

External modems don't have UARTS. If your machine's UART(s) doesn't
support at least 38,400 BPS you will have to change it. This isn't
just for the Scout+ but for any modem that has to link to the
PC at that kind of speed to get the full benefit of the modem-modem
speed plus compression.

>I much prefer external modems on PCs - you can see the lights and
> usre the COM port for something else. 

Me too. Being able to see the lights help solve many problems
(as above, if you can't see an MR light how to you know if blocks
are being resent?).

Also, I can move the modem to something else and or play
"odd-man-out" with modems and PCs (switching them around to see
which is related to the problem). 

Dave

--
Dave McLane 
JUNET: davidg@aegis.or.jp (ONLY within Japan: post otherwise)
Nagaokakyoshi, Kyoto Japan Tel: +81-75-951-1168 Fax: +81-75-957-1087
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