From: kanefsky@src.honeywell.com (Steve Kanefsky)
Subject: Re: Dynalink or Solectek for 95LX?
Organization: Honeywell Systems & Research Center
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 15:29:25 GMT

In article <1992Jul25.171853.7660@sctc.com> boebert@sctc.com (Earl Boebert) writes:
>Well, I went looking at the HP95LXs today; target application is
>reading mail and news while on the road.  The salesdroid was what
>you would expect, so naturally I have a few questions:
>
>1: I gather that the cable sequence is HP <-> DB9 through the adapter
>cable, then DB9 <-> RS232 through the cable from the connectivity pack.
>Is this right?

The connectivity pack comes with a serial cable and one adaptor.  The
serial cable has the 4-pin HP connector on one end and a female DB-9 on
the other end.  The cable is wired with a "null modem" built in, meaning
that the transmit and receive pins on one end are swapped with respect to
the other end, so that you can connect one computer to another directly.
The female DB-9 fits the serial port on most PC compatibles.  The adaptor
is a simple DB-9 male to DB-25 female adaptor, which should fit any PC
compatibles which don't have a 9-pin serial port.  Note that neither the
cable by itself nor the cable with the adaptor will work with a modem.
There is a separate serial adaptor kit which contains two other DB-9 to
DB-25 adaptors.  Both end in male DB-25's, but one of them swaps transmit
and receive pins and the other doesn't.  The one which does swap the pins
(cancelling out the swap that the cable itself does) will work with a
modem, and the other one will work with printers and computers with a
female DB-25 serial port.  So, if you buy the connectivity pack and the
serial adaptor kit, you'll have a serial cable and three adaptors that fit
just about anything.  The neat thing is that each of the adaptors has a
little icon molded into it (computer, telephone, printer) which lets you
easily distinguish one from another.  One other neat thing is that,
although you can get equivalent adaptors elsewhere, these adaptors are
more compact and the thumbscrews on the serial cable attach the cable
securely to the adaptor.  Most other adaptors I've seen don't mate
properly with the HP cable (i.e. the connectors fit together but the
thumbscrews can't be used to secure the connection).


>2: The store carried two pocket modems: the Dynalink DS92P and Solectek.
>Anybody every use one of these with an HP95?

I haven't used either of these two modems, but let me put in a plug for
the Telebit QBlazer.  I just received one about a week ago, and it's a
fantastic little modem (I'll post a full review of it soon).  This is a
9600 baud modem with V.42, V.42bis, and MNP 2-5.  The modem is cube
shaped, with the actual dimensions being 2.3" x 2.4" x 2.4" and is priced
at only $299 (the original list price was $749, which dropped to $599, and
the best discount price was around $435 until Telebit announced their big
promotion just a few weeks ago).  The QBlazer even has the same black
color as the 95LX and is a perfect match for it.  It runs on AC power or
on a 9V battery and has absolutely no trouble running on battery power
with the 95LX.  It uses a mini 9-pin DIN connector instead of a DB-25,
which is both a curse and a blessing.  If you're not afraid to take two
cables, cut the ends off, and wire up a custom cable you can make a
beautiful cable of exactly the length you want between the 95LX and the
QBlazer, with no bulky connectors to get in the way.  On the other hand,
if you must use off the shelf components, you'll end up with a rather
bulky cable.  The QBlazer comes with a DIN-9 to DB-9 cable, but you'll
need a gender changer *and* a null modem to join that to the HP connector.
You could buy 9-pin adaptors to accomplish this at Radio Shack, or you
could use the HP adaptors which would require stepping up from 9 to 25 and
then back down to 9.  In either case, your cable would end up being
bulkier than your modem!


>3: Is the built in com function a terminal emulator or will I have to
>run something like Procomm as an application?  If so, do I have to
>spring for a data card?

The built-in comm program has VT100 and ANSI terminal emulation
capabilities, and XModem and Kermit transfer protocols built-in, so you
don't need to use Procomm.  I've had a terrible time getting any decent
transfer rates with the built-in comm program, so I've switched to a
*much* better shareware comm program called "Commo."  There is a version
of commo written especially for the 95LX, and it is far superior to the
built-in comm program in every way, especially the scripting language and
file-transfer capabilities.  It's also very compact (the executable is
only 31K on my disk when PKLITE-ed).  The scripting capabilities of Commo
are so wonderful that there are a number of other shareware programs that
use Commo to do automated message handling on CompuServe, etc. without you
even knowing how to use Commo.  I use one of these, called "Message" to
download the hundreds of messages in the 95LX newsgroups from CompuServe
each day in just a minute or two of connect time.


>4: Is $579 for a 1 meg 95 a high/low/medium price?

That's about the lowest price I've seen for it.

Hope this helps,

--
Steve Kanefsky