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On Mon, 17 Nov 1997, Bryan Daum wrote: > While we are discussing modem volume issues, could someone explain to me why > we hear the modem noises at all? > > It seems to me that if notification of transmission is the only issue than > it could as easily play a tune to tell you that it is working. I will > confess that having listened to the obnoxious noises enough I can tell when > "it doesn't sound right" but it is hardly a precise skill and really tells > me little. > > Realizing that this is not a TP specific issue... About a year ago, someone wrote a trojan for AOL. I don't recall what it was supposed to do, but what it really did was hang up the modem and reconnect to AOL using some ISP in the former Soviet Union (or some remote country) and sky-high rates like $100/hour. Those who had turned off the sound on their modem got a nasty surprise on their monthly phone bill. I'll grant you, a tune every time your modem connected would have prevented this as well. My guess is it's all a holdover from the 120 bps and 300 bps days, when a $400 modem was cheap, and having it play a tune would've been an expensive frill. They still needed a way for people to tell if the modem was actually working, so they came up with the idea of piping the line signal to a speaker. I kinda like the sounds. I can tell if I've connected at 9600, 14.4, or 28.8 even if the silly software (Win95) insists on not showing me the modem connect messages. -- John H. Kim kim@mak.com