2 Understanding the Genesis Preferences

2.4 Modem/TA

This section allows you to setup your modem or ISDN terminal adaptor (TA) in order to connect yourself to the Internet. You can create one or more modems. For instance you might want to setup a modem per interface, this is possible.

To create a new modem simply press 'new' and a further window will appear.

2.41 Modem/TA

• Type:  - choose your modem from a list of available modems. If your modem isn't listed you should be able to choose "Generic" and use this no problems.

• Comment: - allows you to create a comment, so you can make a specific note about a modem setup.

• Redial Attempts  - the number of redial attempts Genesis will perform when dialing your provider. If the line is busy, Genesis will keep on retrying for the amount of times specified within this box.

• Redial Delay  - the delay (in seconds) between each redial attempt. If Genesis can't connect to your provider, if will keep redialing and the pause in between the dial attempts would be specified here.

  You'll see the delay (in seconds) within the Genesis dial window when Genesis is waiting to redial a number. For example "...3 secs to go".

2.42 Device

• Device:  - the device used to allow your computer to talk to your modem. The standard device for the Amiga serial port is the "serial.device". However, serial cards and ISDN terminal adaptors will use their own custom device.

  Note: the internal Amiga "serial.device" is quite buggy, especially when using with an 060 or PPC board in your computer. You could use a replacement device such as the "8n1.device" or "artser.device", both can be used with the internal Amiga serial port.

  Obviously the best solution would be some kind of replacement serial port: this could be a Hypercom card, Whippet/Surf Squirrel or other buffered port. The BoXeR motherboard, for example, contains a built in serial buffer, which means that there should be no need for a serial card in a BoXeR (or similar) based Amiga.

  We also suggest you limit the numbers of colours you use on your screen (and hacks used on your system) when using the normal serial.device and/or Amiga serial port. If you use more than 64 colours you might find you either can't connect or have modem problems once connected.

• Unit:  - the unit (port) number which you are connected to. Most users will leave this as "unit: 0", as default. However, some serial cards come with more than one serial port on one card. Therefore you could enter "unit: 1", "unit: 2", depending which port you are using.

• Baud Rate:  - this is the baud rate that your computer talks to your modem, depending on the speed of the port it is connected to.

  If you are using the normal serial port the maximum baud rate you can achieve is normally 57600, although some people can manage 115,200 baud.

  We recommend the following speeds depending on the type of modem:

  Modem	Recommended Maximum Baud Rate
  14400	19200
  28800	38400
  33600	57600
  56000	115200
  112000	115200

  
  Please note that many serial cards can reach speeds of upto 460,800 baud, but your modem will not be able to go higher than 115,200, unless it is an ISDN terminal adaptor.

• Buffer Size: The size of the input buffer of the serial device itself (in bytes). Increasing this can help to overcome data loss on slower Amigas. The buffer is used to store incoming characters until the application (in this case Genesis) reads them in from the device.

  Default is 16384 bytes or 16K (it is fairly high already, a size above 50000 won't make much sense).

• Flow control: - you can choose between hardware handshaking RTS/CTS, which is the most common and the fastest and most reliable option, or software handshaking XON/XOFF, or even none at all.

• Highspeed Mode: Enabling Highspeed mode will eliminate unneeded overhead of the serial device. Specifically, this skips checks for parity, x-OFF handling, character lengths other than 8 bits, and testing for a break signal. Setting highspeed mode will also disable Xon/Xoff handling.

  For best results, set the highspeed mode whenever possible.

• Ignore DSR:  - DataSetReady. Genesis will check if the data set (modem) is ready after the device has been opened (and the DTR, data terminal ready, is set). If DSR is not present, Genesis will complain. However, some modems don't support this and if this flag is checked, then Genesis won't complain. should not be checked by default.

• Use OwnDevUnit: enables you to "share" the device you are using. Say you have two programs using the serial.device: STFax and Genesis. STFax is running all the time whilst you are running a LAN with Genesis and occassionally dialing your provider to download your email. You could set STFax and Genesis to "shared" mode so that if an incoming call comes in, STFax will answer this and grab the unused serial.device from Genesis. When you want to dial the net, Genesis will grab the unused serial.device from STFax.

  The only problem is that when one program is using the device, the other can't.

• Drop DTR: - only use the DTR signal to hangup.

2.43 Commands

• Init String:  - enter the initialisation string for your modem in this box. If you selected a modem from the list of modems, the init string would have been entered automatically.

  Some useful strings that may be used:

  Command	Function
  &C0	Force RLSD active regardless of the carrier state.
  &C1	Allow RLSD to follow the carrier state.
  %C0	Disable data compression.
  %C1	Enable MNP 5 data compression.
  %C2	Enable V.42 bis data compression.
  %C3	Enable both V.42 bis and MNP 5 compression.
  &D0	Interpret DTR ON-to-OFF transition per &Qn: &Q0, &Q5, &Q6 The modem ignores DTR.
  &D1	Interpret DTR ON-to-OFF transition per &Qn: &Q0, &Q5, &Q6 Asynchronous escape.
  &D2	Interpret DTR ON-to-OFF transition per &Qn:&Q0, &Q5, Q6 The modem hangs up.
  &D3	Interpret DTR ON-to-OFF transition per &Qn:. &Q0, &Q5, &Q6 The modem performs soft reset.
  E0	Turn off command echo.
  E1	Turn on command echo.
  %E0	Disable line quality monitor and auto retrain.
  %E1	Enable line quality monitor and auto retrain.
  %E2	Enable line quality monitor and fallback/fall forward.
  F0	Select auto-detect mode (equivalent to N1).
  &K0	Disable DTE/DCE flow control.
  &K3	Enable RTS/CTS DTE/DCE flow control.
  &K4	Enable XON/XOFF DTE/DCE flow control.
  &K5	Enable transparent XON/XOFF flow control.
  &K6	Enable both RTS/CTS and XON/XOFF flow control.
  L0	Set low speaker volume.
  L1	Set low speaker volume.
  L2	Set medium speaker volume.
  L3	Set high speaker volume.
  M0	Turn speaker off.
  M1	Turn speaker on during handshaking and turn speaker off while receiving carrier.
  M2	Turn speaker on during handshaking and while receiving carrier.
  M3	Turn speaker off during dialing and receiving carrier and turn speaker on during answering.
  W0	Report actual baud rate connection (ie. 57600)
  W1	Report line speed, EC protocol and DTE speed.
  W2	Report actual connection speed (ie. 48K)

  An example of a standard/simple initialisation string is "AT&F&D0W2".

• Dial Prefix  - most users will be able to use "ATDT" to initiate the dial process. In some countries, however, you may have to change this string for an alternative.

• Dial Suffix:  - if you need to dial a number of an outside line, enter the number in this box. Due to the use of an internal/private phone network (PABX), many companies need you to enter "9" before the number you are dialing in order to obtain an outside line.

• Answer: - Genesis allows local PPP connections, so you need to specify the answer command which your modem needs to answering incoming calls.

• Hangup - this is the command that is used to drop your modem when not using 'DTR hangup'.

• Command Delay: - some modems are very slow in reacting to commands sent to them. Therefore it is sometimes essential to add pauses between the commands.

2.44 Results

These are the results given by your modem under certain conditions. For instance, if there is no dialtone your modem will reply 'NO DIALTONE'.

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