Modem With Hitch

Newcastle Herald

Monday August 17, 1998

By ROD QUINN

MIKE Boorne Electronics has announced a V.90-compatible 56K modem for under $100.

The Spirit Ranger is an internal PC card modem with a difference.

Instead of having two on-board chips, one to encode and decode information and the other to communicate with the PC, the Ranger has only one.

The new modem hitches a ride on the PC's own central processing unit.

It uses spare processing time to power and control the modem so users don't have to pay for an extra chip on the modem card.

The Spirit Ranger uses Rockwell Kflex 56K technology and can also function as a speakerphone and fax.

Software that comes with the card enables the computer to be configured as an answering machine.

The new modem comes in a ready-to-run configuration.

For best performance it needs at least a Pentium 120 or equivalent processor.

The Spirit Ranger sells for $99. For more information, telephone (02) 9906-6666. * IF you've been thinking of investing in a digital versatile disk (DVD-ROM) drive, it could pay to hold off.

At least until around October, anyway, because that's when Creative Pacific expects to have its new DVD-RAM drive on the shelves.

DVD-ROM is a read-only medium similar to a compact disk. The difference is that a DVD disk can carry more than 16Gb compared to a measly 600Mb on a CD.

DVD-RAM goes a step better than its read-only sidekick because it is recordable, allowing 2.6Gb to be written to each side of the disk.

The new format is expected to provide some serious competition for other archiving formats such as Jaz and Zip drives.

A Creative spokesman said this week that first-generation DVD-RAM drives were recorders only, and couldn't handle DVD movie playback, which was a big attraction for consumers.

The second-generation drive, due on the market before Christmas, would be able to do both. It should cost about $1000.