On Wed, 2002-04-17 at 16:46, rsouto@juno.com wrote:
> Hello Ian:
>
> Thanks for your comments and the highly technical information that you have provided to the group.
>
> Your comment of the modem is almost dead rang a loud bell with me. Here is why:
>
> I work for a company that makes traffic counting, classifying, weight in motion, traffic controllers (plus another ton of garbage for the traffic industry) and they all are used at Federal, State, County, Cities and Police departments to name a few.
> The entities HAVE TO talk to each station, monitor, download data etc. Guess what they all use and request from our software:
>
> Windblows, modems and the ability to communicate with the stations at speeds ranging from 1200 to 9600 bauds at will or with autopolls.
> Does not sound high techie does it?
>
> And as far as I know the entities have decided that they will have these specifications at least for the next ten years.
>
> The end of the modem for other people must likely YES.
> The end of the modem for us mere mortals (people working with the Federal entities) I don't think so.
>
> My humble opinion of course.
Legacy can be a pain. If someone "standardizes" on a tech, and that tech
becomes unmanageable over time, eventually the tech is replaced. I'll
never argue that the "modem is dead". Just like I'll never argue that
the "mainframe is dead" (you can't kill it: too much Legacy, too few
humans to migrate everything built upon it).
If there's more important that I've learned over the years, it's that
Legacy does not die. It outlives the humans that built it in the first
place.
The best we can do is built backware compatibilities into new systems
and urge migration. There is no such thing as they One True Ideal
Solution. Ever.
It doesn't mean I can't dream, however ;)
> Please, I would like to ask you for a favor:
> Some of the stuff you detailed went right over my head, if you have the time would you be so kind to write it on a lower level so maybe I and some other people can grasp the technical side of it.
Sure. Are you talking about some of the VoIP (Voice over IP) stuff?
That's just fun to talk about. :)
How about a quick few pointed questions, and I'll gauge my response from
that. The SLUG list is a varied audience - it's a lot of work to address
things for everyone... that's why we have "How Stuff Works"
(http://www.howstuffworks.com) with neat sections where everyone can
pick up the basic background information on things like VoIP
(http://www.howstuffworks.com/ip-telephony.htm). Even basic
explainations like this need some explaination (there is some tech talk
in there).
Questions beget answers. I like questions, particularly ones I don't
know the answer to - they challenge me to find new stuff out.
- Ian C. Blenke <icblenke@nks.net> <ian@blenke.com>
http://ian.blenke.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Fri Aug 01 2014 - 20:16:27 EDT