***************************************************************** This is the third in a series of tutorials that I hope will be found to be useful to both new and experienced users of communications facilities. ***************************************************************** Q: Why is it that I experience so much more line noise than the people I call? It seems that I see noise on my screen with some frequency, but if I ask the party that I have called if he sees it too, I'm usually told his screen is clean. Is there something wrong with my system? A: The odds are twice as great that you will have line noise if you place a call to a computer than if a computer were to call you. It is normal and easily explainable. While it is true that the odds are twice as great that you will experience or know about noise in the case where you have initiated the call, the incidence of noise is the same regardless of who places that call (assuming the same lines and circuits are being used in both cases). The reason for this is that when you are in Terminal mode (placing the call), your system is set to full-duplex operation and when it is in Host mode (auto answer), it is in half duplex. Full duplex means that whatever you type on your keyboard does not get sent to your screen. It is sent, instead, to the communications port and from there it travels through your modem, along the telephone lines to an answering modem, and then to a host sytem. The host system then sends it back to you. In half duplex, on the other hand, whatever you type is sent to both your communications port and to your screen. From this it is obvious that every character seen on your screen when you have placed a call has gone through the telephone system while only half of what is seen on the host system's screen has been on the telephone circuit before it got there. Further, line noise can be unidirectional. That is, it may appear as data travels in only one direction or the other. Regardless of that fact, it will be seen by the terminal mode user (data must go both ways before it reaches the screen) and if it appears only on the link from the host to the terminal user it will never be seen by the host. Q: The last tutorial you wrote told us about MNP and ARQ modems being able to eliminate most line noise. How do they do that? A: Part of that answer is still a mystery to me, but I know how it does it in theory at least. I will tell you why part of the answer remains a mystery in a moment. First, recall the discussion we had about file transfer protocols. All of them utilize some form of CRC mechanism to insure that the receiving system had received all of the contents of a packet of information without having dropped any bits or picked up any extra bits. The CRC is a byte or a word of data that is the result of an algoritm that 'folds' every byte in the data packet onto itself in such a way as to result in a pattern of bits that can be calculated by the receiving system as each byte of data is received and then compared with the CRC that is subsequently received. If there is a mismatch then the data (or CRC byte) did not get received correctly. The MNP and ARQ modems implement this strategy within themselves. All data that is transmitted from one of these modems is re-packaged into what the modem manufacturers call 'frames' (packets) before being transmitted. Each frame is followed by a CRC byte or word that is stripped off by the receiving modem and used to determine if the frame was received correctly. Line noise simply makes that CRC check fail and the result is an automatic retransmission of the frame. As you can see from the above, the modem is now acting just like your computer does during file transmissions using a protocol transfer method. This is not done for 'free'. The overhead of doing so results in less than rated speeds in every case. That is, the theoretical maximum data rate of a 1200 baud modem is 120 characters per second, but MNP and ARQ modems are sending more characters between themselves than the sending system itself. If there are errors and, thus, an automatic retransmission of a frame, the sending modem is very likely to have to ask the sending computer to wait for it. It is estimated that this overhead (even without errors) results in a degradation of about 12% in terms of the maximum possible performance of the modem yielding about 106 characters per second possible throughput. To counter that built in degradation, the modems strip the start and stop bits from each byte and send only 8 bits rather than the 10 (or eleven) that are sent by non-error-correcting modems. This increases the efficiency by about 20%. The net effect is that, assuming no errors, the possibility of about 108% of rated performance. (It is possible to get about 130 characters per second rather than 120 if there are no errors - this also fails to account for additional 'compression' methods built into some of these modems). So, where is the confusion? Well, the above assumes there is a stream of data being sent that can be 'framed'. How the modems function when a user is merely typing one or two characters or words at a time before the other side responds is a mystery. Indeed, as each character is typed it is sent down-line. Presumably there is a timeout of some kind in the modem that says that if another character is not entered within x milliseconds it is presumed that the frame is complete and it is sent along with its CRC. However it does it in practice, it does seem to be effective at eliminating line noise. Q: So MNP and ARQ modems are faster and eliminate line noise. Sounds like the way to go. Are there any negatives to their usage? A: Interesting question. Assuming that you use protocol transfer methods in addition to the error detection and correction logic of the modems themselves, I can only think of a couple of negatives at the moment. The first, of course, is the lack of standards, particularly at the higher baud rates. Second is the fact that every time you use one to call a system that does not use MNP or ARQ (the vast majority of them do not) then you automatically lose part of their opening screens. Let me explain that. When an MNP or ARQ modem first connects with another modem the calling modem issues a sequence of bytes that is asking the answering modem if it is also MNP or ARQ. These bytes include an id and an indication of the level of MNP, for example, that the caller is using. The first set of characters that come back from the called modem are then consumed by the modem rather than passed through to the user's screen. Thus, they are lost to your system. Very often it is necessary for the calling system user to press his Enter key in order to cause subsequent characters to be passed through the modem (telling it in effect, to turn off MNP or ARQ). This is an annoyance to the terminal mode user but it can be worse for the host system. With the introduction of release 12.20 of GT PowerComm there has been some controversy as to the existence of the opening prompt that it issues in which it asks if the caller wants to use ANSI graphics or not. Many users seem mildly annoyed that their selection is not recorded somewhere so they don't have to answer that prompt more than once. What they fail to understand is that the prompt is there for several reasons. MNP is a good example of what I mean as is the possibility of noise on the line. When an MNP call comes in, those initial characters I just mentioned 'hit' the prompt and result in reissuance of it. We do not permit a default to that prompt so that we do not go past it with noise or MNP. By the time a Y or N is entered, the MNP sequence of handshake signalling is done. If we did not have that initial prompt then the first question the user would be asked would be his first name. Ask any Sysop how many garbage names he has in his user base. If there are any then I can reasonably assure you that his system does not have a leading prompt such as ours to protect him from noisy incoming calls (or MNP). Q: Is 9600 baud the theoretical limit to technology in terms of modems? A: Hardly. It appears that 9600 'baud' stretches the reliability limits of today's unconditioned telephone system, but modems exist that are much, much faster than that already. 19,200 bits per second modems are functional on conditioned lines even now. As to limits, well, did you know that satellite communications capabilities exist that already permit the transfer of over a million bits per second? Over the past 20 years there has been a rather constant rate of improvemnt in all aspects of data processing technology. As a rule of thumb that is pretty close consider this: Every four years there has been a three fold improvement in performance/capacity for only a two fold increase in price. Sometimes we forget how long this trend has been in effect, but an IBM advertisement a few years back made it pretty clear. At that time the ad suggested that if the automobile industry had enjoyed the same rate of improvements over the past 20 years that the data processing industry has enjoyed, then every adult in this country could afford to own a Rolls Royce, as it would cost only about $20 and, incidently, it would get about 2,000,000 miles to the gallon of gasoline. For a more contemporary example, we need only look back at the original IBM PC. That machine had 320K disk drives and a clock speed of 4.77 micro seconds. Today you can buy a Compaq 386 that is 17 times faster than the original PC (throughput) and you can get it off the shelf with 130 megabyte hard disk. The price of this newer machine is less than three times the original PC, closer to twice the price. No, we are not at the limit of technology, not by a long shot. X-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-X Another file downloaded from: NIRVANAnet(tm) & the Temple of the Screaming Electron Jeff Hunter 510-935-5845 Rat Head Ratsnatcher 510-524-3649 Burn This Flag Zardoz 408-363-9766 realitycheck Poindexter Fortran 415-567-7043 Lies Unlimited Mick Freen 415-583-4102 Specializing in conversations, obscure information, high explosives, arcane knowledge, political extremism, diversive sexuality, insane speculation, and wild rumours. ALL-TEXT BBS SYSTEMS. Full access for first-time callers. We don't want to know who you are, where you live, or what your phone number is. We are not Big Brother. "Raw Data for Raw Nerves" X-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-X