ISP Information:
A mouse controller that, besides the usual buttons, also has a wheel device built in that is most often used to scroll up and down windows that are longer than the screen, such as long Web pages or documents.
ISP Glossary:
Wheel Mouse - In article <2c942c97.0411171107.27fe2a57@posting.google.com>,Bruce Gillis wrote:::Now, I am more confused than ever. I want the fastest 56K modem:around but I am uncertain whether to go with an internal or external:modem. Can someone knowledgeable about modems clarify this for me?You think you're confused now?? You ain't seen the half of it yet!For starters, you have to define what you mean by "fastest". Doyou want:a) maximum throughput for bulk data transfers,or b) lowest latency (a consideration for online gaming)?To a certain extent, these are contrary requirements. The blockingand data compression that speed up bulk transfers also increaselatency.If you are looking for maximum bulk data throughput, an external modemcan send and receive no faster than the speed of the serial port towhich it is connected (perhaps 115200 bps), whereas an internal modemdoes not have that limitation. However, in order to get much more thanthe link rate of 51 Kb/s the data would have to be highly compressible,and that would be quite unusual unless you are routinely downloadinghuge, uncompressed text files.An internal modem potentially has lower latency than an external modembecause the data does not have to go through a parallel -> serial ->parallel conversion. However, a controllerless internal modem (as mostare) steals CPU cycles to do its job. Unless you've got a lot of excessCPU capacity, that's likely to slow your game down and negate thelatency improvement.In practice, unless you've got a fairly slow CPU (which would mean thata controllerless internal modem is a really bad idea) the ability of amodem to deal with the imperfections of your particular phone line isgoing to far outweigh any speed differences due to internal vs.external. Sorry, can't help you on that one.BTW, legacy serial ports seem to be disappearing like 1.44MB floppydrives on modern systems. Last time I looked, most motherboards stillhad a serial port, but I wouldn't want to predict how long that willlast.--Bob Nichols AT comcast.net I am "rnichols42"
|
