1. Almost always when a modem will connect but receives garbage on the screen, there is a software or modem setup problem, not a hardware problem.

2. The same is true if the modem will connect but will not download or upload data. In addition to software setup you can also get this result if you command the modem to download to or upload from a directory that doesn't exist. This is also software.

3. Sometimes the setup commands are very obscure, and can take a lot of reading and study to untangle.

The problem we were trying to solve is even more complicated. The modem would connect properly to some services, and poorly the rest of the time. We found the solution by scanning the latest MODEMS.DAT (modems data) file from Data Storm, producers of Procomm Plus for DOS and Windows. Here is the sequence of commands that solved the problem:

AT (Enter) (A test, should produce an OK )

ATF1 (Enter) (Loads factory defaults from ROM to active RAM)

AT&C1&D2\Q3%C1&S1S7=60S11=60 (Enter) Explanation Below***

AT (Enter) (A test, produces an OK)

AT&W (Enter) (Writes the new setup into NVRAM to save it.)

*** This long string consists mainly of common aplha commands and ampersand (&) commands. The backslash and percent commands \Q3 and %C1 are not that common and were the cause of our problem.

\Q3 = Enable Bi-Directional Hardware Flow Control

%C1 = Enable Data Compression (V.42bis in LAPM, MNP5 in MNP, Default)

Now the new Initialization string should be set to:

ATZ^M```ATS7=60S11=55^M

ATZ (Recalls your saved setup from NVRAM)

^M (Is an Enter Command to a modem)

~~~ (tildes are short delays to allow the previous command time to complete)

Since both my friend and I are registered owners of one or more versions of Procomm, you might wonder why the installation process did not install the correct modem setup. That is a good question, and the answer is that it did, but almost every modem program such as a fax or Internet program may modify the modem setup and change the initialization string. So if you install one of these after Procomm you may lose your setup, but you can use this example to restore it. The latest version of MODEMS.DAT from Procomm's BBS is now on Tulsa Computer Society BBS as MODEMS95.EXE, a self-extracting ZIP file.

For more information on the Tulsa Computer Society click here