676 I am making some headway in finding a workaround for the bug in OS 10.3.5 that causes increasingly undependable and erratic modem dial-up behavior has uptime progresses.

Last week, I took one of MacFixIt's suggestions and disabled all network ports except for the internal modem (in my case Ethernet was the only other configured port), which seem to improve things for a day or two, after which the flakiness set in again, including a new, not-quite -but-almost hanging disconnect.

Another MacFixIt tip was to try using an alternate modem script, which is done by clicking "Configure" in the Network system preference panel, clicking the "Modem" tab, and choosing a different modem script from the pull-down menu. The default Apple script for my iBook is "Apple Internal Modem V.92," and the one specifically suggested as an alternative by MacFixIt was "Apple Internal Modem V.34," which I tried, and it indeed worked better. Reasonably normal dial-up behavior was restored, and remained so for several more days, allowing me to finish out the week without closing all my programs and rebooting.

That got me to thinking. I've had good luck in the past using Tracy Turner's Mac ARTA Modem Magic modem scripts, and I wondered if some of the scripts in that package (which includes more than 300 scripts) might also address the OS 10.3.5 dial-up problem. I contacted Tracy, and downloaded the latest version 5.8 of Modem Magic.

Because the G3 700 MHz iBook uses a software modem, fewer of the Modem Magic scripts are supported as opposed to, say, the Global Village hardware modems in the G3 Series PowerBooks and other older Macs, for which there is a wide selection of compatible scripts in Modem Magic.

However, several Modem Magic Scripts do work with the iBook modem, including:

iBook Internal V.90
iBook 500 Dual USB
Apple Laptop Internal Modem
iMac iBook G3 G4 Modems

I rebooted on the weekend, so it took several days for the 10.3.5 modem bug to set in again, which happened on Tuesday. I went to dial up, and got a long "Connecting" readout in the Menu bar followed by a dialog saying that Internet Connect couldn't detect a carrier.

I was running the "iMac iBook G3 G4 Modems" Modem Magic script at the time, so I tried reverting to the OSX "Apple Internal Modem V.34"script, but no joy. The system still refused to connect. I then tried the "iBook Internal V.90" Modem Magic script, and to my surprise, the system found the modem and dialed up promptly. At this writing, some 24 hours later and through several dial-ups and log offs, the modem behavior is still normal using this script. I don't know how long it will hold up, but the MacARA Modem Magic "iBook Internal V.90" script appears to be a fix for the problem at least to a degree.

However, as I went to post this article, I encountered what seems to be yet another OS 10.3.5 networking glitch, to wit: I couldn't get the Applelinks news posting CGI page to come up and work in any of the browsers I tried -- FireFox, Netscape, Safari, Shiira, Opera, or iCab. Other sites seemed to be working fine. However, when I reverted to my WallStreet PowerBook running OS 9.2.2, the CGI page came up smartly, and I had no trouble posting a couple of stories using iCab, so the issue seems to be with OS 10.3.5.

Subsequently, I tried bringing up the CGI using Mozilla 1.2.1 running in OS X Classic Mode under OS 10.3.5 on the iBook (without restarting), and it also worked fine......and....... once I had got the page loaded successfully in the Classic browser, it came up normally again in Firefox. Curiouser and curiouser.

Anyway, as I've noted in the past, the MacARA Modem Magic scriptSeptember also seem to give more lively connections than the stock Apple modem scripts. Note that connection speed!

Mac ARA Modem Magic author Tracy Turner tells me that the 57600 and 115200 [speeds showing in Internet Connect or Remote Access] are both PORT SPEEDs. The actual line connections are of course slower. However, opening a port to these two speeds is much faster than having the port set at 38400 with old V.34+ modem drivers.

I’ve been using Mac ARA Modem Magic modem scripts for about three years, in both the Classic Mac OS and OS X, mostly with Global Village hardware modems, and have found that the improvement in performance with them compared to the stock modem scripts that come bundled with the Mac OS varies with different modems. The most dramatic improvement was with the Global Village Platinum 33k external modem I use with my old Umax S.-900 tower. On that rig, connection speeds and download performance using some of the Modem Magic scripts is noticeably livelier.

On my workhorse 233 MHz and 500 MHz (now 550 MHz G4) PowerBooks, I’ve noticed less speed improvement, but Dialups are faster with the Modem Magic scripts, which also seem to hold onto connections more tenaciously, and dropped connections have been extremely rare since I started using them.

MacaRa Modem Magic 5.8 supports these common Apple Mac 56k V.90 or V.92 Modems:

All 68k Macs, PowerPC's (PPC Macs), Performas, iMacs (including Flatscreens) , iBooks, eMacs, Beige, Blue and Whites, PowerBooks, Laptops, PowerMac G3's, G4's and G5's Modems (Apple - Power Mac G5 Modems), as well as most major-brand third party modems and a number of less common brands of modems.

Tracy Turner notes that "There is supposed to be one world-wide standard for V.90. Even among the largest, highest quality ISP's there are numerous "exceptions" to these idealogical standards. V.92 will no doubt end up with various ISP's perceptions of it's standards (e.g., v44, v.44, V44 or V.44?) Just the simple example just given is what we mean by differing standards. This means one modem script does not fit all. One PowerBook 2000 Modem Driver will not work with all ISP's. This means that you may have to dive into the other 299 choices before you find what works well with your ISP."

MacaRa Modem Magic 5.8 is free to try (Demo), $39.95 to buy (Full Version). Free CD Shipping (Global and the US) while current sale lasts. Regular Price $79.95.

For more information, visit:
http://www.mactechnicalservices.com/macara50.html

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