Using MODEM7, you can send letters, reports, or programs already on your computer disk. Or you can receive them.
You can also:
1. Communicate teletype-fashion with the other person. You can keep electronic records of what you both type and later print them out using WordStar or another word processor.
2. Call up electronic bulletin-board systems (BBSs) or plug into The Source and many other information utilities. In this case, too, you can store material on your disk and later print it out.
3. Get copies of other programs that altruistic computer buffs have placed in the public domain; you do this after you log on the BBS.
MODEM7 is a good example of free software that fills a niche; experts say it’s better than some $150 products. Most free programs are losers for the typical business. They’re either (1) games, useless except for training, (2) unreliable lemons with bugs in them, the software kind, (3) programs that might work but don’t do anything useful, or (4) fiendishly difficult challenges because the instructions are confusing and no one handy knows how to use them. But wonderful exceptions exist. Never thumb your nose at something just because it’s free. In MODEM7’s case you’ll find more happy, knowledgeable users than you will in the cases of many commercial programs.
MODEM7-style protocols have become an industry standard. Even big businesses and government agencies, including the IRS, have used MODEM7 for some purposes. It’s influenced the designs of commercial micro programs, which employ similar techniques to facilitate linkups between different brands of communications software. MODEM7 will also get along beautifully with the popular PC-TALK III “freeware” program for IBM micros and some clones. Freeware is low-cost software distributed in many cases by the users themselves; the author may request a “donation”.
Granted, MODEM7 isn’t the ultimate. The instructions included on the disk are confusing to the novice—a problem I’ll try to overcome here—and ready-to-run versions aren’t available for every computer system.
Some commercial communications software, moreover, is easier to run and can help you talk to more machines. And it may also make better use of the “smart” modems and their software so that your computer can dial up others automatically at 11:00 p.m., when the phone rates go down. You can’t do this with your cheapie modem and the plain vanilla MODEM7 described here.
But for the average computer user, MODEM7 is a good communications program to start out with. After reading the instructions that follow, you needn’t be a micro whiz to use it.