
                              SUPER SUPRA?
                              ============

                                   By

                              Henry Doyle

     It  comes  from  the  states, the power supply blows up within
     hours of being switched on, and  it  is  un-reliable  at  high
     speeds... is the new Supra v32bis FaxModem a Super-Supra??

     I  first  heard about this new device when I saw the full page
     ad in  Byte  Magazine.   Naturally  (Byte  being  an  American
     publication),  the  only  telephone number supplied was one in
     the States.  Attracted by the long list of features (of  which
     more  later)  and  the  amazingly  low price (even by American
     standards) of only $399 for a v32bis modem with built  in  fax
     support,  I  telephoned Supra direct keen to learn where I may
     obtain one.

     A very nice lady at  the  other  end  told  me  that  I  could
     actually  purchase  one  direct  from them and have it shipped
     over, or I could order from one of their two suppliers in this
     country. Not wanting the added  hassles  of  import  duty  and
     overseas carriage costs, I opted for the two telephone numbers
     with which I had by now been supplied. One of these turned out
     to  be  a  wholesaler and was unwilling to accept my cash as a
     lowley member of the public.   The  other  (a  company  called
     Surface  UK)  proved  more  fruitful and told me that he could
     supply the modem complete with uk power supply  and  telephone
     cable  for 410 pounds including vat and delivery.  This seemed
     a little high considering the exchange  rate,  but  as  I  was
     eager  to upgrade from my 2400 baud Dowty Quattro I agreed and
     sent off a cheque.  I was told that I would have  to  wait  no
     more than two weeks.

     After  many  heated  telephone  conversations  the  two  weeks
     turned into almost six.   The  modem  did  evenmtually  arrive
     although there was no sleeve on the box as Surface had sent it
     away  to  be  photographed  for their new magazine advertising
     campaign!

     The first thing  that  strikes  you  about  the  Supra  v32bis
     FaxModem  when you remove it from the box, is its size. Anyone
     who has seen a Miracom HST or similar will be  totally  amazed
     at the Supra's diminitive dimensions.  It is positivley minute
     at  only  6" by 4", and less than 1" thick!  When you consider
     the features built into it, this seems even  more  incredible.
     Right - the full list of what this modem does is :

     Speeds  :  v21  (300),  v22 (1200), v22bis (2400), v32 (9600),
     v32bis (14,400)

     Error Correction  /  Data  Compression  :  MNP  2  -  4  Error
     correction, v42 / LAPM error correction, MNP 5 and MNP 10 data
     compression, v42bis data compression.

     Fax  :  Full  Group  3  fax  compatibity  at both 9600 bps and
     14,400 bps.

     The v32 and v32bis BOTH support fallback even though  the  v32
     standard  does  not  specify  it.   Fallback means that if the
     modem is happily chugging away at - say - 14,400 bps  and  the
     line  becomes noisy, it will drop back down to the next lowest
     speed  (12,000  bps  in  this  case)  to  ensure  better  data
     integrity.  If  the  bad conditions still prevail then it will
     drop to the next lower  speed  and  so  on.   The  Supra  also
     supports  fall  forward  which  means that if the line quality
     improves again, it will detect this and speed up accordingly.

     On the back of the Supra are three sockets - one for the mains
     adapter ( a 9 volt AC type ),  one  for  the  standard  25-way
     RS232  D-plug,  and  one for the telephone cable. Although the
     telephone cable was a UK one, the power supply had a  two  pin
     shaver  type  plug on one end.  I used an adapter to plug this
     into, and after ensuring that the other  connections  were  in
     place, I switched on.  A small led status display on the front
     informed  me  that  all  was "OK" - a nice touch. This display
     shows  the  speed  of  the  connection,   whether   and   data
     compression  and  /  or error correction are operative, and if
     so, what level of each.  It also  warns  of  any  transmit  or
     receive  errors,  and  has  a  message  to indicate that it is
     running in fax mode.

     Unfortunately, before I could do more  than  log  onto  a  few
     2400  baud BBS's with data compression - the power supply blew
     up! I wont go into details here about the saga  that  followed
     afterwards  in  trying to get a replacement modem from Surface
     Uk, but I will say that it was more than  three  months  since
     they  cashed my cheque until I finally got a working modem!  I
     would not recommend their service under any circumstances.

     I understand that the power supply with these modems is a well
     know problem, and that Supra are going to start  shipping  the
     modems with better ones in the near future.  In the mean time,
     I  was aware of a company in Leeds called First Choice who had
     managed to source their own uprated power supplies,  and  were
     selling  them  for  12  pounds.  I immediately order one after
     hearing of this, and it promptly arrived the next morning.   I
     contrast  to  Surface,  First Choice were very friendly on the
     phone, and I can recommend them to anyone interested in buying
     a Supra modem. In fact, they now sell the v32bis FaxModem  for
     only 260 pounds INCLUDING vat, postage AND one of their better
     power supplies.

     The  modem  has  now  been  working  for  2 weeks with the new
     supply,  and  is  fine.   Its  metal  case  gets   very   warm
     (especially  when running at high speeds), but this apparantly
     is to be expected and is quite normal.

     In operation the modem works well up to a point. I have  found
     that  I  can  connect  to  any  v32  and v32bis system without
     problems, but one or two people cannot connect to me.   Again,
     this  is  proving to be a problem for many users of the modem,
     and Supra are also aware of it. In fact,  they  have  promised
     that  a  free  ROM  upgrade will be sent to ALL users who have
     returned their registration cards to the American headquaters.
     These upgrades should be in place by the time you  read  this,
     and hopefully will fix these slight incompatibility problems.

     As far as the fax side of things goes, I was not supplied with
     any  fax software by Surface even though I payed for it (still
     fighting that one out!).  In the mean time, I have tried using
     BitFax borrowed from someone else who owns  a  faxmodem  card.
     The software was not one of those listed in the document Supra
     supply as being one that has been tested with the modem, but I
     found  that  by  following  the settings supplied to work with
     WinFax, there were no problems. When connected  in  Fax  mode,
     the status display on the front of the modem reads "FX" so you
     are  always  aware of exactly what the modem is doing.  I wont
     go into any more details about fax operation in this review as
     this depends not so much on the modem, but  the  software  you
     use  to  drive it.  All I can say is that I sent several faxes
     without problems.

     To  sum  up,  the  Supra  FaxModem  v32bis  is a solidly built
     (albeit very tiny) little box packed full with  features,  and
     very  fast.  When  downloading a compressed file at 14,400 bps
     with data compression switched on it can reach speeds of  over
     1,920 characters per second - maybe more depending on the type
     of  file  being  transferred.  The uprated power supply of 1.4
     amps as opposed to the 1 amp unit supplied by Supra is a must.
     Hopefully, the ROM upgrade will fix the other  slight  niggles
     which  some  users  seem to experience more than others.

     More upgrades planned for the future are Voice Processing -  a
     sort  of 'digital answering machine', and Caller ID facilities
     which will display a callers phone number although it  is  not
     known  yet whether this will work on British Telecoms network.
     Which brings me nice and neatly around to the  final  point  -
     BABT  approval. The modem is NOT approved (hardly suprising at
     the price), although approval has been applied for. Under  the
     new  European  law  soon to be brought into force, approval in
     ANY of the EC countries will mean that a device can be used on
     the British telephone network - so if the modem gets  approved
     in France before it does here - then its ok to use it!

     If you are looking for a fast modem,  cant  afford  a  Miracom
     and  aren't bothered about HST (Miracoms proprietry standard),
     then the Supra is for you - but  wait  until  they  are  being
     shipped  with  the new ROMs as standard.  The modem implements
     the full Hayes AT command set along with some  extra  commands
     of  its  own  for setting up its two banks of non-volatile RAM
     which contain stored configurations and telephone numbers.  It
     will therefore work with  most  software  and  does  not  need
     special  drivers  to  be  written  for it.  Its a great little
     box, and for the price / performance, can't be beaten....can't
     say fairer than that!



                                 Ends.
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