Getting the cat online with the squashed frog 29.08.2002
Yesterday JayPee was kind to react to my posting on the non-exsisting 10.2 drivers for the Alcatel SpeedTouch USB DSL Modem (dubbed the Squashed Frog). Turns out JayPee found a way to cheat the drivers, by changing the VPI/VCI parameters to those corresponding to Denmark (where I am, you would have to change it to those corresponding to where you are, obviously). It is not for the faint at heart, we are talking manual plist editing, terminal.app acrobatics, and similar stuff like that, so you'd wanna do it with steady hands and a clean mind.
Haven't tried it yet, but I have an earlier build of Jaguar lying around here somewhere, and I might try installing it to see what happens. JayPee gave me these two links about the modem business. If you try editing the drivers before me, please comment on this post, or drop me a message.
- http://www.macadsl.com [This is in french, but if you hurry, the frog story is on the front page, can't miss it.]
- http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk — there's a bulletin board for DSL and Macintosh, couple of good threads going on in there..
Now, when people who did not write the drivers can find a way to make it behave properly, does that signal a flaw on the side of the producers, the ones who actually wrote the drivers? In Alcatels case, I think that is exactly what it does. The OS X drivers for their DSL modems are the epitomy of buggyness.
In any other case, especially if it was my company who made the software or drivers, I would make damn sure to hire the persons who were able to edit the code, or at least write them a thank you note. Respect and props to JayPee for the links, you da man!