I thought the NetWinder had Telecom interfaces?
Good Question. This was a surprise to some early purchasers of the NetWinder. Originally there was to be modem circuitry on the daughtercard. However, it turned out that any modem operating at >14.4kps requires hefty licensing fees because the modulation algorithms are patented. It turned out to be considerably cheaper to buy an external modem, rather than for us to include the modem components in the box. This has to do with modem manufacturers having much higher volumes than the NetWinder, therefore they can ammortize the licensing costs over more units. The serious downside to this is that you now must consume your only serial port for an external modem if you need to connect to the net or anywhere else via dialup. Perhaps future NetWinders will contain USB interfaces so that the number of ports is not a problem. Note: there is a second serial port on the ‘877 chip. Its signals are available on headers in the middle of the motherboard. You need to add a voltage level shifter (from 5
