Standard RS-232 serial data through a standard DB9 serial connector. I assume it handles all the common baud rates, it should for the price they charge. This product seems to me to be way overpriced. Maybe I am missing something.

Do computerized machines hold up as long as mechanicals? Probably not, because ultimately, the boards become obsolete and replacements are not going to be available. Like trying to buy an 8" floppy disk now, or a 72 baud modem for a computer now, the parts just won't be made. Yes, you can find something like my old Singer 15-91 that I bought for $10 at a yard sale -- it will continue to sew for the next 100 years or longer. It does only straight stitch but does it very well. And I can mostly fix it myself. I do most of my sewing, however, on a couple of newer machines, a Viking 350 that's about 15 years old and has performed faithfully for me, and a Juki F-600 that I bought this year because of the superior feed system and the buttonhole quality. Both of these are computerized machines, and I really appreciate the fact that I have full needle punching force at very slow sewing speeds. The Viking in particular is rather WYSIWYG -- I've let beginners use that machine while I worked on untangling whatever mess they've gotten their machines into, and they have found it quite simple to operate. The Juki is a little more intimidating because it has several features more common on industrial machines, like a knee lift, automatic tie off and thread trimmer operated by the foot pedal. It has a more complex user interface, but the 10 basic stitches are all just touch a button, start sewing. Electronics and computerized machines are a little more expensive to service (about $15-25 over the price of mechanical servicing around me). Do I need an electronic machine? Probably not. Do I enjoy having the extra features? You betcha. Here's my standard advice on choosing a sewing machine if you're a beginner: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AtVc8znRrlRdYqlm02KFETbty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20100423044254AAnGzFy&show=7#profile-info-OKJf8nHFaa and the sad story of my cheapie machine: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20111020035301AAowAnQ I wasn't even going to look at computerized machines when I bought the Viking (which, incidentally, is about equal to today's Emerald machines); my husband, the family engineer, pushed me to at least try some computerized machines, and look what followed me home.

In the 70's, only millionaires could afford connecting to the internet from home. The computer itself would have been costly, for example, the cheap 1975 "portable" IBM 5100, was $36,000 in today's dollars. Networking / telco equipment was also incredibly expensive (Bell had a monopoly). In the early 80's, any microcomputer with floppy drive and modem would cost more than $3000 in today's dollars. BBS were popular because they were local calls, long distance charges were still insane, and with a 300 baud modem it would take a minute just to get a few screens of text. Don't forget that early 80 micros had little RAM due to its high prices, making most of them useless to retrieve data. My favorite examples are the TI/99 4/A which had 256 bytes of RAM. The Vic20 initially included 5K of RAM (only 3.5K usable, just enough for one full page of text). And, of course, Internet was not completely available until 1986. Before that, the only way to connect to the internet (outside government or university) was through expensive on-line services like Compuserve, GEnie, Quantumlink (later became AOL), etc.

Actually, you don't need a cable modem with more than 1 port to split your network up. I use a Linksys "5-Port Switch" ($40) connected to the output of my Cable Modem. All you need is an allocation of two IP addresses from Time Warner. Most ISP's that provide HighSpeed Internet also allow you two Dynamic IP Addresses. (You are using Dynamic IP assignment from ISP rather than Fixed IP?) In my case, I had to contact customer support and ask them to "activate" the 2nd dynamic IP (even though they say it is free, I still had to request it to be activated because most people don't know how to use two IP's). Modem connects to Port 4 or 5 (Uplink port) of the Linksys Switch. From the Linksys Switch: - I have a Linksys WRT-54G NAT-Router connected to Port-1. - I have a D-Link DI-804 connected to Port-2 Each Nat-Router connected to the Switch gets assigned its own dynamic IP. So now I have two separate local networks, each behind it's own Nat-Router. - Behind WRT-54-G I have my PC on port-1 and Linksys PAP2T-NA VoIP ATA on port-2. - Behind the DI-804, I have another Linksys PAP2T-NA VoIP adapter. I have my ATA's configured for BYOD VoIP services like CallCentric and InPhonex. (And Les.net and Voip.ms as backups). Everything is working great this way with two dynamic IPs and using a Switch to divide up the network. You could probably do the same thing. I believe you are using the Linksys SPA-2102 ATA? Just be sure the ATA is set for Dynamic IP address assignment if your ISP is providing you with Dynamic IP's. Or, if they give you Fixed IP's, then your devices need to be set to those IP's. There are two ways Fax can work over VoIP. The ATA must be using G.711u Codec. The SPA2102 does support G.711u. This is a wide-band codec that is capable of Fax "Pass-Through", which means it should pass Fax signals ok. There is also a Fax specific Protocol called T.38. The SPA-2102 also supports T.38. I believe iTalkBB has preconfigured your ATA to accomadate Fax, as the claim to on their web site and say "press # key to initiate sending of Faxes". I suspect that the # key is either telling the ATA to use G.711u or T.38 Codecs.

*Just answering so I can tab to it* I wanna know the answer to this question ;)

I remember all those and a bit farther back, before AOL existed, when Prodigy was how people online interacted. We have a computer, fully operational when it's set up (which it's not, now) which has no hard drive at all. Our kids, now young adults, used DOS to play their little four-color games on it, and I did word processing and Prodigy while they napped. Man, I'm *old*!