FAX Modems?

[Geoffrey Mendelson]

I did some research. USB modems use the Conexant (now owned by Rockwell) chipset.
The drivers are propietary.
There used to be freeware reverse engineered drivers and the other option was to use Dell windows drivers using the windows driver compatability package.

They may not be compatible with the current kernels.

There also is a commercial linux driver, a license sells for $20. You can buy the source version and compile it yourself, one person did it on a raspberry pi with a slight mod.

The other viable option is to buy a used rs232 fax modem and an FTDI usb to rs232 converter if your computer does not have an rs232 port.

Asterisk had a voip to fax driver, but I never was able to get it to work, it may still be available and useable, I dont know.

A third option would be to scan facebook marketplace, yad2, or agora for a multifunction scanner, printer, fax with a broken printer or scanner that has the apporopriate linux drivers and just use it as a modem.

Geoff

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM/KBUH7245/KBUW5379 Jerusalem, Israel
On Jan 10, 2021, 8:39 AM +0200, Shachar Shemesh <shachar at shemesh.biz>, wrote:
>
> On 08/01/2021 10:39, Omer Zak wrote:
> > I am one of the holdouts who still use FAX technology.
> > My printer was of the type which combines printing + scanning + FAX. A
> > week ago it died, and I looked for a new printer with the same
> > combination of features.
> > Turned out that there is a shortage of
> > printers, so I bought a printer with scanner but without FAX.
> >
> > And now I am looking for a solution to continue to receive FAX messages
> > on my landline phone line.
> The software of yore should still work. The tricky part is getting the correct hardware and drivers.
> I quick search found several USB modems sold today, but most only list Windows as their compatibility, and it's impossible to know whether that means they are WinModems (zero nostalgia) or just lazy.
> I did, however, find this:
> https://www.amazon.com/V-TOP-External-V-92-Modem-Cable/dp/B00XW5QYWS/ref=psdc_284715_t4_B07H3Q74L8
> It lists Mac in it's title, but the actual text also explicitly lists Linux as a supported platform. It might, theoretically, still be a WinModem with (proprietary) drivers, but considering the cost of hardware (a 56Kbps modem can _easily_ be created with a 5$ micrcontroller/dsp/FPGA), I find it more likely that this is a full fledged hardware modem.
> With that in mind, I recently bought a Canon integrated printer, and it came with fax capabilities. I'm just about to cancel my "land line", so this feature is increasingly becoming useless for me, personally, but know that it's still out there.
> Shachar
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