The Merlin is "old" technology. It was one of the
first of the Type II CDPD cards (both Motorola and IBM
came out with type III even earlier than the Merlin)
If you seriously want to go with CDPD, consider
checking out Sierra Wireless and their new designs!
be aware though that most of the wireless networking
cards will only work with specific providers and these
providers want you to use their software. This
basically limits the Newt...(I recently found this out
from Go America...an additional $.10/kb for transfer
if you don't use their software...you do the math!)
So, unless you got alot of money and time, I would
suggest that you just don't do CDPD with the Newt...it
won't work!(at least not flawlessly) If you truely
want to do some wireless work with the newt, stick
with a cellphone and a modem card...It's faster anyway
than CDPD!
Ed
web/gadget guru
--- Hai Ng <nghai@whatexit.com> wrote:
> On 6/13/00 1:26 PM, Victor Rehorst said:
>
> >Has anyone had a look at Merlin? I've been
> >looking for a fully-self-contained wirless
> >solution for my Newt and I wonder if this isn't
> >it. It is PCMCIA Type II and, while no Newton
> >drivers exist (of course), it does appear to work
> >on WinCE devices, and Novatell supplies a great
> >deal of documentation and specifications right on
> >their website.
> >-----
> >
> >According to this guy:
> >http://www.kfu.com/~nsayer/freebsd/
> >
> >it looks like a normal modem. You can probably make
> it work with Modem
> >Modifier. I'd suggest changing all of the init
> strings to 'APPP', as that
> >seems to be the command to start communications.
> >
> >Now, if this card could also use the 2x00's builtin
> speaker and mic to
> >transform it into a cell phone, I'd drop my money
> in a second.
>
> What I've read in earlier messages on this list is
> that the Merlin sucks
> a lot of juice. According to the specifications,
> peak power drain on
> this baby is over 800mA which is about 50% more than
> my 3Com 56k
> cellular/GSM modem at about 480-500mA peak.
>
> Somebody I know uses the Merlin in a CE device and
> he says the battery
> life goes from 6 hours to 2 hours with the Merlin in
> it, pretty drastic.
>
> Also, I believe CDPD is not voice capable or at
> least the wireless
> companies don't make it voice capable, you'd have to
> use a Newton
> equivalent of a IP-Telephone program.
>
> -
> nghai
=====
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