Mac OS X Lion has killed off a number of things including, but not limited to Rosetta, visible scrolls bars, Quicken (see Rosetta), and unnatural scrolling. Now another casualty is the venerable analog modem.
I tried plugging my own Apple USB Modem into an available USB port on my iMac and MacBook Air (both running Mac OS X Lion) and I received the following error message.
The problem is being blamed on two issues: the required modem drivers are missing and the drivers only work when your Mac kernel is running in 32-bit mode. Since Lion generally runs in 64-bit kernel mode by default the drivers will not work unless you boot your machine into 32-bit mode. A lively discussion about 32 vs. 64-bit mode can be found here.
The forum discussion included a work around that required modification of your system files and instructions on starting your Mac in 32-bit kernel mode. Unfortunately at press time I wasn’t able to get the suggested work around to work on either of my Macs.
One person, HellDiverUK, on the forum made a comment that I can agree with when they asked, “Modem?” followed by “Last millennium is calling, it wants its outdated technology back. ” I think Apple agrees and that they are telling you that it looks like it is time to say good-bye to the analog modem and look to alternatives like encrypted email, zip files, PDFs, or secure FTP.
I know it is hard to let go of technology sometimes, but seriously I haven’t needed to send a fax in a while now. Instead I’m using alternatives like the ones I mentioned above. I think you can too.
