[lug] PCMCIA modem problem

[jcollins at boulder.net]

I am having a problem getting viking 56K modem to work with linux.
Here are a few facts:

1)  Modem is a viking PCMCIA 56K hardware modem (model: RFM56KPA)
2)  Running RedHat 6.2
3)  I already have a 33K modem/ethernet card running on my machine
4)  Plugged the manfid + other info into /etc/pcmcia/config file

When the card is plugged into the laptop, the following message appears
in /var/log/messages:

Sep  1 15:13:04 euclid cardmgr[455]: socket 1: Viking V.90
Sep  1 15:13:04 euclid cardmgr[455]: executing: 'insmod
/lib/modules/2.2.14-5.0/pcmcia/serial_cs.o'
Sep  1 15:13:04 euclid kernel: tty02 at 0x13f8 (irq = 9) is a 16550A
Sep  1 15:13:04 euclid cardmgr[455]: executing: './serial start ttyS2'

So, it appears that my card is being recognized.

Problem:  I run minicom on device /dev/modem.  A symbolic link is
automatically created to the modem device (/dev/ttyS2, in the above case)
when the pcmcia card is plugged into the laptop. However, the card doesn't
respond properly to the AT initialization command in minicom (doesn't even
work when I disable initialization - same problem results).  Either one of
the following messages is printed:

.BEGINaa0ab0ac0.BEGINaa0ab0ac0.BEGINaa0ab0ac0


or

.BEGIN##0#0#0.BEGIN##0#0#0.BEGIN##0#0#0


where a new .BEGIN... string is appended every 5 seconds or so. Exiting
minicom usually corrupts the terminal window and typing "reset" clears
things up.

Any ideas for what could be going wrong here?  The manufacturer, of
course, doesn't support linux.  They suggested trying it on a windows
machine, something I don't have.

Thanks,

Jeff