Okay, we admit it: we were truly amazed by the Mac community's response to the Yosemite modem situation. To recap, according to Apple's price list, none of the retail Yosemite configurations include the internal modem option, and Apple isn't selling the internal modems separately-- and since there are no USB modems out on the market which yet include Mac drivers, that means that customers who need to use a Yosemite with a dial-up Internet account don't have too many choices. (Remember, Yosemite has USB in place of the DIN-8 serial ports that "Mac" modems expect.) The most obvious solution is to order a Yosemite from the Apple Store and add in the internal modem as a built-to-order option; of course, then you're paying Apple Store prices, plus sales tax and shipping and handling.

But there's another solution out there that many, many AtAT viewers wrote in to recommend: get a USB-to-serial adapter, and use a standard Mac modem. Now, while we were aware of this solution (no, really, we were-- honest!), we were pleasantly surprised that so many of you consider this to be an acceptable workaround, because of the added cost involved. For example, Keyspan's USB-to-serial adapter costs $79. If memory serves, we paid $115 for our Global Village 56K modem, and that included a copy of Mac OS 8. Value the Mac OS 8 license how you will, but to us it sounds like getting the USB adapter essentially doubles the cost of the modem. So how come everybody (including noted curmudgeons like Don Crabb) sees this as a perfectly acceptable solution?

But after thinking about it for a while, it started to make a lot of sense. First of all, the Keyspan adapter gives you two serial ports, so when all's said and done, that $79 lets you hook up a "standard" external modem and any other serial device of your choice: QuickCam, QuickTake, Palm Pilot (or in our case, Newton), etc. But perhaps more importantly than that, the Yosemites are cheap. They range from $1599 to $2999. When was the last time that Apple's highest-end professional computer cost under $3000? In that light, throwing in another $79 for a couple of serial ports (if, and only if, you need them) doesn't seem like a big deal at all. Whatever. In any case, we're told that Yosemites with internal modems will be available via retail channels as early as this week-- and there are even rumors that Apple will supply their internal modems to resellers so that they can be installed for customers who need them. All told, it's a tempest in a teacup. We're glad that's over with.