I grok the reasons for a standard modem needing no sissy 'driver', and why the CPU has to do the tasks the missing 'engine' would do, transparently.

Thanks for wvdial tip and the rest. If puppy is indeed on wvdial (haven't looked yet) - then the .conf ought to translate to the other distros .. with some luck.
Still: Puppy found even the beastmodem - in the Cpq and the HP n/b; the others didn't notice/care to Say..

Were there an IRQ conflict that install logic couldn't rearrange: nevertheless, Puppy managed. So, I infer it's something else which the other .confs (of those using wvdial) - were just sloppy about..

I've mentioned before - the general tenor of error, other Messages in Puppy - All are in English, helpful sans verbosity. Beautifully absent: the smirking game of trying for cubic-closest-packing of terse logical unitary descriptions / with no examples volunteered. Another proof that: this Can be done. Seems to be ~about ego and D-grades in expository English, in computer 'science' classes. I have to find out more about the raison d'etre of Puppy: there's an English major in there, somewhere: More. POWER.

Ah well, probably good practice, here .. playing an Admin-on-Tee-Vee.
The other distros' inadequacy suggests too, that The Word doesn't necessarily get around, even in Open Source :-/

Thanks - you've given enough info that I should be able to solve this one; half-arsed will do for starters. (Clearly - Puppy proves that all the pieces are there.)