He turned his Compaq 486 back on and initiated the auto-answer mode on the modem through the ProTalk software package.

In their default configuration, most modems do not answer calls if the DTR signal is low, even if auto-answer mode is enabled.

It would be nice if you could leave the fax modem in Auto-answer mode and it could distinguish between a fax machine or another modem that was calling it, and act appropriately.