using your computer
in italy - part two

buying computers in rome

modem problems

where to buy computers
and computer stuff in rome

Obviously you can buy computers and computer equipment, peripherals and consumables at any number of places in Rome, but I recommend Edom, Eldo, Giotto or Computer World for Windows PC stuff, as they are all big stores, have several branches around town in prominent easy-to-find areas and are fairly reputable(by Italian standards at least, which is however a lower standard of retail fairness of trade than you will be used to in England or the States)
Check your (Rome) phone directory for local branches.

Edom and Eldo both have big stores on Viale Marconi. Eldo also has a small shop on Via del Corso, very central, but they also have a megastore out of town to the south on the GRA beltway. I forget the junction number, probably 24, but just check the phone book and a good map. Computer World also have a big store there, in the same shopping complex neighbourhood, and they also have quite a good website with a searchable product database that sorts by price. Giotto have a big place out at Ostia Lido if you’d like a new computer and a day at the beach into the bargain, but check your phone book for nearer, local branches.

For an Apple Macintosh dealer, there are several outlets, but Romebuddy recommends 'FBM', on Via Flaminia 395. We bought our Mac there, and were tickled pink with the service. And of course it's an iPod store as well.

Paper, printer ink and other office stationary you can also find in Buffetti, who are a stationers with branches all over Rome.

FotoForniture Sabatini in Via Germanico is a professional photographers suppliers but with digital photography now established, Sabatini keep large stocks of photo-inkjet paper, especially for Epson, right up to the big sizes, as well as the ink cartridges. They also sell photo slide-scanners, but not printers.

On the whole, unless your Italian is excellent, try not to buy computer stuff from small, local dealers. Like most Italian shopkeepers, their supplies (such as ink cartridges) are often out of date, their service is usually lousy, they’re not interested in your custom except in ripping you off as a tourist. So stick with the big stores where merchandise is clearly price-marked and often press-advertised, stock moves quicker, and you’ll have a store manager responsible to head office to chew out, if things go wrong.

modem problems

Your modem probably won’t work in Italy. Whether internal or external, this’ll be for either one or both of two reasons. Firstly, you wont be able to plug it in because the plug may be a different shape to the Italian socket. Fix this by buying an Italian-shaped modem/telephony cable or adaptor from one of our recommended computer/electrical stores.

After you do this and plug it in, it probably still won’t work, because the little wires in the cable terminal in your modem or modem card are not connected to the correct terminals at the Italian end of the cable. I had to cut my cable and re-splice the different coloured wires to each other by trial and error until I could hear an Italian dial-tone through my British modem. This is very fiddly though if you’re not used to stripping electrical wire filaments, as the wires are so incredibly thin. I also don’t recommend this approach for a portable card modem. Buy the Italian cable and strip that, but don’t mess with your actual modem-card’s cable.

After you’ve done it, tie a knot or two in the cable so that the little wires you’ve just joined can’t pull apart again. The easier alternative is to just buy another adapter that will correctly match up the wires.

The final problem is that even after you’ve got properly connected, the modem will still not work because it is listening for an American (or English, Canadian or Australian) dial tone, which of course it will never hear because it’s now plugged in in Italy. So you need to override this.

One way is to try selecting ‘Ignore dial tone’ in your modem/dialup settings on your computer. If this doesn’t work, in Windows 95 and up, you need to go to the ‘Advanced’ settings of your Modem Configuration Control Panel and in the text box under where it says ‘Extra Settings’, type ‘X3L3’ (without the quote marks) That ought to do it.
If none of that works, uninstall your existing modem, buy an Italian modem instead and install that.

...click for more about using 
your computer in italy 

Getting set up with an Italian 
Internet Service Provider