Dial-up Emulation?

[bigsol81]

Hello.

Let me just dive right in. I have an old Pentium 133 computer that's currently running MS-DOS. I want to keep it like that, but would like to use the Arachne web browser to connect to the internet.

I have a cable internet connection at home, and was wondering it it's possible to use a simple RJ-11 phone cable connected between the modem of my modern computer and my old computer to connect to the internet. My thinking on this was that there must be software out there somewhere that "emulates" a dial-up internet provider that I can run on my modern computer which can simulate a phone line and a phone connection to a dial-up ISP, thus the old computer will be tricked into thinking it's dialing out on a normal phone line and establishing a dial-up connection, which my modern computer will then bridge to the internet.

Surely, something like this must exist somewhere. My modern computer has no serial connections, so that's out of the question.

Thanks in advance.

 

[glitch]

Arachne supports any packet driver, so you should be able to use an Ethernet connection with it rather than a dialup connection. Just find the packet driver for your card.

 

[bigsol81]

I don't have ethernet in the room the computer is in, nor does the computer have an ethernet card in it.

I would have tried this already if it were possible.

 

[Chuck(G)]

TCP IP over a serial link is just SLIP on your old system's end. There are/were "TCP IP over RS232" packages used for checking out the functioning of WinCE prototypes and the like. So, yup, they're out there. Unless anyone has a direct link, a web search might turn up something for "TCP IP over RS232". You don't really need to emulate a dial-up connection--just use the SLIP protocol driver.

Good luck!

 

[mark66j]

Check out this page:

http://www.tropinet.com/ppp.html

You should be able to use a Serial-to-USB adapter on the newer computer (I have not used one for this purpose myself, but once the drivers are loaded, it looks like any other serial port to the new computer). Depending on the OS of the newer computer, PPP might be better supported than SLIP.

 

[MikeS]

Phone modem to phone modem's no problem; bridging the host phone modem serial side to the cable modem can be done with hardware like Lantronix UD-10s or similar (if you had an external modem), or software like TCPSER (Linux), TCPSERJ (Java) or BBS Server (Windows), although I don't know if that will give you exactly what you want. Other than the modem<>modem part, using a direct serial link has been discussed extensively in several previous threads here.

 

[Ole Juul]

"Dialup" is only needed for a telephone system. All you want to do is use PPP. Arachne is fine with that and doesn't care if you use a dialer or not because that is unrelated. All you want is a serial connection running PPP - just like any normal dialup connection to an ISP, for example. The "dialing" is only for getting through the phone system so you can establish a serial connection.

Arachne itself only needs to be told to use a local WATTCP.CFG file and works without any other setup. That, by the way, is also true if you eventually get a network card for your DOS box. I recommend you do, because a network card and a driver will solve all your DOS networking problems right there.

Anyway, since you already have (I'm assuming) Arachne, you already have Morello's port of epppd. It's called EPPPD.EXE and is around 46-50K, depending on the version you have.

In DOS you type:

epppd com1 38400 pktvec 0x60 local crtscts asyncmap 0

or you can put it in a file called PPPDRC.CFG but either way you will need to also have a working WATTCP.CFG file. The instructions for that stuff comes with Arachne.

All that gives you is a PPP connection on the DOS end. Now you need to set up pppd on the receiving end. In *nix this is trivial because networking is built in. So if you have a Linux machine, you type:

pppd -detach crtscts lock proxyarp 192.168.1.121:192.168.1.120  /dev/ttyS0 38400 &

That will match the DOS box and you just connect the two serial ports with a null modem cable. BTW, you didn't say what OS you're running. I haven't tried the above with BSD but I'm fairly sure it works because pppd is ancient and pretty standard everywhere.

I'm no expert, but if you want to run MS-Windows, then I think you will need get NT-server or some special server software in order do network stuff. If you don't know how to do that (I don't) or want to avoid the expense (I would) then any Linux distro, even running live off a CD, should do the trick. Feel free to ask about the DOS or Linux parts of my post and I will do my best to fill in the blanks.

 

[southbird]

Just pointing out, you said you don't have Ethernet wherever the machine is, but you apparently do have another computer nearby that you want to junction with RJ-11. You could also just as easily connect between the two with RJ-45 using a cross-over cable (or in many newer cards they even cross-over themselves automatically.) If it's just a standard board with an ISA/PCI slot available, many common Ethernet cards would work and be very cheap to obtain. Unless you're running a really long RJ-11, in which case you could also just run a really long RJ-45...

 

[MikeS]

I think some of you are missing that the new computer doesn't have a serial port and the old one no ethernet, which is why he wants to use the modems (if I understand correctly). But connecting the modems is no problem, and after that it's just a standard serial connection (albeit a little slow).

Still, might be simpler (and faster) to get a USB<>serial adapter or ethernet card...

 

[Chuck(G)]

Still, might be simpler (and faster) to get a USB<>serial adapter or ethernet card...

Agreed. ISA NIC's aren't hard to find (you can usually get one for nothing) and simplify matters greatly.

 

[Ole Juul]

I think some of you are missing that the new computer doesn't have a serial port and the old one no ethernet, which is why he wants to use the modems (if I understand correctly). But connecting the modems is no problem, and after that it's just a standard serial connection (albeit a little slow).

Still, might be simpler (and faster) to get a USB<>serial adapter or ethernet card...

I quote the whole message because it it bang on.

Yep, I missed the statement about no serial connection (port?) even though the OP made it as clear as possible. That's really a milestone but perhaps it's just that nothing is connected to the header. Anyway, hopefully ethernet will stick around for a couple more years.

 

[MikeS]

I quote the whole message because it it bang on.

Yep, I missed the statement about no serial connection (port?) even though the OP made it as clear as possible. That's really a milestone but perhaps it's just that nothing is connected to the header. Anyway, hopefully ethernet will stick around for a couple more years.

No, unfortunately the legacy ports have disappeared one by one, which was in fact the officially stated goal when USB was implemented. First the second com port disappeared from desktops, laptops haven't had com ports for a while, and the parallel port is also pretty well history now; only USB, Firewire and Ethernet, but WiFi etc. may replace those as well...

 

[k2x4b524[]

i couldn't see WiFi replacing everything, if that were to happen, we would be able to create a group mind as it were of computers. Hence, we would create the borg. kinda creepy actually

 

[Ole Juul]

i couldn't see WiFi replacing everything, if that were to happen, we would be able to create a group mind as it were of computers. Hence, we would create the borg. kinda creepy actually

I love wires. They keep the signal nice and tidy by confining them to a private tunnel between two points. They also have wider bandwidth than can ever be broadcast using a limited spectrum. We need wires (or fiber) in order to get bandwidth. Heck, even just to avoid modulation problems if there is any analogue involved.

 

[bigsol81]

A lot of people have given me advice regarding null modem cables and serial ports, or adapters, but I don't have any of that and cannot afford it.

Numerous people have said that you can connect two modems and then have the newer computer bridge the connection to its internet connection. This is what I want to do, yet nobody that says it's possible with modems (RJ-11 only, no adapters, no ethernet, no serial ports) has explained how it's done.

The modern computer is running Linux (Ubuntu to be exact).

 

[Agent Orange]

bigsol81:

Google "Null Modem". Basically, your are connecting the transmit side of modem A to the receive side of modem B and vice-versa (transmit to receive & receive to transmit). Not much cost involved if you are the least bit enterprising. You can find most of what you need at Radio Shack, if not a null modem cable itself.

http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&...esult_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CDQQsAQwAw

 

[Ole Juul]

A lot of people have given me advice regarding null modem cables and serial ports, or adapters, but I don't have any of that and cannot afford it.

Not everything costs money. A null modem cable is easily made by chopping a regular serial cable in half and re-connecting the wires in the new configuration. Serial cables are a bit harder to find nowadays, but network cards are most often free. I know about these things because I'm poor.

Numerous people have said that you can connect two modems and then have the newer computer bridge the connection to its internet connection. This is what I want to do, yet nobody that says it's possible with modems (RJ-11 only, no adapters, no ethernet, no serial ports) has explained how it's done.

Well there are some good hints that might be useful if you want to do a net search. Despite my earlier post embarrassingly assuming a serial port, it is mostly correct. Check out the PPPD.MAN and CHAT.MAN files and you'll be on your way.

The modern computer is running Linux (Ubuntu to be exact).

Well, that certainly simplifies things on that end. Your modem is still going to be /dev/ttyS0 or so. Since you're running Linux, I assume you've found the famous Linux PPP HOWTO. If not, have a read of that. There is way too much information there because it assumes you are setting up dialup connections for an ISP, but it's well written so not too difficult to weed out the parts you need.

The thing that might be the most elusive here is that your Linux box needs to be set to IP forwarding. You can read a bunch about that but I'll save you a lot of time by saying that all you need to do there is manually change the file /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward from a "0" to a "1". It's that simple! However if you want to make it permanent, then go to /etc/sysctl.conf and find the line which says "net.ipv4.ip_forward=0" and change that "0" to a "1". Don't forget to restart your network: sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

So, there's a start.

 

[Raven]

Those of us who started our collections with later machines don't usually even have normal serial cables around. I've been collecting for several years now and have maybe two serial cables - one null, one not, and an adapter or two around.

If you want to hook a modern PC to an older one over modem connections I'd recommend a PCI modem in the new machine, and an ISA one in the old machine.

I must admit that I mucked with trying to hook up a terminal to a Linux box over serial and had no luck whatsoever, but then again I've had broadband for more than half my life. Good luck.

 

[MikeS]

bigsol81:

Google "Null Modem". Basically, your are connecting the transmit side of modem A to the receive side of modem B and vice-versa (transmit to receive & receive to transmit). Not much cost involved if you are the least bit enterprising. You can find most of what you need at Radio Shack, if not a null modem cable itself.

http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&...esult_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CDQQsAQwAw

A null modem cable or adapter replaces a pair of modems by connecting the serial ports together; once more, the new computer does NOT have a serial port.

 

[MikeS]

A lot of people have given me advice regarding null modem cables and serial ports, or adapters, but I don't have any of that and cannot afford it.

Numerous people have said that you can connect two modems and then have the newer computer bridge the connection to its internet connection. This is what I want to do, yet nobody that says it's possible with modems (RJ-11 only, no adapters, no ethernet, no serial ports) has explained how it's done.

The modern computer is running Linux (Ubuntu to be exact).

Which part is the problem?

Connect the modems, tell one to go on line and the other one to answer and you should be connected; look in the modem manuals for the specific AT commands. It might help to start with terminal programs on each end to test and get that part working.

Next (optionally) I'd install TCPSER as suggested earlier and test that you can Telnet from the old computer,

Finally, install your browser and whatever additional goodies you need/want; aside from the trivial part of using a pair of modems instead of a direct serial connection, this has been discussed in detail several times, especially with a Linux 'server'. Ole Juul must have a boilerplate text file by now that he just cuts and pastes in reply to this question... ;-)

And of course as mentioned NICs can be had for cost of shipping if not for free... definitely a better way to go.