Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: mr_a500 on November 29, 2006, 06:45:39 AM
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Does anybody in Canada currently have their (classic) Amiga connected to high-speed internet? If so, what ISP? Did you have to use their DSL modem or did you get your own?
I'm trying to avoid any annoying compatibility problems that will prevent me from connecting. I've noticed lots of providers insisting you need a certain version of Windows or Mac and/or that you need to use their DSL modem (which might require Windows software to install).
Right now I'm using Sympatico dialup, but I'd rather not continue with Sympatico. About a year after I got Sympatico, they decided to partner with MSN (...and now I call it "Symcrapico"). Following typical evil Microsoft practice, now most Sympatico features are Windows/IE only. Things I used to be able to access now have stupid messages like this:
Bell.ca is designed for the best experience in some of the top browsers used in the market today... We recommmend:
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (download)
We do not support earlier versions of this software, nor do we support other browsers.
It's a bit odd that if it was "designed for some of the top browsers used in the market today" that they support ONLY IE6! :crazy:
Not only that, but logging into the customer service now takes you to Microsoft Passport and refuses to work with Amiga browsers. :madashell:
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That's kind of fubared. At least here (in finland) you can use your own DSL boxen (you need to figure things out yourself then), or you can buy or rent one provided by the ISP (you get support for that).
Also, most of these boxes are fully independent of the system(s) connecting to them, and use ethernet and DHCP, and as such allow connecting Windoze, Mac, Linux, Amiga or whatever systems. Also, most of them allow use of NAT, and then you can use fixed IP addresses within 10 or 192.168 ranges (helps with AmiTCP and Miami's buggy DHCP).
Surely Canada has at least some ISPs that provide similar solutions?
Posting from 8/1 mbit ADSL (http://www.iki.fi/sintonen/pics/adslboxen.png) here ;-)
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Mine is hooked up to a router/switch which is then connected to Bell's DSL box.
I've never had to use Sympatico's MSN/customer service pages for anything. I'm not sure why you'd have to now. To set up the DSL box itself through its web browser interface, that should be possible on an Amiga, it's not like it uses CSS or anything.
The Bell box did come with a CD that could work on Mac or Windows to configure the box, but you could do it through the box's web interface too. I didn't want to touch that setup CD with a 10ft pole since they usually install crappy customised IEs or some other garbage.
I would suggest buying a D-Link, Netgear, Belkin, etc. box to stick between the Bell box and your computer. Don't bother buying a combined DSL box/router/wireless device from Bell because they use horrible cut-down custom firmware. Just get a basic DSL box and you should be fine.
Oh, and don't expect anywhere near your top DSL speed from your Amiga. I'd get 150KB/s max on my 060 out of a connection that can easily do 300KB/s.
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"Oh, and don't expect anywhere near your top DSL speed from your Amiga. I'd get 150KB/s max on my 060 out of a connection that can easily do 300KB/s."
i would setup your TCP/IP stack buffer space if i were you! ;-)
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Always setup internet yourself. The provided software from all internet providers includes spyware which I will not use. That is why they want you to use their install software. :madashell:
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Thanks for the suggestion. I will give that a go assuming I can figure out where it is in Genesis.
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Bell or any other DSL service in Ontario,Canada works fine with Amiga. You can connect the modem directly to your Amiga (ethernet card needed) or use any brand router. I used Miami for my DSL conections now I just use a router and share the connection with my other computers. When you recieve your login information from them just enter it into the Miami(tcp/ip)setup wizard.
Bell cannot support you on Amiga specific issues but It's pretty straight forward once the dsl line is active (all filters installed on phones)and your login info is correct.
If you use a router you do not need Miami, you can set you gateway in OS3.9 to the routers IP address. Then Miami does have dhcp support which makes it even easier, just plug it in and go.
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Genesis Prefs> Options> Advanced
try with 16384 or 32768 for both send and receive buffer TCP size (sorry but i'm not on Genesis/AmiTCP atm)
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Thanks for the responses. :-)
Oh, and don't expect anywhere near your top DSL speed from your Amiga. I'd get 150KB/s max on my 060 out of a connection that can easily do 300KB/s.
I can live with that. It certainly beats the hell out of my current 4KB/s through dialup.
Bell or any other DSL service in Ontario,Canada works fine with Amiga.
OK, that sounds good. I think I'll buy my own DSL modem and maybe get a router later if I get another computer. I still need to be able to maintain my ISP account using IBrowse (adding/changing email accounts, home page, billing, etc.) so that means Sympatico is no good. Can anybody recommend a non-Bell service? (that somebody has connected to Amiga)
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Can anybody recommend a non-Bell service? (that somebody has connected to Amiga)
Rogers, Shaw or whatever cable company you have in your area that offers hi- speed internet. As DSL requires you to be close to the exchange, I assume you're in a major urban are, so cable should be available to you. If not and you have to use the phone lines, Primus or Telus may be able to help.
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dont bother getting a seprate modem, just get a asdl router as suggested, you can then hve both your amiga and pc if you have one connected no problem. you set the router up and then just connect through ethernet cable, or do you not have ethernet on your amiga.
Cause all asdl modems are usb these days, you can not get a serial asdl modem
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@aardvark
Yes, I know all that. I am specifically looking for someone to recommend an ISP that they have used with their Amiga and that has service maintenance pages that are known to work with IBrowse.
dont bother getting a seprate modem, just get a asdl router as suggested, you can then hve both your amiga and pc if you have one connected no problem. you set the router up and then just connect through ethernet cable, or do you not have ethernet on your amiga.
Yes, I am now considering getting something like this (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=32&products_id=156). Imagine sitting in front of the TV with an 1200 while you browse the internet with wireless broadband!
I just hope I don't sit in front of the TV cursing when I find out the ISP I chose refuses to connect for some stupid reason.
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sorry I am really confused here, what maintenance pages do you refer???
you add the setting to your router and never need set anything else up.
I have never used a cd or been on my isps homepage for my last three providers.
as much as i love amigakit, buy a router elsewhere. I paid that for a wirelss router with bulit in modem like a year and half ago
so I can understand where you are coming from, can you post your amigas specs please?
As long as you have the connectivity on your amiga, then you can use any ISP, the computer does not matter
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If I were you I would avoid choosing Sympatico. They are overpriced, they block ports and they force you to rent a modem for $10/month from them forever. Furthermore their customer service is made of brainless drones who "only support IE browsers" and have only been trained to give support to "senior" customers who are using their windows pc for the first time, but the agents are completely useless for anything technical. Rogers is no better. They cost even more and cap their service to something ridiculous like 60 gigs/month or whatever, and if you go over the limit they simply suspend the service as a "punishment" for a couple of weeks, but they still charge you.
What I would advise you is to take a look at http://canadianisp.com/ for a comparison of ISP's in your area.
A lot of people on can.internet.highspeed recommend teksavvy (check it out at http://www.teksavvy.com/ ), they serve Ontario and Quebec. As the name suggests, it is a cheap (but quite good) ISP oriented towards technically minded people. If it wasn't for the downtime hassles I would certainly switch to them. Currently I pay $29.95/month for unlimited bandwidth and I have bought my own ADSL modem/router. Compare that to what Bell is charging.
Regarding the use of a DSL modem on the Amiga, all of the DSL connections in Bell territory are set by default to pppoe, so that should be enough to get your Amiga compatible with just about all modems (correct me if I am wrong). On the other hand you could buy a router with a built-in adsl modem, that way you won't have any problems using it with the Amiga as long as you have an ethernet card. That's what I did.
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sorry I am really confused here, what maintenance pages do you refer???
As I said earlier...(quote) "I still need to be able to maintain my ISP account using IBrowse (adding/changing email accounts, home page, billing, etc.)". This is a separate problem from my DSL question. (1. What is the recommended DSL ISP? 2. Will this recommended ISP's online account maintenance work with IBrowse?)
I don't use any computer other than Amiga, so if I can't access my account through the ISP "self-maintenance" webpages (or whatever service pages are called) using IBrowse, then I'm screwed. (as I explained, Sympatico service pages no longer work with IBrowse) Bell phone support is total garbage. Maybe other ISPs have better phone support so I don't need to do it online anyway.
Example: I wanted to add a second email address. The online service told me my browser is not supported. I called the stupid automated support and it told me to change it online. I had to call many different stupid automated lines and wait on hold before I finally got a real tech support person. He told me to change it online. I explained I can't. He suggested I download Internet Explorer. After many confused conversations, he finally added it for me. Naturally, I'd like to avoid this kind of thing.
@alenppc
OK, thanks for the links.
I guess broadband internet on the Amiga is easier than I thought. So theoretically, as long as I have an ethernet card that works on Amiga, the DSL router modem router and actual connection don't matter because they're not "computer-specific" (same for all computers - no drivers)?
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Good for you!
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Hahaha!! As if to prove my point, Bell has just announced that starting on the 3rd of December 2006 they are going to introduce a 30 Gig cap for their new subscribers!! :lol:
I can't believe they are doing it again! I left them when they introduced a 5 Gig cap, which proved so unpopular they had to lift it after about 7-8 months when they lost hundreds of thousands of customers... and now they're at it again. You just can't believe how greedy that company is!
Anyhow, back to the topic, yes, a router with an integrated DSL modem will work on any computer with minimal maintenance. A simple DSL modem requires the PPPOE login handling by your TCP software, which is a bit more complicated to setup, but is supported by both Miami and Genesis.
Btw, my 68060 A4000 equipped with a mediator PCI is capable of a throughput of over 10 mbits/sec over ethernet when used with the crappy realtek 8139 card (I measured up to 1300 KB/sec).
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That is insane.. I hope you tell Sympatico exactly why you switch. It is idiotic to only support one browser and OS.
Especially now that firefox is so accepted. I cannot believe that anyone besides microsoft would do such a thing.
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Btw, my 68060 A4000 equipped with a mediator PCI is capable of a throughput of over 10 mbits/sec over ethernet when used with the crappy realtek 8139 card (I measured up to 1300 KB/sec).
That is better than my k6 450 debian box using a rtl 8029.
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1. Install a router between your ADSL Modem and a Windows machine
2. Use the Windows box (with IE or Firefox) to register the router with your ISP.
3. Connect your Amiga to the router.
If all else fails, I use this solution:
I made my amiga 500 (no ethernet card) a proxy client of my ISA Server (you can use XP and any free proxy app) and connect via null modem cable using MiamiDX.
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Tomas wrote:
Btw, my 68060 A4000 equipped with a mediator PCI is capable of a throughput of over 10 mbits/sec over ethernet when used with the crappy realtek 8139 card (I measured up to 1300 KB/sec).
That is better than my k6 450 debian box using a rtl 8029.
Yes, but that's because the 8029 is a 10 mbps only chip. The 8139 runs on 100 mbps. The reason why the 8139 is unlikely to go significantly faster lies in the horrible design of the chip.
Its DMA capabilities are useless, the CPU has to do all the work. CPU usage jumps to 100% as soon as you begin transmitting. While that might not be a problem on a 1+ Ghz cpu, 50Mhz are not enough...
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1. Install a router between your ADSL Modem and a Windows machine
2. Use the Windows box (with IE or Firefox) to register the router with your ISP.
3. Connect your Amiga to the router.
Thanks, but I will NOT EVER use Windows at home. Ever.
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@alenppc
The reason why the 8139 is unlikely to go significantly faster lies in the horrible design of the chip.
I don't know where you're getting that. RTL 8139 does better than that, easily.
Its DMA capabilities are useless, the CPU has to do all the work.
This is not true. 8139 does DMA just fine. CPU is not needed to do all the work.
While 060@50 might not be enough to prepare/process the data involved, the problem isn't 8139 itself, since it does DMA just fine.
Some modern cards (typically gigabit or faster) have features that offload some work to the card itself. However, since amiga network stacks have no support for these features, 8139 lacking these features makes no difference at all.
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Tomas wrote:
That is insane.. I hope you tell Sympatico exactly why you switch. It is idiotic to only support one browser and OS.
Especially now that firefox is so accepted. I cannot believe that anyone besides microsoft would do such a thing.
It probably was Microsoft.
1)Microsoft have meeting with Sympatico
2)Shake hands, business talk
3)Sympatico only endorse Microsoft products
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Hi;
I have an Amiga 1200 (68030, 64MB ram) and a 3com etherlink ethernet card. I can connect fine with it using Miami and PPPoE, but not through my router (D-Link DI604). My ISP (www.hurontel.on.ca) does not officially support Amiga, any PPPoE connection will work and their homepage comes up fine in AWeb.
I would never use Sympatico/Bell for my ADSL service. If I could switch to a different CLEC for phone service as well I would too.
Capping a user's bandwidth is unethical because if a customer has a virus (on a windows box) they could easily blow through most of their transfer limit in a very short amount of time.
How are other people here finding ADSL service with their amiga? Anyone using an ADSL service that supports DHCP? Anyone here getting broadband in Canada from a CLEC?
Dan
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aardvark wrote:
Can anybody recommend a non-Bell service? (that somebody has connected to Amiga)
Rogers, Shaw or whatever cable company you have in your area that offers hi- speed internet. As DSL requires you to be close to the exchange, I assume you're in a major urban are, so cable should be available to you. If not and you have to use the phone lines, Primus or Telus may be able to help.
If you live in an area in Canada who is not serviced by bell for phone service you may be able to get DSL anywhere in their service area. There are new technologies that allow DSL to be provided over very long cable loops, some even bring ethernet directly into the home.
Dan
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@mr_a500
The only incompatibilities I've run into are web browser related and Ethernet related.
Some ISPs require you to administer your account via the web and that means Internet Exploiter most of the time. I've had good luck with Firefox as well but usually they push IE on you.
The Ethernet problem I've run into is with the old ASDG LANRover card. It is so old it uses an ancient Ethernet protocol which I know is not supported by Shaw's cable modems (Motorola). I upgraded to a X-Surf and of course had no problems since.
I've run ISDN, DSL and cable with my A3000D via an Ethernet interface for years now.
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I have an Amiga 1200 (68030, 64MB ram) and a 3com etherlink ethernet card. I can connect fine with it using Miami and PPPoE, but not through my router (D-Link DI604). My ISP (www.hurontel.on.ca) does not officially support Amiga, any PPPoE connection will work and their homepage comes up fine in AWeb.
Hi Dan. So you finally got that A1200 online, eh? (last time I remember you had to transfer files by floppy) I checked out Hurontel and it looks OK except for the fact that they force you to use their modem: "*High Speed DSL/DSL Basic require $5.00 monthly modem rental fee".
Are you using their modem or did you find a way to avoid that?
ssolie wrote:
The Ethernet problem I've run into is with the old ASDG LANRover card. It is so old it uses an ancient Ethernet protocol which I know is not supported by Shaw's cable modems (Motorola).
Hi Steven. Good to see you here. Thanks again for that AMUC stuff. :-)
I was thinking about using this card (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=32&products_id=121) in an A1200. This isn't the card you're talking about, with the "ancient Ethernet protocol" is it?
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The card you referenced works fine with Wireless Routers and comes with EasyNet (http://easynet.amigakit.com) software - we have already added quite a few Presets for US ISPs - but would be happy to add Canadian ISPs to make it easier to connect to the net.
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Piru wrote:
I don't know where you're getting that. RTL 8139 does better than that, easily.
Ever glanced at the comments of FreeBSD kernel sources? ;)
* The RealTek 8139 PCI NIC redefines the meaning of 'low end.' This is
* probably the worst PCI ethernet controller ever made, with the possible
* exception of the FEAST chip made by SMC. The 8139 supports bus-master
* DMA, but it has a terrible interface that nullifies any performance
* gains that bus-master DMA usually offers.
*
* For transmission, the chip offers a series of four TX descriptor
* registers. Each transmit frame must be in a contiguous buffer, aligned
* on a longword (32-bit) boundary. This means we almost always have to
* do mbuf copies in order to transmit a frame, except in the unlikely
* case where a) the packet fits into a single mbuf, and b) the packet
* is 32-bit aligned within the mbuf's data area. The presence of only
* four descriptor registers means that we can never have more than four
* packets queued for transmission at any one time.
*
* Reception is not much better. The driver has to allocate a single large
* buffer area (up to 64K in size) into which the chip will DMA received
* frames. Because we don't know where within this region received packets
* will begin or end, we have no choice but to copy data from the buffer
* area into mbufs in order to pass the packets up to the higher protocol
* levels.
*
* It's impossible given this rotten design to really achieve decent
* performance at 100Mbps, unless you happen to have a 400Mhz PII or
* some equally overmuscled CPU to drive it.
While elbox's drivers have been optimized (when used on 060/50, the card in fact easily outperforms a Win98 P133 machine) this is still far from an ideal solution.