Wireless for old Amigas?

[amyren]

I just stumbled upon this device: http://www.connectone.com/products.asp?did=73&pid=85
It is a RS232 serial-to-wifi bridge, claimed to be plug and play for any device.
My thought when I saw this product was if it could be used to connect old computers like the classic amigas to the internet. Just as this was a standard modem - only faster.
But I could not find so much information about the usage of this bridge, so Im not sure if it can act like (emulate) a standard modem, or if there are special drivers needed to get it working.
If someone with a bit more technical knowledge that myself could have a look at it and give some feedback, it would be useful.
Anyone?

[amyren]

ferix: The serial-to-ethernet project looks interesting. I wonder what you have planned do show in the display..  Are you planning to sell these things when you get it finished, and do you have any hint about the price tag? (or what are the axrox. parts cost if you plan to release it as a DIY project.)

tone007: I just sent an email to the sales department asking about this. If I get a decent reply I'll post it here.

[amyren]

Here is some feedback I got from the customer service from ConnectOne.
I also attached the file about how to set it up on windows. It does not seem to require any special drivers to work, and could possibly be set up to work on Amigas as well (?)


Hello,

The Secure iWiFi can be connected to a computer as a NULL modem connection,
and convert the connection to WiFi. The feature to be looking at is the "PPP
Host Interface and Routing" described in the release notes for firmware
version 804b04, found on our website.

I attach explanation on the configuration with Windows XP. In addition to
the document you must set the following commands:
1. AT+irrhw=0                ; Disable readiness pin .
2. AT+iioc:x0xxxxxx      ; PIOC01 Signal is Output, default LOW
3. AT+idown                  ; Invoke software reboot

SLIP is not supported.
Best regards,

Avishay Katz
Field Application Engineer
Connect One
560 S. Winchester Blvd, Suite 500
San Jose, CA 95128
USA
Office: (408) 572-5675
Direct: (408) 857-4006
http://www.connectone.com

[amyren]

If I understood It well, It emulates a serial port connection over the wifi, and then you need to provide the communication protocol (PPP in that case), but you need a PC as host on one side for acting as a ppp server and for routing...
It's the same as a null modem connection between your amiga and your PC, but without wires... It doesn't connect your amiga to the network (directly).

Doesnt a program like MiamiDx enable the Amiga to be set up with PPP  and work with this adaptor?
I also remember I used MiamiDx with the nullserdevice to emulate a null-modem connection between the Amiga and (Shapeshifter) MacOS8 in order to provide internet to the Mac side. That is internet via nullmodem from the Amiga, but my hope is that it could work the other way as well.

[amyren]

Miami or Genesis can act as a PPP client, you just need a PPP server on the other end to connect to. Windows can provide this if set up properly.

I thought that was what the serial-to-wifi device did in this mode, to act as the PPP server and bridge it to the wifi network at the same time

[amyren]

A picture from the product brief.

I think that it could work, but software had to be written. But perhaps that it's not worth it considering the cost of the device, effort to make software and speed it would yield...

But if there was a parallell device? :-)

As discussed earlier in the thread, it apears that the device act as PPP server. So for the Amiga, this should behave like a generic phone modem and should work without any particular software. (apart from the dialup/tcpip program like Miami or similar). It might need a init script to make sure the device is set to operate in the wanted mode though.

A paralell device could probably operate with greater speed, but then you will need the software written for it anyway.