Anyone still using serial port modems or ISDN adaptors?

[olsen]

I am currently working hard to get a decent documentation for my Roadshow TCP/IP stack hammered out, tutorials and everything included.

Just right now I finished editing the chapter describing how one might use the PPP driver included to connect the Amiga to a dial-up Internet service, using a serial port modem or ADSL adaptor, and with a shudder felt like an old man to even remember how this stuff used to work

Now I am wondering whether fleshing out this particular chapter further will actually be useful. Setting up a working dial-up connection is very error-prone, and as these things go, if the setup doesn't immediately work for you, you are left to your own devices to figure out what went wrong. Given how many different things can go wrong, I could probably churn out oodles of "helpful" notes, but...

Are you still using your Amiga serial port to connect to the Internet? Or am I possibly wasting my time trying to get the Roadshow documentation right?

[olsen]

Don't forget that "dialup" is also used to get online via cell phones, typically over bluetooth or serial/USB. For many amigas nullmodem is the only option, as there are no network cards around for them, I have used PPP over nullmodem (bluetooth wireless nullmodem) with my minimig quite recently.

The asynchronous serial PPP driver that's part of the package should be able to handle that just fine. It was part of the testing rig I constructed when I built the drivers, back in 2002.

From the feedback so far I am getting the impression that the PPP dial-up operations are still useful today, but are used very rarely, and typically by those who definitely know what they are doing

I was just getting worried about having to explain how PPP works, why you would want to avoid Van Jacobson compression (and what exactly that is in the first place), and all that pile of technical details which would have been spot on, and extremely relevant in 2001.

Looks like the basics will have to suffice, with the detailed technical reference text to take care of the pile of semi-obsolete details, for those inquiring minds who need to know

[olsen]

I went to ethernet a long time ago. I still have my US Robotics modem in case I ever move out in the stix again and like yourself the thought of getting that up and running is scary.

Scary is the right word. If only there was a standard set of commands to send to the modem to make it act properly, but every manufacturer seemed to have its own idea about that.

Now that's assuming you get the serial line configuration right (remember how the UARTs in the modems didn't respond to arbitrary line speeds, but only to a certain set?), and the driver you're using isn't challenged by the data transmission speed you're trying to use (why did the built-in Amiga serial hardware let you down at speeds in excess of 9600 bps?).

Considering what you had to get exactly right, it was like trying to thread a needle during a hurricane (outdoors, that is).

Major customer support issue, if there ever was one. It was inevitable that the method of connecting to the internet had to change over time to something that wasn't subject to those countless variations on the customer's side. That's why we have the ISP supply the modems, and whatnot now. Also, Ethernet is a lot easier to connect to just about anything today than the serial modem port of old ever was.

I definitely don't want to go back to the dark days And they were pretty dark before even PPP arrived. The ancient Amiga surfer package actually used SLIP to connect to the IBM network, back in 1996.