My experience page!
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Stories!
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Little guy goes on-line!For a long time I wanted to set up my own Dial-Up ISP. Connecting old hardware to internet is such a cool thing to experience, how this beige box of bolts and wires just connects and BOOM you can chat and browse net.
This is what i wanted to do with my Pocket 386, this is not just a pocket gaming machine, it supposed to be like a proper early 90s gear. So, I went on a shopping spree. What i needed is: Two modems(one USR one and one USB one), cables of course and ATA. I had ATA at my home from my previous attempt to make a Dial-Up ISP. Half of the job done am i right? *Foreshadowing* So i went and found two modems for cheap, and suprising thing was that they actually worked, not without hiccups of course. The first one is Diamond SupraMax 56k USB modem. It is early 2000s one with cool transparent case, it is software modem as i understand because without drivers it can't work, we will come back to it. And second one is USRobotics Sportster Flash 56k. Both modems cost me 5 euros each, shipped. Not a big price for hunks of 25+ year old hardware. Although... There was a problem... The ATA... So i used the Cathode Ray Dude guide to set up my own Dial-Up ISP, and i had a problem. The guide said that only SPA2101, PAP2T etc. can be used for that, but i have SPA3102, which is not on the list. Of course i don't know what big difference between them, so i go to ChatGPT and ask him is it okay that i have a different ATA and that it is not in the list, even provided him the link to the guide and he said "yeah yeah dude chill chill it will work"... It did not... The problem? SPA3102 has 1 FXS line, which is just a plain phone line that provides dial tone and expects a phone or modem to be plugged into it, and next one is FXO line, which expects the line from TELCO to be plugged into it. I need 2 FXS lines to be able to dial one to another, and here i have one phone line and other is just line in. You can imagine how upset i was. Here i am, with modems, with dial in server, with ATA and all the cables and my Pocket 386 just can't reach Dial-In server... All because FXO line doesn't have dial tone and can't call, it expects line from the telco. Yeah, i fucked up big time. As upset as i am, i wrap up all the things i had and put it aside, i have all the bait in the world but no fish in my pond. In few days i was searching a facebook marketplace equivalent in my country and found a PAP2T for a reasonable price! And i bought it! Took some time to arrive but 2 minutes of configuring and IT IS ONLINE! YES I did it! After so many years of dreaming about it i did it, on real hardware. Yes browsing web even with Protoweb Proxy is hard for little 386 with 8mb of memory, but you know? I like it. Makes you sit down and wait, see how each photo is being downloaded and shown on your screen. Something magical about all that, i don't know what tho haha. This took about 2 weeks, maybe more, but i am happy that this little thing can go online, i sat and browse old websites reading articles about dreamcast that i want to own(and go online with haha). MIRC, AOL, AIM, MSNmsg, IE2 and more and more. Little by little i will accomplish big things and making my own Dial-Up ISP is one of them! Thank you for reading! |
