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Musings: anyone created a null modem to WiFi adapter?
Posted by: adespoton on 2025-02-17 11:56:51
I've been thinking that these days, with various RPi and Arduino boards available with both WiFi and GPIO on-board, has anyone bothered to make a null modem device that would act as an Internet gateway for old computers (eg, the all-in-ones) that connects the modem port to some GPIO pins, enables connecting via PPP or ZTerm to the GPIO device, which then acts as a network gateway, providing access to the board's Ethernet and/or WiFi network interfaces?

Seems this should be relatively simple to do, and yet I haven't heard of anyone doing it. A slightly trickier solution would be to set up an entire POTS interface on the GPIO device such that old machines with a telephone modem could "call up" the device, connect and treat it like an ISP (or even a locally hosted BBS, for that matter).

Thoughts?
Posted by: Skate323k137 on 2025-02-17 13:04:55
I'm a big fan of the Wimodem232, but I'm not 100% sure that's what you're after here. I've used them with the serial ports of Macs, Amigas, and other computers to access BBSes etc.
Posted by: eharmon on 2025-02-17 14:56:41
There's also kits to replace standard modem guts with the same (no endorsement here and I haven't tried this one, but it's a clean example): https://www.tindie.com/products/retromodem/wifi-retromodem-for-hayes-smartmodem/

I think both those types of products do what you're suggesting. They provide a serial interface where you can use standard AT commands to "dial" IP addresses. I believe you can use PPP to tunnel that to provide general internet access as well. Should work with any serial port.
Posted by: adespoton on 2025-02-17 16:07:16
There's also kits to replace standard modem guts with the same (no endorsement here and I haven't tried this one, but it's a clean example): https://www.tindie.com/products/retromodem/wifi-retromodem-for-hayes-smartmodem/

I think both those types of products do what you're suggesting. They provide a serial interface where you can use standard AT commands to "dial" IP addresses. I believe you can use PPP to tunnel that to provide general internet access as well. Should work with any serial port.
Seems like exactly what I'm looking for! Thanks!
Posted by: Skate323k137 on 2025-02-17 17:09:46
Enjoy, they are super fun 😀

The 'retrocampus' bbs (bbs.retrocampus.com) offers a wide selection of terminal modes, highly recommended to try it out when you get up and running. It will load in a browser, but it has a bunch of telnet ports associated with the terminal modes available as well.
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