Repurpose old hardware for projects (using linux) - dial up modems

[pedro.de.marco]

Greetings. This thread might need to change to "Repurpose old hardware using linux megathread" later. Or may be we should make a section for "hardware related stuff". I found a PCI-e dial-up modem from an old PC and just removed it so the PC consumes less energy and less devices mounted , etc ... as well as the floppy drive. I doubt that any floppy has survived through many years I have opened old floppy drivers and they are not "part-rich" the way broken DVD-writers are. small magnets, nice motor, laser LED, etc and it belongs to the bin.

For those who r too young to use or remember these:
and we have the dial-up PCI-e module. it has mic and speaker jack, and 2 phone jacks. I believe that it enabled you to use your PC as a phone, when phone was connected, you could use your phone. Whether PC is on or off, electricity is coming to the PC or not.

The transformer on the module is a normal phone transformer and can be unsoldered and use for DIY projects. such as a DIY phone.

I was wondering if I can use linux, a server distro or OpenWRT to use this module to transfer analog phone data to ethernet data and then port it to a splitter.

analog phone data => dial-up module => PC processing (linux magic) => eth net => splitter/wifi router
or from PC to wifi straight.
I have seen someone recommend that you must use at least 2 devices and the ADSL modem + wifi router should not be on a same device/ OS ( Please explain why in the comments) we may be able to convert phone to wifi without even a splitter/wifi modem and only a USB wifi dongle. And even if we are made to separate the 2 devices (modem and wifi router/splitter) then we may use a virtual OS, to separate the tasks and run 2 OS on 1 machine.

The above is also being discussed in a very useful post by our fellow forum user here :

LFCS – Turning a System Into a Router

There are times you may want to set up a system to act as a go between for a network and the Internet. This ‘go between’ is a system that acts as a router and is designated as a gateway for the systems on a network. Let’s look at this in more detail. System Layout We start with a regular...

linux.org

Apart from dial-up connection, the dial-up module could be used for a person to person connection. ( it can be useful in the doomsday no-internet scenario.) I remembered that I played with my friend a game through this type of connections. I remember that where I'm located, for SMS over hard wired phone, you need to send an invoice and pay a fee, so there is some more use for the module.
I also found this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/ise3yz

So, I conclude that it can be used for some embded systems.
Where can I read more on the subject?
Are there any fun projects I can try?

 

[wizardfromoz]

Or may be we should make a section for "hardware related stuff".

There is.

It's called Linux Hardware

Moving this there.

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz

 

[bob466]

Two problems with dial-up...
1 It doesn't exist anymore.
2 If it did...where do I plug in my fibre optic cable.

Some old hardware comes in very handy...if you have a wobbly table use a floppy disk. PATA HDDs make wonderful paper weights.

 

[DexTheDog]

Two problems with dial-up...
1 It doesn't exist anymore.
2 If it did...where do I plug in my fibre optic cable.

Some old hardware comes in very handy...if you have a wobbly table use a floppy disk. PATA HDDs make wonderful paper weights.

dial up still exists in some form.

Dial-Up Internet Providers Still Exist | Find Available Options

Find, shop and compare dial-up internet providers in your area. We'll get you set up with the best dial-up prices and providers, just enter your ZIP and get started!

www.allconnect.com

 

[Deleted member 137406]

Two problems with dial-up...
1 It doesn't exist anymore.
2 If it did...where do I plug in my fibre optic cable.

Yes dial-up does still exist however it is very painful to use even when downloading plain text data.

I actually have a neighbor who uses dial-up and bout all I can say is he has the patience of Job.

The patience of Job—why is Job famous for being patient? | GotQuestions.org

The patience of Job—why is Job famous for being patient? wouldn’t 'endurance of Job' be more accurate?

www.gotquestions.org

Not everyone has fiber optic available in their area.
Some areas only have DSL available on a POTS copper wire telephone system.

 

[bob466]

Well after some research it seems some people still have dial-up and I'll feel sorry for them.

I've been using computers for over 20 years and have never had dial-up and wasn't an option...with cable I was lucky to get 4MB to 6MB download speed back then...I would hate 56kbps.

I downloaded Linux Mint Cinnamon 20.3...2.3GB...took 2mins 49 sec with 100MB download speed...with dial-up that would be impossible. We've been waiting a long time for fiber...it's fast but we get drop-outs too.

 

[Sappho]

As someone who used dial-up up until around the late 2000's, I can not even imagine switching back to dial-up now.

I bet that you could come up with some cool phreaking projects, for personal research and educational purposes of course.

 

[bob466]

As someone who used dial-up up until around the late 2000's, I can not even imagine switching back to dial-up now.

I bet that you could come up with some cool phreaking projects, for personal research and educational purposes of course.

If dial-up was an option...I don't have a phone that I could use...how do you plug a smartphone in to the modem.

I still have a 20GB PATA HDD the one you set master and slave on...which is useless now because my Motherboard is SATA. For me the past is best forgotten just like windwoes.

 

[Sappho]

If dial-up was an option...I don't have a phone that I could use...how do you plug a smartphone in to the modem.

I still have a 20GB PATA HDD the one you set master and slave on...which is useless now because my Motherboard is SATA. For me the past is best forgotten just like windwoes.

To be fair, sometimes I do feel nostalgic about Windows 95 / 98 (our family computer would run XP, but I was allowed to have the old family computer that ran Windows 95 in my room).

In retrospective, I really enjoyed the UI / UX and the general feel of Windows 95 over Windows 98, my objective view is that Windows XP is when Windows UI / UX peaked and it only went down from there (Vista, cough ...), but from a personal stand-point, Windows 95 is still my favorite.

I should really try the Chicago 98 for XFCE project sometime, maybe on my old 300 MHz computer.

 

[bob466]

In 2003 I was given a Packard Tower that came with windwoes 98 for the sole purpose of pulling it apart and putting it back together...as I wanted to learn how to build my own computer...which I did in 2013.

It came with a CD burner...Floppy Disk Drive...USB 1 port...Serial Port...Printer Port...PATA HDD with those blue ribbon cables and a CRT Monitor Port. I was also given a CRT Monitor because I couldn't plug this Tower in to my LED Monitor and had no way of knowing if it worked when I put it back together.

Of cause This computer and all it's parts are completely useless today...except for a few screws.

 

[Sappho]

In 2003 I was given a Packard Tower that came with windwoes 98 for the sole purpose of pulling it apart and putting it back together...as I wanted to learn how to build my own computer...which I did in 2013.

It came with a CD burner...Floppy Disk Drive...USB 1 port...Serial Port...Printer Port...PATA HDD with those blue ribbon cables and a CRT Monitor Port. I was also given a CRT Monitor because I couldn't plug this Tower in to my LED Monitor and had no way of knowing if it worked when I put it back together.

Of cause This computer and all it's parts are completely useless today...except for a few screws.

That sounds like quite the fun project, I never dared to open, let alone try to disassemble my first computer because I was afraid that I would break it or something, and I did not want to break it because it was my computer, hehe.

I do not remember all of the parts of my first computer, it is stored somewhere but I do not remember where, I just recall that it had a Pentium II processor, and a Riva TNT graphics card, although the Riva was an after-market (after-build to be more specific) upgrade because some games would not run very well with the old video card in it.

 

[Deleted member 137406]

Yeah dial-up internet nowadays really sucks but back in the olden days dial-up was cool because not many could afford a computer.

With dial-up back in the day those who could afford to own a PC could communicate to other PC users and that was new and cool to do.

I remember using the old PDA's at my job and sending data over the dial-up POTS copper wire system.

Depending on the amount of pictures and data sent it took quite a bit of time to do not to mention the interruption if someone called.

 

[bob466]

Yeah dial-up internet nowadays really sucks but back in the olden days dial-up was cool because not many could afford a computer.

Many years ago dial-up was the only option everywhere but I'm glad times change...of cause not everyone can afford a computer today either...which is sad as everything is done on computers now.

 

[kc1di]

Ah, The old Dial up days how did we do it Life seemed a little slower in those days. Until a few years ago still had a dial up modem sitting around somewhere Just in case I guess. But now have cable. many towns around us now have Fiber but being a small town on the outskirts will most likely be several years before it is available here. Still I get 100mb/sec downloads which seems very fast after using dial up . Can't imagine what the 1TB downloads must be on fiber at least that's what's being advertised here. But I don't need it so much I am willing to move into the city to get it.

I've use old hardware many times and rebuilt many machine from scrap parts (junk box stuff) In fact at one point here we had a club that would collect old computer and anyone in the club could donate or take which ever part might be needed to make a system for them selves or some else. That worked well for many but has sort of died out now. Blame it on the pandemic I guess. In any event there was a mountain of old dial up modems in the pile and no one has taken any in recent memory.
In fact sometimes very good older machines where donated smilpy because they could not run Windows latest version well or at all and all that was needed was to put a good Linux on them and they were good to go for many years. And many a young computer enthusiast in the area were the recipient of such a machine. That's a good way to get young people into Linux by the way. Anyway enough of the nostalgia, will shut up now.

 

[Deleted member 137406]

Yeah dial-up internet nowadays really sucks but back in the olden days dial-up was cool because not many could afford a computer.

With dial-up back in the day those who could afford to own a PC could communicate to other PC users and that was new and cool to do.

Many years ago dial-up was the only option everywhere but I'm glad times change...of cause not everyone can afford a computer today either...which is sad as everything is done on computers now.

Agreed however even though I can afford a new computer I still prefer the older discarded computers that others toss after a few years.

Reason I prefer the older computers is Linux supports most of the older computer hardware OOTB without hassles.

 

[ML_113]

Agreed however even though I can afford a new computer I still prefer the older discarded computers that others toss after a few years.

Reason I prefer the older computers is Linux supports most of the older computer hardware OOTB without hassles.

The same here.

My Acer C720 Chromebook, which my wife used only to talk to our grand son, is on strike.
Its ChromeOS version is too old (76).
Yesterday I struggled to put Linux on it - I ended up with Fossapup and Google-Chrome 105.
Success, but at the end of the day I was so tired that I don't remember much of what I did.

 

[Deleted member 137406]

Yesterday I struggled to put Linux on it - I ended up with Fossapup and Google-Chrome 105.
Success, but at the end of the day I was so tired that I don't remember much of what I did.

Yeah installing Linux on a Chrome Book can sometimes be a real chore aka PITA.

I helped a friend of mine install Linux on a Chrome Book awhile back and when finished we had a few shots of Whiskey so yup I can relate.

They do have some good online tutorials about installing Linux on Chrome Books.

 

[Deleted member 137406]

Ah, The old Dial up days how did we do it Life seemed a little slower in those days. Until a few years ago still had a dial up modem sitting around somewhere Just in case I guess. But now have cable. many towns around us now have Fiber but being a small town on the outskirts will most likely be several years before it is available here. Still I get 100mb/sec downloads which seems very fast after using dial up . Can't imagine what the 1TB downloads must be on fiber at least that's what's being advertised here. But I don't need it so much I am willing to move into the city to get it.

Dial up how we did it hell man it's all we knew back in the day.

I have fiber internet and it's blazing fast I mean I can download 2.5 GB Linux distro iso in seconds, Windows updates / upgrades in seconds.

Fiber internet don't cost no more than POTS copper wire DSL internet cost.

I've use old hardware many times and rebuilt many machine from scrap parts (junk box stuff)

I've got a shelf full of working computers that are considered by some as useless but make excellent Linux computers.

I create Frankenstein builds using junk box spare parts no two parts match another kinda like a bastard set of tools from here and there.

In fact sometimes very good older machines where donated smilpy because they could not run Windows latest version well or at all and all that was needed was to put a good Linux on them and they were good to go for many years.

Exactly! It's alive! It lives again.

Anyway enough of the nostalgia, will shut up now.

The good old days of home user computers were a lot of fun.

I use to over clock by the fly / seat of your pants / trial by error and or part failure.

 

[pedro.de.marco]

There is.

It's called Linux Hardware

Moving this there.

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz

I'm feeling embarrassed bc every time by not knowing the structure of forums, or not searching it properly, I don't post in the right section. I was looking for "hardware related stuff" thank you for the transfer and excuse me.

 

[wizardfromoz]

Keep on exploring, Pedro, or if you can't find something, ask at Forum Assistance.

@bob466 - Bob, on dialup, just to give you an example. We have a lady Member who lives in the woods in Virginia, USA, close to one of the country's most important radio telescopes. As a consequence, they are not even allowed ADSL. She has to travel to a different valley to her girlfriend's house to use ADSL.

We are not doing so bad.

Cheers

Wizard