I've got a good bit of old hardware that's only able to connect to the internet via a dialup connection, and as you can imagine, I'd like to fix that. One such piece of equipment is my recently purchased Sega Dreamcast. So what I'm looking to do is cable the dreamcast directly to my desktop via a phonecord, and have the desktop act as a server which the dreamcast can then dail into and have access to my regular internet. Even if I had to perform at Dial-up speeds, I still think this would be a valuable piece of knowledge to have, and would really appreciate some input as to how to go about doing this. If you know of a program or proceedure that would allow for this, please let me know.
Dial modems cannot "direct connect" to other modems without circuitry in between. You would need at least a telephone line simulator to provide battery voltages and ringtone. Although the AT command set can be issued to the modems to manually dial and pick up, there are voltages and signaling between the devices that are required in order for them to operate. As for software, Windows (server versions only?) have dial-up server software, and tehre is some open source stuff for Linux, but you still have the hardware issues to overcome.
I have an in-active phone line here at the house that still has a full voltage read-out (according to my multimeter). Is there no way I could use that, and perhaps stick some sort of line simulator in the closet and let that address my hardware needs?
Copied from another forum verbatim because it pretty much says it all. " . . . .modems are designed to connect to a telephone line and need signals such as dial tone and other call progress signals to work. The modem cannot generate ring voltage or dial tone for the other modem. . . . . " A dry pair with battery (what you have) will no do it either. Line simulator or two active dial lines is what you need. If you're going to use a line simulator you can use any dry phone line. You wouldn't want to use a "wet loop" (phone line with voltage on it) with a line simulator. Do it-yourself http://veryuseful.info/linesim/ Over the counter http://www.hookedontronics.com/show_product_details.jsp?cid=150608&c=0907Froogle&b=Viking_DLE-200B
I owe you a good deal of thanks, dailun. Here I've been looking for a good project to put my soldering iron to, and you've managed to both address my dial-up issue and provide me with a project in one smooth pass. I'll start going around to radio shack and other various stores to gather all of my componants and a project box. Assuming the threads not closed when I finish constructing it, I might just post pictures of the finished thing. Thanks again.
