LGR - The WiFi232 Wireless Serial Modem

My first modem was a 2400 baud modem too. :)

Zabe

Oh man, this hit me right in the nostalgia feels. Please do more episodes like this

My man. I've been waiting for the BBS experience to get some love, and leave it to you to nail the feeling. Waiting MEANT something then. Every megabyte counted, and so much as a strong breeze late at night could mean the difference between a wonderfully adventurous morning and computational disappointment. The first time I saw Crystal Caves was on a BBS, and I got my copy of the original Doom demo before the servers crashed. Yeah, the critics were right about one thing. In THAT version, the monsters did eat your body if you were killed; and you got to watch. :) Hehe. That doesn't even take into account the MUDs, conversations, and other things. People had to get creative to make the spaces entertaining.

Paul

what the heck is Penis Wars? :D

László Viktor Lajos

Until then, I'd highly recommend BBS: The Documentary by Jason Scott. It's awesome.

LGR

So colorful!

LGR

The '90s were fun like that

LGR

It will be linked to in the video description once it goes live, this is just an early draft you're seeing on Patreon as always. Here's the site though! <a href="http://biosrhythm.com/?page_id=1453" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://biosrhythm.com/?page_id=1453</a>

LGR

Did you happen to link to his website/waitlist somewhere?

Chad Keck

awesome! I used to connect to BBS'es a lot back in the day before we got internet ..always had to make sure i turned off call-waiting first so i wouldnt get booted offline .. heh.. and yay LORD! I used to play that a ton .. never got really into Trade Wars though

Evan B

Holy butts you have a lot of ports on that PC.

JennaKay

Great video !! my first modem was 56Kb .

I had access to the internet with a 14400 baud modem before I even knew BBSes were a thing, so when a friend of mine introduced me to a BBS back in the mid 90s I gave it a try, but got bored of it relatively quickly because it felt very limited compared to how the internet worked. Although using BBSes helped me understand terminal software, as I would often use terminal programs to share files or chat with friends through direct connections. :)

Kris Asick

Love those OSH Park PCBs :D

avfusion

Oh man, I'm feeling an extreme want of a BBS tech tales!

SammyToesis

hahaha wow that is a beast of a modem

floverSaeu09

I came real late to the idea of BBS's (mainly as a brief diversion before getting an internet account), so there's not necessarily the strong connection to 'em. But damn, it is a marvel of tech these days for this to be a thing though :)

Rob Caporetto

I remember when mp3's used to come out and it'd take like a day to download a single song. And then there were those like viral wav's and mp3s with Kermit getting stoned and stuff. Those were the days, bbs's and being aol edge lord at like 11 years old.

Justin Dotson

Man, now I want pancakes !

Jos van Doesburg

These are great! I got one a few weeks back. It sounds like he's definitely planning on making some more, so hopefully this video will spur enough pre-ordering that he can do them in bulk in the future.

Foone Turing

Good stuff as always! Have been looking at the Wifi232 for some time, but never got around to purchase one. At least have signed up on his notification list now, hope he does another run soon. First modem I used was a Supra Modem 2400 on my C64 back in the glorious 80s. Ah, the lovely phone bills I used to get.. good old times. Managed to get my C64 online with the same modem last year, by installing Asterisk on a machine together with a PCI Asterisk card, so I could dial out using VOIP and have a genuine BBS experience. Accept no short cuts to the real OG experience :)

Micael Ebbmar

Oh man, that brings back some memories. My first modem was 19.6k, and that was such a magical step into the cyberspace, connecting to my first BBS. Really looking forward now to your BBS video.

Jade_of_Arc

Awesome Tech. Very enjoyable to watch. I came into the PC scene just after AOL took over, so I have almost no experience with BBS Boards or anything. Still, this is something very unique, and I can see a number of different uses for a device like this. I'm very fond of Heroes of Might and Magic 2 for DOS, and this looks like it could make it possible to play some non hot seat multiplayer games again. I'll be keeping an eye out for this to be back in stock.

Zem Hysong

its good to know that we can restore old tech

This was amazing.. I'm a little embarrassed to admit I never knew of BBS's. Born 92' Hangin' for the video on it.

I downloaded quite a few Apogee games while playing around with this, really took me back :)

LGR

Right?? It's such a neat little solution to a problem no one has, but I love it for that

LGR

I hope he makes more so that you can! I'd really like another one myself

LGR

That's awesome. I was reading some articles while making this video talking about the "impending frenzy" when 2400 baud modems would finally come down to under $1,000. What a time :)

LGR

Yeah, that Apple II BBS is all kinds of neat, it only popped up recently due to this WiFi232 device! Love seeing old hardware used again like that :)

LGR

I hope he makes more so you can grab one, you've got a ton of machines this'll be fun to use with! And I use a Startech VGA2HDMIPRO V1 to capture my older PCs using VGA, and that takes practically any funky resolution and upscales it nicely to 1080p60. There's also a V2 model, but it doesn't work with sub-640x480 resolution well. That upscaled signal then goes directly into my HDMI capture card, an Avermedia Game Broadcaster HD.

LGR

Thanks, I look forward to making it!

LGR

Neat device! Might need to get one of those myself. So, if you don't mind me asking.. how do you capture video from your woodgrain 486? I assume it outputs VGA so are you using one of those fancy capture devices? If so, which model? I've been researching various ones for a while and can't make up my mind.

The 8-Bit Guy

Cool video! Really looking forward to your BBS video!

Timo Schmidt

Never had this experience unfortunately. Those BBS' look awesome, literally predecessors to modern forums. It's so cool to see the ESP8266 pop up on this channel by the way, since it's so popular with electronic hobbyists. :) Heh, out of curiosity I just connected with Telnet on my modern MacBook to a Apple II in Germany called "A 80’s Apple II BBS" and what do you know, they use the WiFi232 as well! Here's the message :) Sub -&gt;WiFi232 and Apple Com Card - VisiTerm From -&gt;Apple II Date -&gt;06/04/80 00:00:07 ET I connected successfull the WiFi232 to the Apple Communication Card on a Apple II+ with 300 baud. Made a fine connection with VisiTerm and ASCII Express to A 80's Apple II BBS. Therefor that VisiTerm only accepts the Hayes Micromodem II and the Apple Com Card the WiFi232 makes a great job!

My first modem was a lowly 1200 baud modem that I paid $400 AUD for back in 1988. I used it on my Laser 128 Apple //e clone and it was awesome.

Bryndal Dwyre

SupaCOOL!

Any idea if it can accept incoming "calls" ? - I'm curious if I can get my Apple II BBS set up again.

Lon Seidman

That's it, I'm getting one. No, I'm getting two actually.

Øyvind Hvidsten

Awesome that you posted this, was thinking about getting one.

Lon Seidman

That is seriously the coolest freakin thing I've seen in a long time.

Ant Field

Arrrhhh - the BBS's - Good old days. I remember using my dads 14.4k modem to dial up to a BBS and downloading Shareware games from Apogee and similar. This sounds like a pretty nice device to own.

Martin Ravensholt