SerialPort

Early Release! Configuring RADIUS for our dial-up ISP

The ISP series is BACK! We've made some progress since our last update, and in this episode, we take a look at RADIUS and get it set up on the Portmaster to enable user access control.

We've also setup a web portal that will allow our Patrons to access and monitor RADIUS activity, and we've included the ability to create new users for ISP access. We'll be following up shortly with another post detailing how to access.

Clabretro Early Release: Multi-line dialup for a homelab

Clabretro is back to expand the dialup in his homelab! He takes a look at Cisco voice interface cards and tests it all with an ancient Hayes modem AND a Sega Dreamcast.

Clabretro early release: Windows 95 Server Based Setup

Clabretro is back and he takes a look at an interesting Windows 95 feature that allowed it to act as a "server" that could remotely boot clients into Win95 over the network with just a floppy disk. As you can imagine, it wouldn't be a Clabretro video if it were easy, and he takes us deep into the Win95 weeds trying to get it to work.

Bringing Archie Online - Video

We have completed the second video about Archie, where we finally find a copy of the software. After many hours of work, we got it working and show some of the learnings and challenges in getting it working.

Clabretro Early Access: Cisco GigaStack Cluster

Clabretro is back with a project to build a Cisco GigaStack cluster! There's an in-depth look at how the GigaStack modules are used, and a look at Cisco's management software that includes some surprisingly nice (and functional!) pixel art.

Archie is online

Over the past few weeks, our journey with Archie, the pre-web internet search engine, has been both educational and challenging. As we revived and set up Archie from a beta release, we encountered several hurdles inherent to working with legacy code - complete with its fair share of bugs and glitches.

One significant technical challenge we navigated was how Archie interacts with FTP servers. Historically, Archie uses FTP in "active" mode. This mode requires the server to connect back t...

Clabretro Early Access: PCMCIA cards in Linksys routers

The Linksys Tower of Power is back! Clabretro takes a look at some PCMCIA cards hiding in select Linksys routers. Super fascinating look into how these early routers were designed.

Clabretro Early Access: Talking with Doug Boom about Intel Express

Clabretro is back with an interview featuring Doug Boom, an engineer from Intel. Boom worked on the Intel Express line of hubs and switches. The talk is full of interesting history about ethernet and Intel, and plenty of show-and-tell. If you enjoyed Clab's previous video on stackable Intel gear, you don't want to miss this one!

Publishing web pages at VCF East 2024

We put together a short vlog and recap of our experience at VCF East 2024. Thanks to everyone that came by our exhibit, and a warm welcome to those new to the channel! Hopefully we'll have a chance to attend more in-person events in the future as it was great to finally put faces to names.

Clabretro Early Access! Owning Computer Stores in the '90s

Clabretro is back with a long form interview with none other than Clabretro Sr (aka Brad Ausen)! He owned several computer stores as well as wholesale warehouses during the 90s into the 00s. Now mostly a relic of the past, locally-owned computer stores are such a huge part of our memories here at the Serial Port, as well as for many others who were lucky enough to experience that time period. This is a super fascinating and in-depth look into what it took to run a retail operation during this...

Early Access with our Clabretro Collab!

We've teamed up with our friend Clabretro who has graciously offered to allow our Patreon members early access to his videos-- and vice versa! We're still working out all the details, and hopefully there will be more to come from this partnership!

For now, enjoy this early access look into Intel stackable networking gear from the 90s. Bring a dust mask.

Early Access! The story of Archie, the first search engine

In the first installment of this two-part series, we explore what was termed the "resource discovery problem" of the early Internet and speak to the inventor of the world's first search engine called Archie.

Part two will feature our epic quest to locate the original Archie software, and our attempt at bringing the search pioneer back to life on the modern Internet.

Monthly update - 02/2024

We recently finished up interviews for our "Archie" video which is now in production. It's been an amazing journey through pre-WWW Internet history. The video isn't just a look back at that time period though, as we're working on a project that will be one-of-a-kind for the Internet today.

Our VCF East exhibit has been planned out as well, and we'll be working on that in the coming weeks. It will feature a Cobalt RaQ hosting a set of hand-picked GeoCities websites, as well as a period-c...

Meeting Doug Karl

Doug Karl was the one who initially prompted our interest in the Apple Airport story, and as luck would have it, he was visiting family near the Serial Port HQ this past weekend.

We met for lunch, and Doug brought along several of his creations from his KarlNet days. The first was a version of the KarlBridge that used the first commercially-available flash memory devices.  The second is the wireless version that could be used with outdoor applications. At one point, Ohio State Univ...

Early access: PC's Limited 286

We've finished the next video which will be going live on The Serial Port Youtube channel.  

In this video, we perform a full hardware restoration and then test out the modem by dialing up to a BBS.

Here it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wgiQDmeFQU

Restoring a PC's Limited 286

We recently bought a PC's Limited 286 computer.  PC's Limited was the brand name of Michael Dell's computer company before he went all-in with the Dell name.

We've completed a full hardware restoration, which will be going public soon on our new "side channel" on Youtube.  We created a 2nd channel called The Parallel Port for posting long and raw content that won't be going on The Serial Port Youtube channel

2024-02-04 03:41:26 +0000 UTC View Post

January 2024 Update Post

Here's a quick update on what's been happening at The Serial Port!

Our video on the Apple Airport was published earlier this month, the idea came to us from Doug Karl who delivered the software for the initial Airport product.  We'll actually be meeting up with Doug Karl in a few weeks and will be discussing some other video ideas related to his work in the 1990s with networking.

equipment haul:  We added a Cisco 7200 VXR router and a Juniper M7i to...

THE LEAP OF FAITH: Wifi and the Apple Airport

Early access for Patrons!  After months of work, the video has been finished and you can watch it now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9bqltXB6AQ

We wanted to try having a live Q&A chat to discuss the video and share some "behind the scenes" content.  We are going to try doing that on Discord for Patrons tomorrow, right after the video goes public on Youtube:

Jan 13 8:30pm US e...

Apple Airport testing

Hello everyone and happy new year!  

We are currently working on a video about the Apple Airport.  We weren't at all familiar with this device until recently, but it was quite innovative.  From what we have learned, it was basically the first wireless access point or router in the consumer market.  Here's a video of us testing it today:

https://youtu.be/-g2jzZePZIU

So, this led us into l...

Happy New Year - A look behind, and forward

We wanted to tell everyone Happy New Year and send out a big THANK YOU to all of our supporters that have helped this channel and community grow over the past year. We started our channel in January 2023 with a simple video of a Compaq DeskPro booting up. And now the channel has just over 40,000 subscribers with over 1.35 million video views. We can't thank everyone enough for all the comments, feedback, and for sharing your passion with us.

Looking ahead to 2024, we've got several proj...

ISP Update

Quick Update:  You can dial in now to help test the ISP:

Dialin number:   +1 252 210 4004

Username:  testuser

Password:  testpass

Longer Update:

After finishing the terminal server reviews, we thought smooth sailing was ahead for our 1990s dialup ISP using the Livingston Portmaster.  We actually hit a few bumps in the road:

VoIP was problematic at our primary office location due to particularly...

Upcoming Christmas Live Stream

Hello, everyone!  We are planning a Christmas-themed live stream.  This will be a public event on Youtube but we wanted to share the details with our Patreon community first.

When:  December 23,  2pm US eastern [19:00 UTC]

We'll be playing around with retro PCs, showing some other equipment that hasn't been featured in a video yet, showing some ISP tech, and taking questions. 

2023-12-08 20:41:27 +0000 UTC View Post

ISP Update

It's getting really real now! In this video we share a quick update of our progress with the ISP, and we're closer than ever to accepting real dial-in users. Thank you as always for your support!

EARLY ACCESS! Is our ISP ready for beta testing? ISP Series Episode 5

We finish out our terminal server showdown with our last two entries: the Cyclades TS2000 and Livingston Portmaster 2E. They couldn't be more different, but both prove to be impressive in their own rights.

And with the conclusion of the showdown, does that mean the ISP is ready for beta testing?

IBM Terminal Server

We noticed that IBM also had their own terminal server in the mid-1990s, and we found one to test out.  This probably won't be going into the ISP series but thought it would be neat to take a quick look.  Inside, we find its not IBM at all...

EARLY ACCESS! Terminal Server Showdown, Pt. 1. ISP Series Episode 4

Time to get started on our comprehensive showdown of terminal servers in this two-part special!

We first take a look at the history as well as the theory and operation of terminal servers. We also hear from one of the original creators of the point-to-point protocol (PPP), Brian Lloyd. Finally, we go down the rabbit hole of getting two of the terminal servers configured and setup for the ISP.

We're already hard at work on part 2, so stay tuned!

Telephony and Voicemail

We decided to take advantage of the Packard Bell's voicemail feature.  In 1997, there's no need to buy a $40 answering machine when instead you can buy a $2500 Packard Bell Platinum 2220 multimedia PC!.  We're going to include a phone number in a future Youtube video to let people call in and leave voicemail messages.. we'll see how this works out

You can call now if you...

More Modems

Getting ready to wire up more modems!  Terminal servers with RJ45 serial ports make the cabling very simple in some ways, but having to make RJ45 to DB25 connectors isn't the most fun thing to do

VCFMW recap

I [Mark] attended the Vintage Computer Festival Midwest event earlier this month, outside of Chicago.  It was the first event like this I attended, and very amazing to see how many vintage computers were setup all in one place for a weekend event.

We were honored to be invited to sit on the Youtube panel discussion, so I got to hang out there.  It was a pleasure to attend and meet a few subscribers, although we don't yet have much street cred in the retro computing world.

Xylogics microAnnex XL

We're hard at work on the next episode in the ISP series. Here's a sneak peek at one of the terminal servers we'll be looking at: the Xylogics microAnnex XL. We think this was originally released in 1993, with a fully configured MSRP of $3600.

We did not expect to see an Intel PGA chip when taking the cover off! Turns out it is a coprocessor designed specifically for the 10BASE* interfaces of that era. Datasheet here: 2023-09-24 14:28:53 +0000 UTC View Post