ARGVMI~1.PIFYou know you're in the future when you can see the text โ+++โ on a web page and your Internet doesn't drop out before the page finishes loading.
waffles ๐จ๐ฆI just wrote a little blog post about the time that I created a 1990s dialup ISP in my home using hardware from the late 90s.
https://peteftw.com/~pete/2026/04/recreating-a-1990s-isp.html
N-gated Hacker NewsOh look, a digital time machine! ๐ Dive into the retro world of #IRC and #XMPP because nothing screams "cutting-edge" like 1999 tech. ๐โจ But hey, who needs progress when you can embrace "the human" by dusting off your dial-up modem? ๐๐พ
https://joshblais.com/blog/using-the-internet-like-its-1999/ #digitaltimemachine #retrotech #nostalgia #dialup #HackerNews #ngated
https://joshblais.com/blog/using-the-internet-like-its-1999/ #digitaltimemachine #retrotech #nostalgia #dialup #HackerNews #ngated
Mr. GMWell, I got back to the Dreamcast dial-up project. I verified I had everything set up and did another test call from a handset to the number I configured and yep, I'm hearing modem noises.
I tried connecting from the Dreamcast and I got "NO CARRIER" multiple times, then after a few tries the text output box started speaking in tongues. I don't know enough about the USB modem I ordered to see what it's seeing, either. I'm stumped.
Ah, the #SDF #Public #Access #UNIX System, where nostalgists can relive the glory days of 1987 with *thrilling* telnet and dial-up! ๐ Don't worry, there's a "modern" web browser #SSH for those who canโt be bothered to dust off their rotary phones. ๐ Welcome to the Jurassic Park of #computing, where every connection feels like an archaeological dig! ๐ฆโจ๏ธ
https://sdf.org/?ssh #nostalgia #dialup #retro #JurassicPark #HackerNews #ngated
https://sdf.org/?ssh #nostalgia #dialup #retro #JurassicPark #HackerNews #ngated
All of that is not a knock on Alpine Linux! I'm currently running a VM with Debian and Webmin to run my Samba share. After reading some Alpine Linux documentation, I really think I could just move that Samba share to a tiny Alpine Linux VM instead and use even less resources.
It's just that Alpine Linux is apparently the wrong tool for the job for my dial-up project.
Also hey, note for those playing at home:
Enabling IP masquerading may or may not be necessary, based on my loose understanding of dial-up. If it is needed, Debian 13 uses nftables. Changing stuff in nftables involves using the "nft" command that does nothing if you aren't root or add "sudo" beforehand. I was tripped up by this until I stumbled upon a post online saying "hey use sudo first" and it suddenly worked.
Dial-up server is set up! Unfortunately, contractors are working on my kitchen floor, and the phone cable I had placed for testing runs just outside of the kitchen. I removed the cable from the conduit to be safe; even if it was a cheap cable, I'd rather have it out of their way.
Tomorrow they should be done, and at that point I'll be moving this and a few other cables back to the living room. At that point, I should be able to take my Dreamcast online!
On the homelab front: New HDDs for my NAS shipped crazy-quickly, but I was in bed when they showed up so I need to stop by a UPS store to pick them up tomorrow or the day after.
I've been eying disk shelves, but I can't justify the costs yet.
I have a USB modem coming for my server so I can bring my old Dreamcast back online, it's supposed to be here within the next week.
The downside is this old HP LSI Concorde modem I was going to use. I installed it in a spare PC and... there are no drivers auto-installed. Did some digging and apparently softmodem cards had the bare basic hardware to work and relied on their proprietary drivers. Each manufacturer did it differently so Linux driver support is spotty at best.
I did find this martian-modem driver package, but the installer doesn't work on modern kernels.