Hello, I'm trying get my very very old PC to connect the internet,

Here are the specs;
"Supports the new Win95"
"Two serial ports!"
"1600 MB HDD"
"133 mhz processor"
"dialup modem"

as you might guess no ethernet and no usb.

I need to connect this PC to my existing dsl, so I need some kind of data bridge between them.

First thing comes to my mind is a serial connection and sending tcp packages over serial. But I know nothing about serial connections, so I'm not sure if this a good idea or not.
I'm not sure about what kind of cable do I need, Are there differences between serial cables? Will any 9pin serial cable will work?

I'm also thinking about using the existing dialup modem. Idea is buying a ethernet card to my real PC, connecting them with a phone cable. Setting up my real PC as the server and the old pc as client.

Are these are possible? How hard are they to accomplish?


To be honest I'm thinking about doing both of them for learning purpose. I highly doubt I will get a chance to work with serial ports and dial-up modems again in future, and I want to make the most of this opportunity.

My main pc is currently arch but I'm also comfortable with slack and fedora
and puppy linux on the old PC.

If the computer is a laptop, check to see if it has PC card slots. If it does, look for something along the lines of a 10/100 Ethernet card or a USB card, the latter being more useful.

Alternatively you could connect the computer's serial port to another computer's serial port and write a software solution that uses the second computer as a giant cable adapter, but that would be pretty hard

Old computers are a lot of fun to get working with Linux, but always be wary of old hard-drives. They tend to work for a little while and then fail miserably, even if the computer has been dormant for a decade.

Regards, William

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thanks for the info, but its not a laptop

There are two types of serial cables, straight and NULL MODEM. You need a NULL MOEM cable to connect two PCs together. Here is a howto on configuring PPP.

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/PPP-HOWTO/index.html

Directly connecting two dial up MODEMS is a bit more complicated since you need a phone line simulator of some type.
http://www.jagshouse.com/modem.html

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If you have ISA slots, you should be able to find a supported ethernet card VERY cheap.

The nullmodem trick can work (I have done it, last century) but I think that you might be less than impressed with the performance and reliability.

If you can find an old 3com isa that may be the most easy route really. You have try to find irq settings and even some disto's don't support isa anymore.

There used to be a way to use serial ports and I guess still is. It is like slip or something like that.

If you have a newish uart chip you may be able to get it sort of working faster than dial up.

Personally, I'd use vnc or 2x or freenx to some faster system.

They do make a serial to IP adapter but we only use it on a real odd system, I haven't tied to get it to work as a a regular type if tcp/ip connection.

The system is really so old it would take more time to get it working than it is worth. Recycle it.

Nods with the last two (2) posts.
Best solution would be to install a network card (ISA if appropriate) and work from there.
A 133MHz CPU is a push that severely limits the Linux Distro that you could support.
You could try building a Red Hat 4x or 5x system, or an 8.0 system (no Xwindows environment - just command console) to achieve your goal; I used to do that with Pentium 200MMX class systems. Of course using an older distro in turn limits the number of supported network cards, etc.

If the PC can handle the upgrade you might consider upgrading the CPU to at least a Pentium 200MMX and install the Max supported memory to give yourself a better fighting chance of success.

Before I am flamed. Yes Red Hat 4x, 5x, 7c, 8.0 and 9, etc are all unsupported, obsolete, and have www security issues. However, they do actually work. You might also consider trying and early incarnation of Slackware.

There were a number of Linux Howto documents out there describing how to setup SLIPP connections which might be of interest (Look for them in Google).

I am curious though. Are you planning to enjoy the technical challenge of getting this up and running ? Because PCs are cheap, and a higher specification machine would give you a better starting point for a practical solution to your needs.

Regards

C.

1.6GB of HDD is, err, small. I have more RAM than that.

Your slots will be something old (not PCI) so you may have to go to the (recycling) dump to find a network card. Maybe get two, then you could use it as a firewall.

You are going to need a very small distro: DSL or Puppy linux come to mind.
Forget about a GUI, it'll be CLI only, but still could be a lot of fun.

Good luck.

Other things that are slow are RS-232 serial interface connections... that might put you off, or it might not

No. Flow control is a pain, and rx/tx can be crossed over, or not. In principle you might be able to find a manual for each end, and work out from the manuals how to configure each and and work things out in theory... but for products of this age, my bet is this ain't going to happen, and you'll have to take the other approach.

(Roughly, no RS-232 cable that you can buy will work. That's a bit of an exaggeration, but its close enough. Given that there are combinations at each end, plus the male female connector issue, plus the crossover issue, so you'd be really lucky...In principle, the male/female and crossover issue ought to be a single issue, but the spec and/or terminology is sufficiently confusing, that most of the time one end, or the other, or both, take a 'variant' interpretation which makes them effectively separate issues.)

Back in the day, everyone who played with RS 232 would have a breakout box (or, in more advanced cases, two), and this made things easier.

You don't say what you will connect to, and that has to be RS 232, too, for this to work.

Ethernet could be used, but only to connect to ethernet (even if the connectors look superficially slightly similar) and a modem only to a modem. Ethernet-to-modem phone line connection won't work.



While it is hard to be negative about learning, bear in mind that in learning about dial-up and RS 232 you'll be learning stuff that you hope that you'll never need again.

Well, that is small by today's standards (maybe, minute is a better word), but back in the day i have used a smaller disk than that for triple boot...

Also, bear in mind that you can probably buy (or, be given) a PC with built-in ethernet, a better processor (say, 450 Mhz, or something) more RAM and a bigger hard disk (hey, and then you can put two minute disks in the one case of the better PC!) for not much more than the cost of a serial cable, so you have to be clear about your motivation for this. In general, if you have ethernet on the PC, there is going to be much more point in getting it going.