I am new to posting,and not too experienced with linux but i have an old
intel express 8100 isdn router and wondered if i was possible to turn it into
a fire wall /router for a dial up connection or dsl.it has 4MB flash rom and 1MB dram onboard.also it seems to have the necessary hardware for telephone connections(switch,pulse dial type stuff)
now i know this may be way out there but,i thought it would be a good challenge,just want some opinions on the viability of it.
lonewolf

IMHO it wouldn't be worth the effort. I don't think an embedded linux version is practical becaue of the small memory available. Any firmware would have to be written in assembly or c and compiled for the microprocessor type.

Of course I do not know your existing electronic knowledge of microprocessors or circuit design.

I know enough to see that this will be a bit more difficult than I first thought. but if it can be done,i
think it would be a good project,I want to learn programing but need some motivation.
I admit I will need to learn quite a bit more then I first thought.
thanks for the insight ,do you know a good place to start learning about assembly?
lonewolf

Open up the box and see what kind of microprocessor is being used in the router. Then search the web for info. You will also need to trace out the schematic of the circuit board. Hopefully it is only a two sided board. Do you know how to program the flash ROM?

I got the product specifications from the intel site. I know it is flashed via ethernet. I found no connectors on the circuit board (I thought some port used in the factory might have been there)
I have done nothing more than flash my pc bios.I do have the firmware upgrade file .intel released a configuration program to use with the router(win). it sounds like I will have to figure out exactly how
they are accessing it for the flash process,write a suitable firmware replacement,and maybe I can use thier flash utility to write my own software to the device. now this is an ISDN router,do you think the hardware will be able to handle a dial up connection? now I am wondering what kind of speed i would be able to get.it seems like this may be alot more than i can chew.
aside from a few music programs on a radioshack trs80 color computer,in basic, when i was younger,I have done no programing. I was hoping that i could get linux on the device and piece together other programs/modules to attain my goal.but i was concerned about the low ram.
I just hate to throw away a perfectly good device simply because it is obsolete.

I've never played with IDSN nor do I know the hardware interface. IMHO it isn't worth the effort.