Easy WiFi for Vintage Macs with TheOldNet Serial WiFi Modem 

A box with a flashing light zip-tied to a phone doesn't look dodgy at all in a coffee shop😁

12:19 - You really need to install the Black Night terminal emulator. It supports full color ANSI graphics, and I bet those BBS door scenes would look even more awesome.

Control-H, or whatever the Mac equivalent is, historically sent a backspace when the modem was command mode. I am very, very old.

Heads up, the (most likely) reason your first serial cable with gender changer didn't work is you need a null modem in the middle to swap around the tx and rx pairs

11:00 Old school terminal tricks: ctrl+H to backspace and ctrl+D to delete in a terminal. Also, ctrl+W erases the word preceding the cursor, and ctrl+U wipes out the current line. It's very old Unix standard that works even in modern terminals. If your keyboard has a real backspace key (actually says "backspace" or depicts it with a left pointing arrow), it will generally work fine in a terminal. But if the key says "delete" (I'm lookin' at you, Apple) then it sends an escape code in terminals with usually no visual result and you have to resort to the ctrl+ combo or remap the keys in the terminal and/or OS (I genuinely can't recall if the older software you're using has that remap capability). Ahh, the halcyon days of BBSing. They were a lot of fun. Except that it took over an hour to download a single floppy at 2400 baud! I never had a phone line clean enough for 56k, so 33.6k is the fastest I ever got to before broadband, and that still took ~5 minutes to download 1MB.

this channel is so underrated and deserves more subscribers, and your videos are fantastic as always, keep up the good work man!

Nice. I've been building my own wifi modems inside old 56k modems

"You are now sober" Saddest part of this video

1 annoyed guy from Starbucks downvoted this video :D

This is so fascinating to me. I am older-I was in middle school in late eighties and I have no memory of these, lol. We spent 45 minutes typing in a code in middle school to watch a hot air balloon glide across the screen. I was struck by how much processing skill these kind of games require of kids-just the reading alone. These are the games all kids should start with even now. I’m a teacher and I can’t imagine my students playing these-it really requires so much imagination. It’s obvious when you look at things like these why there is so much creativity coming from this generation across the board. It’s like your mind is constructing the game instead of it already being made yup for you. I can imagine as a kid that you are seeing this all in your head as you were playing. Great video.

I wonder if the firmware on that device could be expanded to "emulate" PPP or SLIP, so you can get online.

Hacking, Whipping, and zip ties. Can always tell this is an Action Retro video! :)

how about using ADB (or on PC: the PS/2 / DIN) Port to power the WiFi Modem?

I would love to see you go one step further on this with some of the slightly newer macs... actual "real internet" with ppp or slip

When you tried to plug the modem into the Mac's Serial port, I kind of expected 65scribe's "Sproinnng" sound effect to play.

Greetings from Argentina 🇦🇷🇦🇷🇺🇸🇺🇸💾

This video really brings back sweet memories! My first computer was a Mac SE in 1989 (just one tiny step up from the Mac Plus upgrade you demoed.) I had mine decked out with 4MB RAM, a 20MB internal hard drive, 2400baud Hayes compatible modem, and the latest copy of Zterm. Yep, screen scrolling was a bit laggy, but completely usable. I spent four years of college dialing into the local university "VAX Cluster," where I would check email and telnet to MUDs, BBSes, and IRC, as well as use gopher and public ftp archives to find and download all of the latest freeware and shareware for my Mac. I love that these old machines can still connect to the internet, and that there are still fun retro destinations on the internet. My favorite is ISCABBS; just telnet to bbs.iscabbs.com. ISCABBS is a telnet accessible BBS that has been in operation since 1989. It is the oldest (as far as I know) continuously operating free online community on the internet. With nearly 1,000 active users and public forums, sometimes you'll see nearly 30 people logged in at the same time! ISCABBS also contains private forums, internal mail, and instant messaging. ISCABBS would make a great place to connect to if you do more demos, especially if you want to show interaction with other users via chat. It's viewable in ANSI color as well as black and white. Thanks again for this and other videos. I'm grinning ear to ear remembering all the fun times online with my old Mac. :)

I just bought an XP-era HP Pavilion laptop. My plan is to install FreeDos on it for a retro distraction-free writing environment. But, I definitely want to get one of these and do the BBS thing in my free time.

Can you still get PCMCIA wifi cards? But it seems PowerBook didn't have expansion slots until the 500s and the 1400?

Oh yeah, dude. 8MHz machines will do things like that perfectly fine! I started my BBS days on a CoCo2 with a 300 baud modem. I used an 8088 8MHz machine for YEARS on BBSes. Today, I use Apple II series machines, 68k Macs (including a Plus with 4 megs, also!), etc. You should be great at 9600bps on those machines. I'm not sure what the maximum BPS rate is on the older Macs, but the comparable PCs were 9600 baud unless you had 16550 UARTs. 9600 is way more than adequate for these purposes though. Loved the video!

Man, I remember getting my first laptop, a second generation iBook with wifi (Airport) and OSX, after using PC's for several years, I was back in a new and much improved Mac world and truly living in the future. It was so awesome.

What Mac would you say is the oldest that you could still get to load a website page in a browser with this wifi device? Powerbook G3? Or older? Nice video btw. Love retro Macs!

I have a Mac identical to yours, a 128K upgraded to a Plus and I fulfilled my dream of getting it online 6 months ago via a WiFi 232 serial modem. Still using it to this day! I watched your original video about wanting to play a MUD on your Mac before I even bought one and I felt the same way.

Any way to get PPP running and browse TheOldNet or download from Macintosh Gardens?

He made it look way more suspicious by zip tying all those cables to his phone.

Quite a clever little device. I’ve got a few old machines I can use easily online now 👍

Thats A Realy Cool Emulator Yes Your 128k Mac Brings Back A lot Of Memories I Bought That Very Same 128 Mac Back In 1984 New In Cupertino Ca Sterlings Computer Store For $2600 That Also Included The Image Writer Printer A lot Of Money Back In 1984 And Have Been A Loyal Apple User Great Video Sean

Wait. "Way back in the '90s"? LOL. Dude I love this Chan.

Neat device. Just ordered one after watching your video. I recently built an IDEFile for a Lisa and found that the pin outs for serial did not align with a normal IDC ribbon cable connector. I had to wire up my own cable too.

I'd like to see something like this for PowerPC Macs from 1998-2006 whereby you could have an 802.11N slot into the AirPort Extreme or Original Port.

You might be able to a) use a battery bank that is small and compact for coffee shops or b) a small mod to add a Lithium battery pack on the power connections of the device. Though a small battery pack would be cheaper and EZ to use.

Have you tried SSHing into anything from that setup? We're close to the same age, but the BBS/MUD stuff is not something I messed with back in the day. Still cool stuff!

Nice! For OSX macs there also exists a custom driver for android usb tethering

So I decided to skip the whole "phone" portion of the setup and wire a USB cable to the ADB port on the back of my PowerBook 165. With that plus my rebuilt battery, I'm full on mobile with my PowerBook now. Good times

I really want to get an old DEC or Wyse terminal connected with one of these , but those are kinda hard to come by right now!! Awesome video as usual.

Did you tone out the Apple adapter? It's possible that one or the other is a null modem cable, which while identical in appearance has a different pinout than a serial cable. Also, if you want to get an even easier CF solution, you could use a PC Card to CF adapter.

Amazing. I was thrilled just to plug a USB ball mouse into my phone the other day. ;D

Yay MUDs! glad to see them get some love. I used to play on muds in high-school. :D "Moooom quick picking up the phone!"

I remember connecting to a VAX system through a 300 baud modem, then later a 1200 baud one. Painful, just for text! It wasn't until I got a 9600 bps connection that the text scrolled by at a rate faster than I could read it. MUDs weren't much fun before this! :)

A cellphone with a brick attached and lotsa wires, no, definitely not suspect :-D

Well, I know what my next little project is going to be. You can actually make your own Wifi modem if you want. There are instructions online. You can even buy 8pin mini-DIN plugs for the Apple end of the cable, although they’re not fun to solder. Nice work 👍

"I don't use my cellphone for anything else!" - hearty chuckle at that one, very good. :D

I like hardware hacks like this, providing modern solutions to vintage tech. Need a replacement hard drive? SCSI2SD or a CF2IDE adapter. Floppy drive dead? FloppyEMU for Macs, GOTEK's for basically everything else. Retrotink for getting old-school game consoles connected to modern TV's.

nice! Need to take my Tandy Model 200 into a coffee shop and connect to wifi with this device. Great Marchintosh content

my be you needed a null modem, instead of just a gender changer?

Could you use PPP with this modem? Are TCP and PPP implementations available for any system 7 version? System 6? I seem to have forgotten most of what I know about System 7 internet access :( ... I guess the modem itself would have to implement the ppp server, or forward to a relay on the internet that did.

Does it support a PPP connection? It would be great to see FreePPP connecting again and using a Mosaic or Eudora

I just got a Macintosh classic before watching this video

That zip-tie job is a piece of art! Not sure whether it helps with looking any less suspicious though. ;) I managed to get my Powerbook 170 "online" 15 years ago, by configuring internet connection sharing on Windows XP and having the Powerbook dial into the PC via PPP. It was a pain to get everything set up, but at least I managed to get it to work briefly loaded google.com on ancient versions of the Wannabe and iCab browsers. As far as I remember, I didn't get the PPP working on my Mac Plus. That modem bridge sure sounds ten times better than that mess!

I never dialed into a BBS in the late 90s, but I did figure out I could dial into my local library, where besides the usual library things like letting you search the catalog, let you access the internet with lynx. It was a great backup for when my AOL minutes were used up.

I absolutely love mine! I have two of them, and was able to do a zmodem bridge between two MS-DOS PCs with them... and also set up a Concurrent DOS terminal server over the internet using one of these! Great video!! As for me, I predominantly use Ethernet to get my old PCs online.

you need a null-modem adapter for the apple dongle

Could this work with Apple II family computers also ? Or only with macs ?

The original Mac 128K, 512K, and 512Ke have the RS-232 port, so you could plug that wifi modem directly into it.

michael mjd did a video about theoldnet

You have taken on a project that I am looking to do myself. I also played a lot of muds and still have a few I play now. I just got a Powerbook 180c up and booting. Next is doing this modem work and away I go.

this is the time of the revolution cooking the next step converting devices to wi-fi minding the gap since 1997 (97...97....97) THIS IS THE TIME OF. THE REVOLUTION BRINGING IT. IN THE TIME OF. OF FEELING IT IN MY MIND. YES, OH FEELING IT IN THE

You could paint the box a dark grey or even better, an excellent beige .

Hmm, a GeoPort should have 5V supply… although from what I've read only 350mA, when the docs mentions 1A requirement… I doubt it actually needs it though. Would be worth investigating, the 350mA is from the PSU budget but depending on the machine it's probably more. Possibly even another version could have an integrated MiniDin.

you deserve way more subs

I spent a lot of time with a MacPlus and a metal 2400bps modem playing TW2002 and LORD.

Apple Mac to ImageWriter I cable with DB-25 to DB-9 converter is what I use on my Mac SE/30

TLDR: It's probably OK to use that cable with a newer low power RS232 device, but don't plug it into anything old, or anything industrial. I know it's an old video but it just popped up on me. Most people don't understand that RS232 is a protocol and electrical standard while RS422 is just an electrical standard. The reason the cable adapter you bought does not work is because it's just a connector conversion, not an actual "RS422-RS232 adapter", like the 3rd diagram in your link. The DB9 connector also has an RS422 standard pinout, just like a DB25 has an RS232 Standard pinout. Your purchased adapter probably would have worked for a DIN8 RS422 to DB9 RS422 connection. The cable you made is actually cheating, RS422 is a differential signal and the cable you made is pulling the RX+ to ground and using RX- as a single ended receiver. It obviously can work, and it's probably OK because the RS232 chip on the little board you're using is a MAX3232, which is a low voltage RS232 chip. RS422 has a 0 to +5v swing while the original RS232 signal was -15v to +15v, so plugging that cable into an old device can blow the RS422 receiver in the Mac. The max3232 typically outputs -5v to +5v depending on how the charge pump caps are set and that's just above the minimum swing for RS232. To actually be on the safe side, you need to use an active RS232 to RS422 converter that actually does the voltage level conversion It's kind of chinsey that they make a custom PCB and then attach a $3 Amazon RS232 BOB to it when they could have just stuck the chip on the PCB, then offered another PCB with an RS422 transceiver chip on it. Converting UART from the ESP to RS232 then finagling it to RS422 isn't all that awesome IMO.

I wanna do this, I have the same chipset esp 8266 with the at commands flashed to it. My problem is the serial rs232 setup.. I get nothing from at

I'm able to use a terminal and stuff with my serial wifi modem, but how do I set it up to get on the internet through a browser? I'm on an SE/30 with 7.5.5 on it. I installed open transport, but that isn't doing it either. If someone could help that'd be truly appreciated. There's not a huge amount of stuff about this online, I'm guessing everyone who's doing this already knows how and takes it for granted. I didn't grow up doing this, so I don't know. Thanks in advance!

Just picked up a gateway 2100 solo locally and im curious about this kinda connectivity.

Lol the powerbook 1400, i first connected mine to the internet with a Dell TrueMobile 1150 PCMCIA card.

Hey - I love your 1400c! I have a g3 upgraded 1400c but the screen is terrible. Do you have any suggestions on how I can fix the screen? (Pretty sure it is a bad backlight).

The oldest laptop I've got is a Toshiba Libretto 50CT. All I'd need to get it online is a PCMCIA WiFi card... or a dongle for my 3com ethernet card

LOL. I freaking love your Chan. But dude, that's the sh@t I had to put up with every time I wanted to get online to a good BBS back in the day. Enjoy your old Macs. Thats when they were good. They're just another computer now a days. Oh yeah, the Pismo absolutely was the best Mac ever conceived. Nuff Said.

If you were to go in a coffee shop, pull out a PowerBook 540c, this "adapter" the serial WiFi module and a Powerbank, I'm sure they'll call the police and it would be real "Action retro"

how did you configure zterm to connect at 9600? When I change connection speed to 9600 it was not responding. I could only make connection at 300..

I bet if your retro PC has a PS/2 mouse or keyboard connector, but not USB, you could pull power from that by using a passive PS/2 to USB converter. I have my RS232 WiFi Modem powered in that way while connected to an old PC desktop. That would also let you duct tape all your wires n crap to the old laptop and keep the cell phone entirely in your pocket in Starbucks, lol!

While I find these things nice, I've never been into BBSes, and I'd rather have fully routed Internet acess with an ISP-like frontend that you can SLIP or PPP into from old machines, including 8bit ones running Contiki…

I've been dinking around with electronics for decades and sending serial commands to modems since using 2G/3G and today I finally learned that AT = Attention 😳

Awesome video, I haven't tried to play any terminal games using my modem, I'll have to check it out!

I've still got a Phone Modem with the cups to put the handset into. I used to love dialing into BBS systems. I had massive phone bills back then. I don't miss long distance charges. I wonder if FidoNet is still running?

after the zip tie the sus factor went up to bomb threat

This is great! Very entertaining video. I need that thing to my old Compaq LTE's.

I definitely did get my Windows 98 gaming rig online, that was very much not fun and involved enough swearing to get you banned from RU-vid forever. First find the right network card driver from the ancient website of the manufacturer, then spend a day swearing while trying to install KernelEX with the right upgrades, then spend the next day swearing while trying to get K-Meleon running without crashing every time. Even then after spending all that time getting it to run, K-Meleon decided to die randomly 2 days later and I have never managed to get it online again.

Zip tying a serial modem to a phone is respectable... lol... bro everyone is going to be staring at you like you're a square... This channel has just stumbled on the right amount of obscure intellectual nonsense about a topic that is so arcane it should only be able to understood by people who grew up in the 90s to be something that is a vaguely cool niche to a modest few subscribers... That it is cool... But I'm not even sure if Action Retro understands why it is cool.

Doesn't the PS2 connector supply 5V power? You could technically connect to that instead of USB power and have a proper powered-by-the-laptop, wifi-capable vintage dos/windows laptop. Obviously doesn't work with vintage macs though.

I'm more surprised those batteries are still working on the powerbook! I'm pretty sure the intelligent battery on my 520c has spent more time dead than alive

Please, are there any other Web browsers for these ancient machines other than Classilla? TYVMIA.

This brings back memories of dialing in to the local BBS on my Apple II plus that I still have.

MUDs! Spent far too much time on Discworld MUD (still going), met the wife there.

I used a PB 165 through much of college. Wish I still had it. Not to use, but just to have around.

4:49 did you build the RS422 to RS422 cable or the RS422 to RS232 adapter in the pinout guide?

*OKAY*, now fire the MUD up on the Lisa. Or, an Apple IIe!

Super HF sound at around 6.25. Anybody else getting it?

Could this be used with a Macintosh plus so I can browse your 68k news website?

Wait, i'm not a retro tech person... At 4:07 the port on the left doesn't support the card? Correct me if i'm wrong

Can you fit it in the back of the Mac then no one will see it. *People wonder* Sean: I installed WiFi

i use dos 6 or 7 and a pci network card and a packet driver on a 2.20ghz compaq evo

And yes, I would like to see more Macintosh shenanigans, keep it up!

How do I get a working battery for a PowerBook 165 in 2021?

Lol, yes much less suspicious and more respectable with the zip tie.

I wonder if you could pump the output into a screen reader and play it without any eyeballs?

Wait, even Mac's from the 80's need dongles now 😮

Yeah, that thing zip tied together does not look like some type of IED at all.