Terminal Servers for Dial-up ISPs - ISP Series Episode 4

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How do you connect dozens of modems to your 90s ISP? We embark on a mission to find out by comprehensively evaluating terminal servers in this epic two-part special. In this episode we check out the Xyplex MaxServer 1620 and the Xylogics Micro Annex XL. We also hear from Brian Lloyd, one of the creators of the Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) that helped usher in the dial-up age.
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#90s #internet #networking
00:00 - The doorway
00:43 - How do you connect dozens of modems?
01:46 - The origin of terminal servers
03:24 - Brian Lloyd
10:56 - Terminal server basics
12:55 - Xyplex MaxServer 1620
29:36 - Our thoughts on the Xyplex
30:48 - Xylogics Micro Annex XL
48:47 - Our thoughts on the Xylogics
49:51 - Conclusions
50:16 - Outro
50:52 - Voicemail courtesy of Packard Bell
Huge thanks to:
Brian Lloyd for regaling us with incredible stories and insight.
Fabrice Florin (fabriceflorin.com) for the early clip of Richard Stallman. Check out the full documentary on this exciting time period at fabriceflorin.com/2018/08/20/...
Downtown Binary for the amazing music from the "2 A.M Chill Session" compilation and "Astral" EP
Watch: • 2 A.M Chill Session 🌌 ...
Listen: open.spotify.com/intl-fr/albu...
Watch: • Downtown Binary - Astr...
Listen: open.spotify.com/album/1uGa6r...
...and Kalaido for the masterpiece "Ghosts of the Floating World"
Watch: • Kalaido - Ghosts of th...
Listen: open.spotify.com/album/3xYot5...
Above music provided by Lofi Girl.
References:
Lloyd, Brian. Video Interview. Conducted by Serial Port, July 2023.
Hackers, Wizards of the Electronic Age (1985). CC-BY-3.0. Directed by Fabrice Florin.
Oakland University Libraries. library.oakland.edu/about/tim...
LaQuey, Tracy (1993). The Internet Companion. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.
SparkFun Electronics. www.sparkfun.com/quiz/58

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25 июл 2024

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Комментарии : 112

@TheJonathanc82 9 месяцев назад

Having people take part in this series like Brian Lloyd is amazing. People like him are the architects of the modern world. Thank you for creating such amazing content!

@jroysdon 9 месяцев назад

We still use large banks of Cisco AS2511-RJ16 to run the power grid. Modems for 4-wire audio (not dial-up) and/or serial is still king in the power grid. We'll probably phase them out in the next 5-10 years, but they just work, and we only need 1200 or 9600 BAUD for polls every 1 to 5 seconds. Many of these devices had 10 year uptimes when I upgraded them for the first and last time in the early 2010s; they're now looking new 10+ year uptimes. They just run forever. I'm sure they were the pricer of the terminal servers out there, but it should would be cool if you could add them to your review. Hah, in 5-10 years, I may have a dozen to donate ;-)

@darrencrane6514 9 месяцев назад

I configured so many of these terminal servers back in the day. This was cool to see. It was funny how I hadn't thought about any of this for so long, but when you got into the Xyplex at the # prompt, my first thought out of no where was - you need to type 'access'... !!? It was like riding a bicycle.

@SwitchingPower 9 месяцев назад

The EEPROM you show on the board can only be changed by erasing first it with UV light (that is why it has a sticker over the erase window), it probably contains just the bootloader and the actual configuration is stored in another chip

@Cyrix2k 9 месяцев назад

Correct! Slight nit pick - those are EPROMs (erasable programmable read only memory) vs EEPROMs (electrically erasable programmable read only memory). I believe it's pretty common to replace older EPROMs with EEPROMs for convenience.

@matthewkriebel7342 5 месяцев назад

On my unit, there is an Intel N28F256A 256Kbit flash chip on the board. Thats probably where the config is stored.

@utp216 9 месяцев назад

I know producing this content takes you a long time and I hope you know we all appreciate it! Great stuff! 🤘

@lyokoboy0 8 месяцев назад

I have a stack of those exact annex serial servers! Straight out of high school, a buddy of mine worked at the local library, and was mentioning odd tftp bootfile requests from several devices on the network every few minutes. We were able to locate the annex boxes in the floor, connected to the network, where they had beed used to serve a lab of dumb terminals to look up books. Probally spent a decade shouting for that boot file till we came around!!!

@mpeskett 9 месяцев назад

This is a fascinating series for learning the history of the internet. Also a great demonstration of troubleshooting methodology. Looking forward to the next one!

@junktionfet 9 месяцев назад

I've been glued to this series, and this episode was outstanding. I loved the interview with the man himself, Brian Lloyd!

@csudsuindustries 9 месяцев назад

The ISP I worked at was a Postmaster shop. Racks with three PM2e each with 30 Modems attaches. We set every 10th modem volume slowly higher. So when we were running out of modems the racket was loud.

@markpriceful 9 месяцев назад

sounds like a neat trick, must have been exciting to hear it get loud

@csudsuindustries 9 месяцев назад

@@markpriceful More like "Hold on tight, here comes the support calls with the constant question of "Are you having issues? We got a busy tone?" We had over 300 lines of analog and 4 PM3 with both PRIs active when I left. This was '97

@KeefJudge 9 месяцев назад

Great series. I used dial up from the late 90s through to mid 00s before ADSL became ubiquitous in the UK and it's fascinating to see how these systems actually worked and were setup back in the day.

@paperothereartharmy 9 месяцев назад

As someone working in networking in my early 20s, this stuff is amazing. The earliest forms of internet I can remember is dialup just before broadband hit. Seeing the commands you are running on the Xyplex unit and how close they are to what I use on a modern Cisco Catalyst stack is so neat.

@thisiszeev 9 месяцев назад

Loving this series... I remember coding my own BBS in GW-BASIC or Q-BASIC (can't remember which was which). And yes, I did that. When the Internet came to South Africa in April 1991, I managed to convince my parents, at the age of 12, to let me connect that same year in August. They thought it was just a phase. I had to dial up to the other end of the country to connect initially, until they built a pop in my city. I got invited to come help setup, as I was the first subscriber in my city, and I was 12. So it was a nice show off for the media. I had no idea what I was doing, I just plugged things into things and hoped I didn't start the sequel to War Games. Now 32 years later and I am still earning my income working online. Currently as a freelance developer. No regrets...

@joshebelful 9 месяцев назад

I worked at Livingston in Tech Support. Looking forward to the Portmaster episode!

@KiwiHelpgeek 8 месяцев назад

I worked at ICONZ (Internet Company Of New Zealand) n the late 1990's, just as the Internet was starting to become established in NZ. I cannot remember what we used for a terminal server but I remember that in our server room there was a stack of 28k8 modems and some 56k modems during the war between the two incompatible standards. Thank goodness for the V90 standard. I also remember the 19" rack mounted modems we installed.

@sardaukar99 9 месяцев назад

This video got me to support your work on Patreon! Fascinating look at the Cambrian period of the commercial Internet, keep it up

@dcpugh 8 месяцев назад

This is series is INCREDIBLE. Kudos to TSP and a huge shout out to Brian Lloyd for his appearance and of course his work on PPP. I rembmer configuring my Mac LCIII in 1993 with PPP to access Earthlink. It literally changed my life and launched me on my IT career which is still going stron 30 years later. Loving this series!

@robertlevandowski4457 9 месяцев назад

If you're trying to compile software from the early 1990s, compile it on a SunOS 4 box if at all possible. Everything built on SunOS 4, because it was the most common UNIX at the time. Solaris was relatively new, and had some big differences from SunOS 4 that not all programmers had mastered yet. Support for other OSes was pretty catch-as-catch can. As a fledgling UNIX system administrator and teaching assistant in the early 90s, a big part of my job was compiling code downloaded off the Internet. It'd always build fine on SunOS 4, but I'd usually have to alter it to build cleanly on Solaris... and it was rare that I wouldn't have to hack the code to get it to build on SGI IRIX! Plus, autoconf was in its infancy, and you often had to edit Makefiles by hand to get ANYTHING to build.

@tekvax01 4 месяца назад

Such an amazing in-depth look into the configuration of these terminal servers! Well done indeed!

@povilasstaniulis9484 8 месяцев назад

PPP protocol is actually still in use to this day, usually in form of PPPoE. My ISP used to use PPPoE for their DSL internet service.. Linux geek in me is pleasantly surprised to see a "Linux Inside" logo on a vintage piece of networking hardware.

@hgravina 9 месяцев назад

This is the best series on youtube!

@Myfatheredward 9 месяцев назад

Absolutely the best series that can be found on youtube! Does the Serial port ever present in college classes? I teach, and am interested in using this series with my students.

@EE12CSVT 8 месяцев назад

As someone who dialled into these things from Windows 95, it's fascinating to see how it was all done. It also shows just how far we've come with FTTP and GPON.

@Sharkie1717 9 месяцев назад

This is so fascinating. It's interesting watching you troubleshoot and figure things out. Your hard work and effort is greatly appreciated and respected. Cheers!

@der.Schtefan 9 месяцев назад

Ah, I remember the time in 2002 when my company ordered a dozen cisco routers and leased line modems, and I configured them to auto connect, use OSPF to announce their routes, etc. They were connecting remote water stations in a city to their SCADA system, through tiny little 2 wire connections. The data compression that was added over the modem lines allowed the chatty ASCII remote diag data to be transfered "blazing fast". And I remember typing cisco commands, that looked like the ones you showed, and banging my head against the wall over and over

@e_fission 9 месяцев назад

This was excellent! I always wanted to know how this was done back in the day. Videos like this help preserve the history of the earlier days of the Internet. Great work!

@randomnickname721 8 месяцев назад

My ISP used Cisco AS5300 which is like chassis with up to 240 x 56k Modems in 2U chassis on one side and serveral E1/T1 on another. It can be used as dial in chassis or VoIP/FAX application.

@Memerino-ly7yr 9 месяцев назад

Been watching for a while. This channel is something special up and coming

@Krafting 9 месяцев назад

Can't wait for the next video! Good job!

@firestormv01 9 месяцев назад

Wow, another incredibly detailed deep-dive into retro hardware. I'm loving this! I'm actually kicking myself now, I used to have a four port dialtone simulator and gave it away many years ago and this is making me wish I hadn't done that. I probably have a handful of 56K modems around in my parts bins, lol.

@bennetfox 9 месяцев назад

I have always wanted to know what it takes to get a dial up ISP going! Thank you so much for doing all of this!!!

@TristanBuckley 9 месяцев назад

I used to have a home lab and absolutely love this ❤

@JamesHalfHorse 9 месяцев назад

I remember having a portmaster at the ISP I worked for but I think it was being retired when I got there. As someone who did support for years setting up ppp in windows was anything but simple.

@ComputerGraphicsMuseum 9 месяцев назад

Thanks for the terminals wiki shout out!

@jroysdon 9 месяцев назад

Wow, you skipped over Windows 3.x and Trumpet Winsock! That's how we had to roll before Win95 which made it super-simple.

@Alpha8713 6 месяцев назад

I still use a Microannex XL at home for serial console access to several machines. The damn thing won't die.

@guy_autordie 9 месяцев назад

this journey is so interesting

@josephk6373 9 месяцев назад

what an adventure to watch

@friedgpu 9 месяцев назад

i'm the caller from Brazil, keep up with the good work.

@Ckpe4 9 месяцев назад

Wow, that annex is so beautiful on the inside 32:58

@KW160 9 месяцев назад

I volunteed at a FreeNet from 1995-2000 with a very similar setup. Getting this stuff to work at that time was just as difficult as it is for you now.

@jfbeam 9 месяцев назад

Having worked extensively with portmasters (and USR's netserve's which are a licensed version of livingston ComOS) and netblazers, I would've literally taken an axe to those two pieces of crap.

@tassiebob 9 месяцев назад

The later USR cards in the high density chassis were their own code IIRC, but the earlier generation was licensed Livingston code. Only bummer was it only support RIP routing IIRC (needed to support customers with static IP's who might appear on any chassis within the dialup pool), but otherwise they were good and solid.

@johnhupperts 9 месяцев назад

insane troubleshooting

@steffiiizh 9 месяцев назад

I think in 1997 „PC Cards“ were still called PCMCIA Cards. Great video!

@dijoxx 7 месяцев назад

This is like playing a text adventure game!

@jse-vl4bs 9 месяцев назад

I used to use that Annex GUI from r10 on Solaris 2.6 and 8 (and I think it worked on Solaris 10 too) so you should be able to run it on your SPARCstation Classic. It was pretty neat motif app.

@geoffpool7476 9 месяцев назад

Great Video. Regarding the Linux 1.2.3 - at the time, SLS or Slackware were the basic market leaders. If I were to load the software, I would take Slackware 3.0 and use it as my platform.

@the_beefy1986 9 месяцев назад

Since these console servers are essentially a computer with some standard network interface and a bunch of serial ports, I wonder if you could build a fairly modern replacement using a RPi and some serial to USB adapters (and some software of course)...

@billlodhia5640 9 месяцев назад

Hackaday had some good articles but apparently you still need a real PTSN is the gist of it. Fiber-backed systems don't work for some reason (?)

@memediatek 9 месяцев назад

@@billlodhia5640 depends on your provider, and what compression they use

@aaronring2444 9 месяцев назад

OMG FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@tassiebob 9 месяцев назад

The Annex was a very popular terminal server box for ISP's, although of those you have the Livingston would be my pick. So many memories in these videos :-)

@tassiebob 9 месяцев назад

Cisco 2511's were also a fairly popular choice (and the 2511RJ variant went on to live a very long life as a console server). We had some 2511's with modems at smaller POP's, and BSDi boxes with Digiboards at the larger ones - until we outgrew those and went with USR TC chassis - which IIRC, the terminal server code was licensed from Livingston, at least in the earlier versions of the chassis (the /very early/ USR TC chassis had multiple custom 2511 cards - one for each 4 modem cards IIRC).

@Talie5in 9 месяцев назад

@@tassiebobBob of PIPE.. era?

@tassiebob 9 месяцев назад

@@Talie5in I may have appeared in productions such as "where's Charlie?", lol

@Talie5in 9 месяцев назад

@@tassiebob Hahhaha, yes! :)

@KumbaIvor 9 месяцев назад

I winced at thos TTL values. 😂😂😂

@Raketenclub 9 месяцев назад

"microsoft: we dont understand coding, we are stupid, we rule, we have bugs, change your protocol because we are microsoft... developer: stfu " -

@idahofur 9 месяцев назад

A few guess. On the Ethernet saying 802 had me thinking Novell Netware 802.2 vs 802.3 frame packets. As for security nothing was locked down. It took a few decades to realize people was just lazy when it came to security. If anybody looks around you can easy find articles about companies leaving passwords blank, default, or simple like 1234. For the command line interface is very nice in some instances. I'm more of a null modem cable or standard 9pin serial person. Esp. since Cisco is one type and you don't know looking at a jack if that is cisco or not. Also even back then even with manuals. Everything was a learning curve. That is what you know of as job security. One final thing is I can't remember if you said LInux or Unix and not having it say what flavor. That was common early on. The idea was if would compile with in nix type system. Though in reality as you found out. Not exactly true.

@nickwallette6201 9 месяцев назад

You wouldn't believe how many people were (and probably still are) using the default Cisco documentation passwords (cisco / cisco123). I got to work on a production network once, where I found out someone had pasted a config back into a firewall from a "show run" snapshot where the password had been obscured using six asterisks. The password was then set, literally, to six asterisks. 😣 I have no idea how long it had been like that, on the Internet, with pants down. This actually took a long time to figure out, as I thought the recovery mode was still obscuring the real password. And then, on a whim, I tried logging in with that, and it worked. And my stomach dropped through the floor.

@idahofur 9 месяцев назад

That six asterisk isn't really a bad idea. Wonder how long until somebody put that in a brute force list. Then again the question also would be. Did the Cisco allow you more than that number or exact. I remember on some devices that would be a problem. Put in a 12 letter password and would truncate 1/2 of it. :) @@nickwallette6201

@breadmoth6443 9 месяцев назад

not sure if this falls into the ISP series, but i would love to see a video on ISDN setups.

@jroysdon 9 месяцев назад

For sure! Before the days of cable modems and ADSL, I was lucky to work for a small local ISP and I had "nailed up ISDN" with two 64-kb "B" channels up all the time to my studio garage apartment. In the days of dial-up, 128kb was lightening fast. I had a Cisco 804 router at home which had the ISDN telco port, and two "POTS" ports that allowed me to connect a normal voice phone and fax machine. So long as I only used one voice port at a time, my Internet connection never went down, just the speed was cut in half to 64kb, and as soon as I hung up the voice line (or the fax finished) things went back to 128kb. I was really fortunate to work for this local ISP as I was learning all of the Cisco CCNA/CCNP stuff back in 1999. ISDN was so cool over dial-up, not just for more than double the speed, but never having to wait for the dial-up modem training handshake. The ISDN PPP setup was near instantaneous.

@TimSedlmeyer 9 месяцев назад

@@jroysdon I didn't work for an ISP then but had a dual channel BRI to my house provided by my employer in the mid-90s. On the other end it connected to a Shiva LanRover I managed at my employer. Besides providing remote access to my employer's systems it was my primary internet connection. At the time my employer's internet connection was a rate-limited ethernet connection thrown over the wall to the office space nextdoor which housed an ISP. My next employer brought a T1 to my home. Ironically I had to fallback to dial-up briefly when I next switched companies to a major international ISP. Thankfully that only lasted 6 months before cable internet became available at my house.

@michaelpelley2815 9 месяцев назад

Oh the joys of policing students setting up SLIP on their Unix accounts - cron job to find, shutdown, delete and disable accounts of students. I remember those Livingston PortMasters and then setting up RADIUS and Windows authentication. Fun time - but reminds me of how old I am now 😭🤣

@markpriceful 9 месяцев назад

I think it was SLIRP that did this for normal unix shell users

@michaelpelley2815 9 месяцев назад

@@markpriceful you are correct. I'm blaming the passing years 😉

@TimSedlmeyer 9 месяцев назад

There was also TIA, The Internet Adapter, which was commercial software. It slightly predated SLiRP and was popular until SLiRP was released.

@paulstubbs7678 9 месяцев назад

Wow, what success. I have been looking for terminal server info for ages and basically got nowhere. Going via Google all I have found is boxes (or how to make/diy) that allow remote telnet access to talk to serial console ports of equipment in racks etc., not the original idea of connecting dumb serial terminals as you initially did, before migrating onto the PPP stuff. I did score some software to turn a PC into one, however it uses packet drivers for some rather old network cards that I don't have so I don't think I'll ever get that to work.

@Jah_Rastafari_ORIG 7 месяцев назад

Wow, never knew Adrienne Barbeau was involved with Terminal Servers (1:52)....

@rageofheaven 8 месяцев назад

Lloyd not caving in to M$ was absolutely the right call. M$ could have complied without the confrontation, but they wanted control of the specification as well. DIrty.

@KLNYC 9 месяцев назад

i have one at my work in back of the container lol

@Scoopta 9 месяцев назад

My guess is IEEE802 encap is for 802.2 LLC framing as opposed to Ethernet II framing but I could be wrong.

@stevenemert837 9 месяцев назад

That's what I recall too. I worked for Bay Networks in the timeframe they acquired Xylogics. I don't remember much of it, but I do remember it was rather complicated to first get set up, with the monitor CLI and operational CLI. I don't recall ever using the GUI at all on these units, even after we built it into a blade that went into the System 5000 chassis (from SynOptics heritage).

@svensubunitnillson1568 8 месяцев назад

my Cisco 2500 is still serving an ISP for console access, it refuses to die

@ChrisJackson-js8rd 9 месяцев назад

it probably just means that it has support for that version of the linux kernel remember distros werent as significant at this time as they were soon to become

@bartoszkazmierczak7249 Месяц назад

I'm not sure if I missed it or it wasn't covered in the previous episodes. I understand that there are 2 modems used here? One at the PC, and the other one at the terminal server? How do you connect them together for the demonstrations in the video?

@yvr2002rtw 9 месяцев назад

These devices look a bit like the VOIP to analog PSTN voice gateways used to connect multiple POTS phones (FXS ports) and POTS lines (FXO ports) to SIP based IPPBXes.

@nightowl_ap 6 месяцев назад

Annex goes cricket sounds

@thatLion01 9 месяцев назад

I somewhat miss the 90s

@yvr2002rtw 9 месяцев назад

Can you do an episode where users migrate from dial-up to ADSL? Perhaps try connecting a DSLAM to analog voice ports on a legacy PBX to simulate the CO?

@andrewgomes8213 7 месяцев назад

I'd LOVE to see something like that! Specially configuring the ATM backbone of ADSL 👌

@radiosnmore 9 месяцев назад

Ppp multilink. Yeeeeee

@retromobs6018 8 дней назад

I am just confused on one small bit of information I might have missed. What did you use to define the telephone numbers? What PBX?

@declanmcardle 9 месяцев назад

OK, I know the transcievers at 0:00. OMG, an Annex! @0:38

@toslaw9615 Месяц назад

Why didn't you just use a Cisco router with multiple WIC-2AM-V2s or smth similar? Would have been much easier I think. Is it because you think is too new-ish to use in this kind of project?

@thatLion01 8 месяцев назад

Question does the ISP need to have one modem one phone line for each person dialing in?

@TomStorey96 8 месяцев назад

Yep. Only one person can be connected to a modem at any time, so you need enough of them to support not your entire user base, but whatever percentage of them are likely to be online at any given time. And each modem requires it's own phone line. It was very common for an ISP to have many times more customers than actual lines/modems, so at busy times you could find yourself getting a busy signal when trying to connect because there were none available. Later, digital trunking and moderns became more popular so you wouldn't have racks full of individual modems and phone lines, but maybe a single chassis with a couple of T1 or E1 trunks and many internal modems. There would still be an oversubscription factor, but the entire setup would be simplified.

@thatLion01 8 месяцев назад

Thank you so much for this. Is there anyway to add this to a video small portion. I am curious about T1 lines. I heard T1 can carry many phone lines.

@TomStorey96 8 месяцев назад

@@thatLion01A T1 carries 24 phone lines at 1.5Mbit/sec, an E1 carries 30 at 2Mbit/sec. T1 is used predominantly in the US while many other places around the world use E1. Search Wikipedia for T-Carrier and you can read some more.

@TheErador 9 месяцев назад

09:30 ish, classic Microsoft... We've got the biggest user base bend to us. Glad they went Uh....NOPE!

@nickwallette6201 9 месяцев назад

Well that explains IE6.

@thatLion01 9 месяцев назад

This might be a bad question. But how did ISPs talk to each other in those days?

@tassiebob 9 месяцев назад

Same way they do now - just slower :-) T1's, T3's, SONET circuits (or E1/E3/SDH over here), with BGP4 for inter-AS routing. Only difference today is BGP4 has a few more knobs, and the circuits are faster (most often ethernet at 100G or more).

@aperitifs 9 месяцев назад

I found it by accident looking into who ran archive, the site that saves every website by default

@BangBangBang. 9 месяцев назад

mmmm that 235ms ping to Google DNS

@Flowxing 9 месяцев назад

32:35 - Is that chirping sound just some really loud coil whine? Thats has to be annoying.

@johnpanzer2034 9 месяцев назад

I have a whole stack of the older Xyplex 1500’s and 1100’s and a few DECServer 200’s and even a few 90TL. We used to be a big DEC shop about 30 years ago. I found them abandoned in one of our old buildings. They all need PSU recaps. I have some of the Xyplex software if you’re interested. I don’t know if it’s any different than what you have though but it’s possible!

@WhitfieldProductionsTV 9 месяцев назад

title says "epic terminal server showdown" and I thought it was gonna be about windows terminal servies lol.

@marcelspieltminecraft3593 9 месяцев назад

Yooo

@LarryTheRoleplayerTM 3 месяца назад

sigh,,,,

@marco42 9 месяцев назад

39:56 could the Annex ask about the type of Ethernet frames to use? So, Ethernet Version 2 or IEEE 802.3 LLC frames, see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet_frame#Types