Apple 110 baud modem

Well 110 speed is a bit slow to use for anything. I always thought 300 was the slowest speed. Not to many BBS around to connect to. You would want to go at a faster speed. 9600, 12,000 24,000 36000 all way to 56k.

The softare might be interesting as well as some of the other hardware.

Take Care

The #1 big, ginormous, glaring issue you are going to have is finding some place to call. I know some ISPs have minimum speed limits. IDK where they would be, but I'd assume they'd be around 9600 or 14.4k. 110 would be very slow, like watching it write each character as slow as if someone was typing it. 300 would be a tad better, and 1200+ is fast enough to be readable. My first modem (back in '94) was a 2400 and it got upgraded fairly quickly. I do have a couple old Novation acoustic 300 baud modems in the basement that have not seen actual use by me. There is some technology that is actually obsolete. It'd be fairly tough to find a phone that could even fit the coupler, let alone some place to call out with it. You most assuredly DON'T want to try anything but very simple text sessions on such a slow modem.

The #1 big, ginormous, glaring issue you are going to have is finding some place to call. I know some ISPs have minimum speed limits...

I remember fooling around a little bit with slow modems, er... about a decade ago, and found that out of a two ISP sample pool neither one would negotiate slower then 1200 baud. Which was slow enough to get online with a Toshiba 1100+ XT laptop's built-in modem's top speed. It was good enough for logging onto a MUD or reading email, but that's about it. The bigger question is there even a TCP/IP stack for Apple IIs that includes PPP for serial connections? Contiki's TCP/IP for Ethernet cards only.

Honestly, for most practical purposes you're about a decade too late to find much interesting action with a modem and terminal emulation software. I can think of two possibilities which *used* to exist, but good luck now, and one you can do yourself:

1: Some local communities used to have "Free-Net" organizations which ran modem pools and handed out free shell accounts so members could get email and browse the web via text programs like "lynx". If you can find one still running in your area *and* still offering shell access (many have switched to PPP internet) maybe you can connect to it with your II. There's still a good possibility you'll find the modems won't negotiate any slower then 1200/2400 baud, however.

2: The library in the small town I used to live in offered a terminal login system which was mostly there for browsing the card catalog, but also had a limited internet and news gateway, similar to a freenet shell. Dig around, maybe your city has one. Or *had* one back in 1995.

3: Find an auto-answer modem to hook up to a newer UNIX-like (OS X, Linux, whatever), set up getty to run a terminal on the serial port, and then leave it running while you lug your Apple IIc over to a friend's house to call home. Not likely to be useful or anything, but hey, something to do. If you really wanted to be fancy you could set up a linux box with a voice/data/fax modem, run mgetty+vgetty, and run your own voicemail/fax machine/shell services/ISP box out of your bedroom. Then wherever you go in the world your data at home is just one freakishly expensive long-distance modem call away. W00t.

--Peace

The internet of today is nothing like what was implemented when this was hot technology. These days, there is pretty much nothing remotely useful that you can do with the modem.

I don't think many people use modems anymore even with more modern computers.

Unfortunately there isn't a lot that can be done by modem any more. here's one possibility: http://pdw.zoomshare.com/0.shtml/63b2407517a7e8a33040b01a398bc79f_467c5513.writeback of course he has it hooked up to a Mac but you could probably do the same thing with your PC.

Magnus

Think about the speed. That modem is 300 baud. A modern dial up modem does 56k, or 57,600 baud. 57600 / 300 == 192 times faster, and modern dialup is considered slow anymore. Technically the FCC limits dial up to 53k, but that's another side issue.

I can't even do simple things like send emails, or read data from online?

You can do anything you want with your modem that involves transferring text and data at roughly 30 characters per second over public telephone lines, assuming you can find another modem to talk to. I'm sort of wondering at this point what you're asking. Are you wanting someone to give you an account and a telephone number to call without doing any independent research on your own?

http://www.dmine.com/dialbbs/

You can start down the list and see if a computer picks up the phone at one close to you. There's a list of 55 current as of mid-2007.

--Peace

Sorry, don't know squat about AppleTerm so can't help you there. What you saw on the screen roughly is this:

ATTS7=30D12143335385

This is Hayes SmartModem-ese for "dial this number, and wait up to 30 seconds for a reply.". I assume after this command was issued to the modem you heard it dial out via its built-in speaker? (Assuming it has one. If it doesn't, you can pick up the telephone receiver *quietly* and listen in.

CONNECT

This can mean two things. Some modems might issue this when it hears the other end pick up the phone. Others don't issue it until it successfully negotiates with the other end. Did you hear lots of squaking and nonsense before you saw this? (After a successful negotiation most modems mute their speaker.)

The point is, both of these messages are issuing from your local modem, not the remote end, so they don't really mean you're *connected* in the sense that the other machine is talking to you. If you were really connected after a moment you should see a text splash screen with the name of the BBS, and probably a prompt to either log in with a username and password, or an offer to create a new account. (After that exactly what you see depends on the particular BBS.)

To troubleshoot this, well... after the point you see "CONNECT", assuming the noise from the modem speaker's stopped, gently pick up the phone and listen. If you get a dial tone, you know the other side said "you're too slow to talk to" and hung up. If you hear a steady hiss with "data noises" (you might have to poke a key on your side), then you're actually connected. (If you hear lots of varying hoots and whistles then the modem at the far end is probably still attempting to negotiate. Wait a while before picking up the phone for that to be over.) If you hear the hissing and you're not seeing anything after poking "Enter" a few times, go to whatever menu AppleTerm has for setting the serial port communication settings. You'll see "baud rate", "Word Length/data bits", "Parity", and "stop bits". (Often expressed shorthand in a compound number looking something like this: "300 8-N-1", meaning "300 baud, 8 bit, no parity, one stop bit.) The two most common settings for the items other then baud rate are "8-n-1" and "7-E-1". Whatever your serial port is set to now, try changing it to the other one. You'll also see settings for "Half/Full" duplex. 99% of the time it should be set to "full". The fact that you're not seeing any letters appear on the screen when you poke them suggests it's set to full with no local echo. Which should be right.

As I noted above, there's a really good chance that you're not going to be able to connect to any still running BBS with a modem slower then 2400 baud. I'm assuming your modem says "Apple Personal Modem" on the bottom? Those came in both 300 and 1200 baud versions, and were sold from 1985 to 1990. If it says something like "Apple Personal Modem 1200" by all means try the faster speed.

If you really want to narrow down the problem I'd suggest connecting to the BBS with a newer machine/faster modem first, which will let you get acquainted with the process of using the BBS without worrying if your modem is too slow, and more easily determine what word length/parity settings you need. (8-N-1 is most likely, but...) Windows comes with a Terminal program called "Hyperterminal" which should do the job just fine. For Mac, "ZTerm" is an adequate piece of shareware. Once you know what all the variables are supposed to be and what the BBS is supposed to look like you can try it on your Apple again. And if it doesn't work, well... dig up a faster modem. Apple made a 2400 baud model in 1989 that works on both IIs and Macs that would probably still work to get you online. If you really still care after going through all this trouble, of course. ;^)

--Peace