Musings: anyone created a null modem to WiFi adapter?

[adespoton]

I've been thinking that these days, with various RPi and Arduino boards available with both WiFi and GPIO on-board, has anyone bothered to make a null modem device that would act as an Internet gateway for old computers (eg, the all-in-ones) that connects the modem port to some GPIO pins, enables connecting via PPP or ZTerm to the GPIO device, which then acts as a network gateway, providing access to the board's Ethernet and/or WiFi network interfaces?

Seems this should be relatively simple to do, and yet I haven't heard of anyone doing it. A slightly trickier solution would be to set up an entire POTS interface on the GPIO device such that old machines with a telephone modem could "call up" the device, connect and treat it like an ISP (or even a locally hosted BBS, for that matter).

Thoughts?

 

[Skate323k137]

I'm a big fan of the Wimodem232, but I'm not 100% sure that's what you're after here. I've used them with the serial ports of Macs, Amigas, and other computers to access BBSes etc.

 

[eharmon]

There's also kits to replace standard modem guts with the same (no endorsement here and I haven't tried this one, but it's a clean example): https://www.tindie.com/products/retromodem/wifi-retromodem-for-hayes-smartmodem/

I think both those types of products do what you're suggesting. They provide a serial interface where you can use standard AT commands to "dial" IP addresses. I believe you can use PPP to tunnel that to provide general internet access as well. Should work with any serial port.

 

[adespoton]

There's also kits to replace standard modem guts with the same (no endorsement here and I haven't tried this one, but it's a clean example): https://www.tindie.com/products/retromodem/wifi-retromodem-for-hayes-smartmodem/

I think both those types of products do what you're suggesting. They provide a serial interface where you can use standard AT commands to "dial" IP addresses. I believe you can use PPP to tunnel that to provide general internet access as well. Should work with any serial port.

Seems like exactly what I'm looking for! Thanks!

 

[Skate323k137]

Enjoy, they are super fun

The 'retrocampus' bbs (bbs.retrocampus.com) offers a wide selection of terminal modes, highly recommended to try it out when you get up and running. It will load in a browser, but it has a bunch of telnet ports associated with the terminal modes available as well.