Is our ISP ready for a beta test? – ISP Series Episode 5
We finish out our terminal server showdown with our last two entries: the Cyclades TS2000 and Livingston Portmaster 2E. And will we find out if we’re finally ready to beta test our retro ISP?
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#90s #internet #networking
00:00 — The final two
00:52 — Cyclades
04:55 — TS2000 hardware
08:29 — TS2000 software
15:00 — TS2000 conclusions
16:32 — Livingston
19:44 — Portmaster 2E hardware
22:39 — Portmaster 2E software
30:31 — Portmaster 2E conclusions
32:19 — The finish line
33:04 — Patreon beta testing
33:34 — Destination Cyberspace
Huge thanks to:
Harald at Osmocom for the Portmaster archive! Check them out at https://www.osmocom.org
Joshua for allowing us to use the photo of Phil Hughes! https://uzix.org
Mondo Loops and Bcalm for the stellar “Summers Eve”
Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kER798RR0oM
Listen: https://open.spotify.com/album/2V9sue9EsJ6TJHtEmabmCA
…and Downtown Binary for the jam “Taking Flight”
Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bC__mwZ6EQ
Listen: https://open.spotify.com/album/1uGa6ryU3GodJXBlFCAqNj?si=qWn-JoZzRUebT3PBIMA_qw
Above music provided by Lofi Girl.
References:
Relaxing Music – São Paulo City (Brasil). Celo Relax. CC-BY. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qd64QQ-wcY
DJI MINI 2: Drone Footage | Coyote Hills Regional Park. EnlightenView. CC-BY. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75hmRSa_eHU
Schwartz, M (2010). X.25 Virtual Circuits – TRANSPAC IN France – Pre-Internet Data Networking [History of communications]. IEEE Communications Magazine.
Franco, A. P. (2014). Pioneiro das startups dá lições de sucesso. Gazeta Do Povo.
USRobotics 56k 1997. DigitaliseMe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESDkdObbREE
Vollbrecht, J. History of the RADIUS Server. https://www.interlinknetworks.com/app_notes/History_of_RADIUS.htm
Bronson, P. (1996). George Gilder. WIRED Magazine.
Dennis, D. H. (1997). The Inet-Access Frequently Asked Questions List. https://web.archive.org/web/19970411021518/http://www.amazing.com/internet/
by The Serial Port
linux ftp server
Does the ISP need a phone line for each customer dialing in?
This series is amazing thank you for taking us along for the ride. Wild to see all the specialized network gear that put us online in the 90s. This stuff powered AIM, ICQ and hella slow napster downloads but it did in style.
would be cool if it could be tied in wih the telephone central office exchange museums
I joined your Patrion, I have a serial port (card) and a serial modem 🙂
I started my career with an ISP with Xyplex, Lucent MAX, Port master, Cisco AS5300 when ADSL just begin in Thailand in year 2001.
The first learning assignment was given a Port master manual and figure out by myself how to setup fractional E1 with FrameRelay encap, and static route.
Si-cla-des
One thing I noticed is that the Portmaster has the highest ping times of any of them.
Heh, I actually own two TS2000's 😉
What a patience you have. Congratulations
Oh, I worked a place were we used the Livingstone boxes to connect leased lines via v56 modems. Very cool, and very expensive.
i use to support them between 2008 and 2012. i remember hardly anything about them anymore but we never used the GUI and did everything from console. also they where at least during that time not used for ISPs anymore and more so to have serial console access of other devices in the server room. like accessing a cisco console remotely in case the router was not accessible any other way.
nice seeing something i supported a long time ago in a video.
TS2000 powered by linux is so cool, unfortunately you wouldn't use it
That Cyclades web interface looks very similar to a late 00s Avaya phone system I had to try keep going for a while. Might just be what every complex web interface looked like back then
how is every third comment here "oh back then i ran my own ISP" 😀
I'm loving this trip down memory lane, but no way I would trade my gig fiber!
At work we use something similar. A RS232 server controlled via LAN. You can control stuff via a web console or use a protocol to connect to the RS232 ports remotely and use them as if they were connected to your PC. We use them to communicate with old systems that we can't abondon but still need to communicate with.
I helped remove some PortMaster 3 terminal servers a while back, I kept them with the intent of doing a retro ISP some day, these videos are very inspiring! might have to dust them off soon! Thanks for the excellent videos!
I wonder if the Livingston device made it's way into Tripp Lite products? We have tripp lite console servers at work that give us serial port access to network switches in case of a network outage and the command to access a port is called "pmshell"
Oh wow, I've been following this series since the very beginning and not only the intro sequence shows my hometown, but also my very building! A literal 1/55000 shot. Ha!
33:12 "so much more we have left to do" <shows fluffy leaking nicad>