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>I think a better solution would have been to use the serial port rather than the modem port to send a fax. From what I could Google, that laptop doesn't have

>I think a better solution would have been to use the serial port rather than the modem port to send a fax. From what I could Google, that laptop doesn't have a traditional RS-232 serial port but a DIN-8 RS-422 serial port. Still, it's serial, it's standard and very well documented, easy to acquire and easy to hook up. I'd definitely would have used that instead to transfer data, especially since I could find USB to RS-422 port converters online easy and cheap[1]. I'm not sure why the author didn't try this, or maybe he tried but had no app to serialize file transfers? Feels like a missing lead the article doesn't touch on. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Serial-Converter-Adapter-Supports-Windows/dp/B076WVFXN8/ https://www.amazon.com/Serial-Converter-Adapter-Supports-Win...

NegativeLatency 2y ago
I think if there was another "bridge" mac it would've been easier (setup LocalTalk over the serial port, could theoretically send the required TCP/IP libraries, to make it easier to go straight to a modern computer). I'd guess that the comment about "but no networking software installed." includes not having something like ZTerm installed already for direct serial communication, and also not having MacTCP or OpenTransport installed on the old mac (not to mention the missing hardware to set that up) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZTerm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZTerm https://lowendmac.com/1998/tcpip-over-localtalk/ https://lowendmac.com/1998/tcpip-over-localtalk/ I have a few old macs that I play with from time to time, and it's certainly possible to network them to modern computers, just becoming increasingly hard with the number of old software and hardware items you have to keep around to do it.
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  >I think if there was another "bridge" mac it would've been easier (setup LocalTalk over the serial port But serial communication doesn't require another Mac to receive the data since it's just raw HEX/ASCII bytes over the standard serial protocol. You can pick up the data with an Arduino. Nor does serial mandate any handshake or a master-slave sync to work. You're free to shoot those bytes on the empty wire for all it cares. If someone picks them up good, if not, just as good.
  - NegativeLatency 2y ago
    Sure, but IDK how you'd send them on a mac without the software to do it? Is there even an environment you can program in? Can Applescript on classic macos do serial stuff in any form?
    - jdsnape 2y ago
      I wonder if you could convince the mac there was was a postscript printer on the other end, then retrieve the text from the ps commands that were sent.
      - phibz 2y ago
        You could use local talk and another Mac with ethernet or a floppy drive. Mac file sharing is built in with system 7 and later
        westurner 2y ago
        https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/Serial_port https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/Serial_port links to "Macintosh Serial Throughput" (1998) https://lowendmac.com/1998/macintosh-serial-throughput/ https://lowendmac.com/1998/macintosh-serial-throughput/ which mentions a Farallon Mac serial to Ethernet adapter. /? farallon Mac serial port Ethernet https://www.google.com/search?q=farallon+mac+serial+port+ethernet https://www.google.com/search?q=farallon+mac+serial+port+eth... : $50 and no FreePPP or Zmodem or AppleScript serial port to a [soldered] cable to an Arduino/RP2040W/ESP32 (which is probably faster than the old Mac). https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/548343/44804 https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/548343/44804 mentions minicom and gnu screen, and the need to implement e.g. file-level checksums because over serial like ROM flashing
    - Rinzler89 2y ago
      IDK about MacOS, but on Windows 9x/XP, sending bytes via serial was incredibly trivial in C#, Visual C++ or even ols school Visual Basic.[1] Even if you didn't have one of the dozens of already written serial terminal apps, you could write your own pretty easily in one of those languages to push bytes out the serial port, with just a few standard API calls. I doubt MacOS didn't have something similar. Unless of course, MacOS back then was somehow shittier than Windows, which I doubt. [1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/microsoft.visualbasic.devices.ports.openserialport?view=netframework-4.8.1 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/microsoft.visua...
kalleboo 2y ago
The RS-422 ports are backwards compatible with RS-232, so you don't even need a special RS-422 adapter to talk to them. The RS-422 support is just there to support LocalTalk networking.

NegativeLatency 2y ago

I think if there was another "bridge" mac it would've been easier (setup LocalTalk over the serial port, could theoretically send the required TCP/IP libraries, to make it easier to go straight to a modern computer). I'd guess that the comment about "but no networking software installed." includes not having something like ZTerm installed already for direct serial communication, and also not having MacTCP or OpenTransport installed on the old mac (not to mention the missing hardware to set that up) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZTerm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZTerm https://lowendmac.com/1998/tcpip-over-localtalk/ https://lowendmac.com/1998/tcpip-over-localtalk/ I have a few old macs that I play with from time to time, and it's certainly possible to network them to modern computers, just becoming increasingly hard with the number of old software and hardware items you have to keep around to do it.

Rinzler89 2y ago
>I think if there was another "bridge" mac it would've been easier (setup LocalTalk over the serial port But serial communication doesn't require another Mac to receive the data since it's just raw HEX/ASCII bytes over the standard serial protocol. You can pick up the data with an Arduino. Nor does serial mandate any handshake or a master-slave sync to work. You're free to shoot those bytes on the empty wire for all it cares. If someone picks them up good, if not, just as good.
- NegativeLatency 2y ago
  Sure, but IDK how you'd send them on a mac without the software to do it? Is there even an environment you can program in? Can Applescript on classic macos do serial stuff in any form?
  - jdsnape 2y ago
    I wonder if you could convince the mac there was was a postscript printer on the other end, then retrieve the text from the ps commands that were sent.
    - phibz 2y ago
      You could use local talk and another Mac with ethernet or a floppy drive. Mac file sharing is built in with system 7 and later
      - westurner 2y ago
        https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/Serial_port https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/Serial_port links to "Macintosh Serial Throughput" (1998) https://lowendmac.com/1998/macintosh-serial-throughput/ https://lowendmac.com/1998/macintosh-serial-throughput/ which mentions a Farallon Mac serial to Ethernet adapter. /? farallon Mac serial port Ethernet https://www.google.com/search?q=farallon+mac+serial+port+ethernet https://www.google.com/search?q=farallon+mac+serial+port+eth... : $50 and no FreePPP or Zmodem or AppleScript serial port to a [soldered] cable to an Arduino/RP2040W/ESP32 (which is probably faster than the old Mac). https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/548343/44804 https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/548343/44804 mentions minicom and gnu screen, and the need to implement e.g. file-level checksums because over serial like ROM flashing
  - Rinzler89 2y ago
    IDK about MacOS, but on Windows 9x/XP, sending bytes via serial was incredibly trivial in C#, Visual C++ or even ols school Visual Basic.[1] Even if you didn't have one of the dozens of already written serial terminal apps, you could write your own pretty easily in one of those languages to push bytes out the serial port, with just a few standard API calls. I doubt MacOS didn't have something similar. Unless of course, MacOS back then was somehow shittier than Windows, which I doubt. [1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/microsoft.visualbasic.devices.ports.openserialport?view=netframework-4.8.1 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/microsoft.visua...

kalleboo 2y ago

The RS-422 ports are backwards compatible with RS-232, so you don't even need a special RS-422 adapter to talk to them. The RS-422 support is just there to support LocalTalk networking.