Hjalfi builds an (itty bitty) space modulator
Channel: Poking Technology
Date: 2020-08-31

In which yr hmbl svt puts together the world's simplest wifi modem kit and makes a right dog's dinner of it.

The IttyBitty Modulator is a simple, cheap wifi modem which allows easy internet access for old machines which only know about dialup. All the materials to build your own can be found here, plus there are (at time of writing) still some for sale: https://ittybitty.space/modulator/ It's based around an ultracheap ESP8266 wifi module, plus a MAX232 for level shifting and a nice PCB to hold it all together.

The problems I was having here were all due to not supporting CTS/RTS handshaking, and the machines I happened to test with all required it. That's not normal --- I was just unlucky. However, the fix to make things work is really simple. The tl;dr is to wire pins 4 and 5 together on the DB25 serial port connector and everything Just Works. I believe the other issues I was seeing when it was failing to work even once that was done was because the firmware doesn't actually come to life until you press the RETURN key, so which I wasn't doing. By that point it was pretty late and I completely forgot to investigate. So, yeah. This video is not my finest moment!